REPARATORY PRACTICES. Coexistence, Knowledge and Justice in Contexts of Persistent Harm. 9th FISOPOL SYMPOSIUM.

Organised by: Social and Political Philosophy Research Group (FISOPOL), Institute of Philosophy (IFS-CSIC), Centre for Human and Social Sciences (CCHS), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).
Convenors: Luis Guerra Miranda (IFS) – Álvaro Morcillo Laiz (IFS).

How should reparation be understood in contexts in which harm can no longer be delimited as an exceptional event or stabilised as a concluded past, but instead persistently shapes the conditions of planetary coexistence? Although institutional frameworks of justice have historically articulated reparation through the categories of compensation, restitution and recognition, these approaches presuppose that harm can be delimited, that responsibility can be assigned within relatively stable frameworks, and that justice operates as a response directed towards resolution. Such assumptions are becoming increasingly untenable under present critical conditions: the global ecological crisis, forced displacement, armed conflicts and structural inequalities give rise to forms of harm that persist over time, resist resolution and continually reconfigure the conditions under which social and political life unfolds.
This situation reveals an inherent limitation in prevailing models of justice. Legal and institutional frameworks of reparation are designed to address quantifiable losses, assign responsibility and provide compensation. Yet they struggle to account for the relational, affective and collective dimensions of harm, which evade quantification and shape lived experience over the long term.
What remains insufficiently theorised is not only the scope of harm, but also the processes through which societies seek to confront, transform or endure it. What kinds of knowledge emerge from these reparatory processes, and to what extent do they shape modes and means of coexistence and justice, including from a more-than-human perspective?
In this context, the notion of reparation must be reconsidered on multiple levels. This entails a shift from treating justice as a framework applied to situations of harm towards understanding it as something that emerges within practices through which harm is contested, interpreted and addressed in situated ways. From this perspective, reparatory practices acquire central analytical and political importance. They are sites in which the meaning of harm, the scope of responsibility
and the possibility of coexistence and justice are actively co-constituted. Through collective, situated and often informal processes, reparatory practices generate provisional forms of order and intelligibility in contexts where institutional frameworks are absent, insufficient or contested. They operate within the tension between the persistence of harm and the need to sustain social relations, without guaranteeing resolution. This shift calls into question not only categories such as sovereignty, progress and the separation between society and nature, but also the frameworks through which justice has been conceived.
Under the present conditions described above, these assumptions are increasingly problematic and insufficient to account for this paradigm shift. The question, therefore, is not limited to how harm should be addressed, but extends to how justice itself may be conceived when its institutional forms are no longer sufficient to account for the conditions in which harm is produced and prolonged. In this regard, the symposium is organised around a series of questions that do not seek to exhaust
other possible approaches:
How should reparation be understood in contexts in which harm cannot be delimited as an exceptional event or stabilised as a concluded past?
What happens to justice when its institutional frameworks prove insufficient to address persistent harm?
How do reparatory practices contribute to rearticulating the terms through which responsibility, coexistence and the production of knowledge may be conceived?

We invite proposals addressing the relationship between reparatory practices, justice and the generation of knowledge in contemporary contexts marked by the persistence of harm. Contributions may adopt a range of theoretical, empirical or methodological approaches,
including social and political philosophy, science and technology studies, art, design, situated research, institutional analysis and collective practices, provided that they contribute to the conceptual elaboration of these questions. Proposals addressing the following themes are particularly welcome, although this list is not exhaustive:
1. Persistent harm, temporality and reparability. Forms of harm that endure, accumulate or change over time, together with the limits and possibilities of their reparation.
2. Reparation, justice and responsibility. Relations between reparatory practices, conceptions of justice, and the attribution of responsibility
and the recognition of harm.
3. Reparatory practices and the production of knowledge. Modes of knowledge, interpretation and learning that emerge from situated, collective and experimental reparatory practices.
4. Institutions, public policy and infrastructures. Legal and institutional frameworks, public policies, forms of governance and infrastructures
involved in defining and managing harm.
5. Memory, exile and the reconstitution of common life. Practices of memory, experiences of exile and displacement, and collective processes for rebuilding bonds and forms of coexistence.
6. Artistic practices, design and technological infrastructures. Artistic interventions, design practices and technological devices that elaborate, render perceptible or reconfigure the experience of persistent harm.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
1. Title of the paper
2. Abstract (minimum 200 and maximum 300 words), together with a selected bibliography
3. Keywords (3-5)
4. Short biographical note (maximum 100 words)
Proposals should be sent to fisopolgmail.com by 10 November 2026.
SYMPOSIUM FORMAT: The symposium will take place over two days, with sessions combining individual 20-minute presentations, panel discussions and spaces for collective exchange.
LANGUAGES: Spanish and English
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 10 November 2026
NOTIFICATION OF ACCEPTANCE: 15 December 2026

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Dr Cristina Sánchez, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain.
Dr Juliana González Villamizar, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Germany.

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE - FISOPOL
Dr María Caterina La Barbera, Dr Francisco Colom, Dr Juan Carlos Velasco, Dr César Rendueles, Dr Álvaro Morcillo, Dr Javier Gil, Dr José Antonio Zamora, Dr Luis Guerra Miranda.

VENUE: The symposium will be held at the CSIC Centre for Human and Social Sciences, Calle Albasanz 26-28, Madrid, on the ground floor, in the José Castillejo Room.