Annual Graduate Conference in Ethics and Public Affairs 2025

Ethics and Public Affairs Annual Graduate Conference 

March 7th and 8th, 2025

Dunton Tower room 2017

To view the full conference schedule, please click here: EPAF Conference 2025 Schedule

Call for Papers and Abstracts

Theme: Public Ethics and Shared Spaces

Shared spaces are integral to fostering public life. The aim of this conference is to focus on ethical issues surrounding shared spaces – physical, social, political, and digital. This event will aim to illuminate how best to define, create, and protect shared spaces, and the other social goods and values that these spaces foster. Understanding the ethics of public space in this way is an interdisciplinary project, and we invite submissions from graduate students in philosophy, policy, political science, economy, sociology, anthropology, history, gender studies, critical race studies, human rights, film studies, and so much more.

A defining feature of public life is that it occurs within spaces created and cultivated for it. We create spaces by establishing boundaries — be they physical borders, cultural norms, moral codes, or digital platforms — that give specific meaning to the actions and choices that occur within them. Talking about shared spaces means talking about the ways in which boundaries create and contextualize these domains of human activity. As scholars, policy analysts, and engaged citizens, some of our key aims are to understand how we share spaces, how shared spaces can be made more accessible, what barriers exist to sharing spaces together well, and how we can ensure the safety of these spaces and the individuals that share them or seek to.

Keynote speaker:

Patti Tamara Lenard, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa
“Refugees in our City: The Impact of their Displacement on our Public Spaces”
More information to come…

Examples of paper themes may include:

• Healthy Spaces: for the promotion of justice and equity in healthcare
• Safe Spaces: for the inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community
• Sustainable Spaces: for the promotion of environmental goals
• Collaborative Spaces: for institutional and community-based resource allocation
• Non-commodified Spaces: for the protection of shared space from market influence
• Cultural Spaces: for the protection and exchange of cultural experience
• Claiming Spaces: for the protection of land and resource rights
• Indigenous Spaces: for the practice of Indigenous ways of knowing and reconciliation
• Accessible Spaces: to foster and integrate disabled communities
• Diverse Spaces: for strengthening BIPOC populations and improving opportunities for BIPOC citizens
• National and Non-national Spaces: for promoting the goals of domestic and global justice

Submission Guidelines:

• Abstracts must be a maximum of 500 words.
• Abstracts must clearly articulate the thesis being defended, or questions being addressed, and explain their significance in respect to the theme of the conference.
• Abstracts must not include identifying information.
• Abstracts are to be submitted here: https://forms.gle/YoEyByHQyTt4cPt1A

Deadline for Submission: January 24^th, 2025, by 11:59pm

Accepted abstracts are allocated 20 minutes for their presentation followed by a 10-minute period of discussion.

Notification of Acceptance will be by: February 10^th, 2025

For any questions or more information, please contact: tythompson@cmail.carleton.ca 

The Graduate Conference in Ethics and Public Affairs conference is sponsored by the Ethics and Public Affairs programs at Carleton University.