Uncertain Relations

Abstract In 2023, the SIEF convenors set out the multivalent character of “uncertainty” as at once opening up terrains riddled by catastrophe, reminding us of a quality of everyday being, while also promising alternative paths and possibilities. This talk, presented in Brno as the Congress Keynote, offered one way to engage with this complex field. It proposed to interrogate the notion of uncertainty through another multivalent notion, “relations”. Might our ability to perceive relations – activate them, embody them, and enquire with them – help us acknowledge the role that uncertainty plays in our lives? Might thinking of relations as uncertain in their capacities and effects throw light on what we ask from knowledge practices in order to enlarge and/or shrink the world in which we live? From global crises to fieldwork encounters, presenting certain ways of thinking uncertainty through relations hoped to sketch something of the broader themes of that Congress.