Techne Student-Led Conference 2025: Barriers, gateways & the space between
Barriers determine, define, categorise, and limit day-to-day life. When widely accepted, they gain strength and lead to discrimination and marginalisation, sometimes to the extent that we do not realise the boundaries within which we thrive can negatively impact others. Our goal for the conference is to provide a space to step away from the negative discourse generated by social boundaries and instead make efforts to understand them. We aim to question the origins and nature of boundaries and examine their impact on societies and individuals. In addition to highlighting the detrimental effects of barriers, we welcome perspectives that investigate how they can be transformed into gateways—opportunities to defy and break accepted social conventions. The conference will form part of broader discussions on how Arts and Humanities research can re/make these socio-cultural gateways through a varied programme, including traditional academic papers, practice-based research, and community engagement.
