In alignment with the main theme of the CERC 2026 Seoul Conference, the Organizing Committee has created three Special Panels. These panels bring together leading scholars to explore the expanding horizons of care ethics in cultural, political, and ecological contexts.
Care Ethics in Cultural Contexts
This panel investigates how diverse cultural traditions and philosophical frameworks reinterpret the foundations of care ethics. The session examines a Muslim cosmology of divine sovereignty that sustains life under conditions of abandonment, cultural expectations of reverence that shape Indian workplace dynamics, and the Confucian Ti-Yong logic as a moral justification for care. By scrutinizing these specific cultural and religious contexts, the panel explores different ways care is defined, practiced, and justified in contemporary society.
Columbia College, Canada
T.A. Pai Management Institute, India
Shanghai University, China
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Special Panel I · Cultural Perspectives
Democratic Care in Action: Resistance, Solidarity, and Attention
This panel explores the practical enactment of caring democracy through resistance, solidarity, and the ethics of attention in Asian contexts. It examines how grassroots solidarity and feminist ethics reconfigure the political sphere against populism and institutional constraints. By focusing on everyday spaces and horizontal networks, the speakers demonstrate how care fosters democratic citizenship and new political possibilities.
University of Minnesota, USA
Doshisha University, Japan
Korea University, South Korea
RMIT University, Indonesia / Australia
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Special Panel II · Political Perspectives
Ecological Care: Staying with the Trouble and Rethinking Our Earthly Relations
This panel addresses the urgent need for ecological care by navigating hostile environments and colonial legacies to uphold collective responsibilities. It critiques traditional solastalgia research and advocates for the inclusion of lived experiences from marginalized and Indigenous communities in environmental studies. Through the lens of care ethics and multispecies thinking, the discussion explores opportunities for repair and resistance to build more liveable futures.
Auckland University of Technology, Aotearoa New Zealand
Portland State University, USA
Queen's University Belfast, UK
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Special Panel III · Ecological Perspectives