Relational Practices For Tackling Grand Challenges: The Relational Society Project

The overall aim of this symposium is to stage a debate that enlightens our understanding of how relational practices are established and developed in response to highly diverse, multi-level, complex societal challenges. This symposium is inspired by an ongoing, comparative case study where data are being gathered from nine sites around the world (in China, Pakistan, Nigeria, UK, US, Denmark and Norway) in order to learn more about the relational practices being used to tackle grand societal challenges, such as the current pandemic as it intersects with growing inequality and health disparities. Findings from the comparative case study is to be followed by an interventional phase starting Fall 2021. This symposium will discuss relevant methodological issues that arise when conducting ethnographic comparative case studies across diverse settings, and will inform the design of the interventions to be adopted.