How useful is the sociological study of sexuality for challenging new and old backlashes? What methodological and epistemological challenges do sexuality studies face today? What helpful disciplinary cross fertilisations can we further stimulate? What analytical insights can the study of sexuality contribute to, and what are its future directions? What theoretical, political, and activist interventions are necessary to nurture and sustain hope in this field? What may undermine the hope and promise of sexuality studies? What aspects of the sociological study of sexuality remain under-explored or even ignored, and how can we address marginalised or tabooed topics?

We look forward to sharing research and to discussing ways in which we can contribute to the field and the promises and hopes it holds. We would like the conference to be an opportunity to take a critical look at the politics of hope, its potentials and its limits, its usages, histories, cultural legacies, social and emotional dynamics and its discursive and material effects.

We invite scholars and interested parties to address these and other related questions. Specific topics may include, but need not be limited to:
• SOGI rights claims, human rights, social justice and solidarity
• Challenging LGBTIQ+ discrimination and inequality
• Sexual violence, conflict resolution and reconciliation
• Shifting notions of consent
• Intersections of sex, work and economic justice
• Sexual politics, social movements and queering practices of resistance (e.g. anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, anti-colonial, anti-racist, feminist, etc.)
• Sexual identities, communities and the politics of belonging
• Sexual norms and normativities
• Migration and sexuality, multiculturalism and integration
• Utopianism/dystopianism in theories on sexuality
• Alternative intimacies and modes of kinship
• Care and caring in intimate and sexual relationships
• Sexuality, emotions and affects
• Medicalization, de-medicalization, biopolitics, and biosociality
• Gender, sexuality and reproductive justice
• Sexuality, bodies and embodiment

We welcome proposals for individual papers (300 words) and for panels (1000 words) consisting of 3 to 4 papers. Please also include a short biography of paper author/s.