CFP: Evidence, Experience, and Authority in Contested Knowledge

 CFP: Evidence, Experience, and Authority in Contested Knowledge - Innsbruck 27.08.2026 - 28.08.2026, deadline: 15.05.2026

When we want to convince others of our beliefs, we usually offer arguments, and, crucially, evidence. Sometimes this evidence is mundane and undisputed; more often it is complex, contested, or ambiguous. But what happens when claims concern phenomena that, by their very nature, resist empirical verification?

Photographs of flying saucers, leaked documents allegedly exposing global conspiracies, first-person accounts of alien abductions or divine visions, yeti footprints, testimonies of spirit communication, rattling tables and flickering lights in séances: in many discourses, evidence is central to credibility even when no evidence in the strict “scientific” sense can exist. Yet such claims are rarely presented as groundless. Instead, elaborate forms of justification, authentication, and evidential reasoning emerge.

This workshop explores how evidence is constructed, negotiated, and evaluated in discourses about phenomena that inherently evade empirical proof. This is particularly timely, as recent political and technological developments are reshaping narratives, demanding renewed scrutiny of how evidence is framed, contested, and weaponized.

Thus, in this workshop we ask how different communities define what counts as evidence, which semiotic, linguistic, narrative, and material resources they mobilise, and how these practices interact with broader cultural, political, and media environments

Scope and Perspectives

The workshop is explicitly interdisciplinary and invites contributions from, among others:

- Linguistics

- Media and communication studies

- Cultural studies

- Religious studies

- Sociology and anthropology

- Psychology and social psychology

- Political science and extremism studies

- Science and technology studies (STS)

- History of knowledge and ideas

- Folklore and myth studies

We are particularly interested in how these perspectives can be brought into dialogue and where their analytical tools converge, or clash.

Thematic Clusters

To foster focused yet comparative discussion, the workshop will be structured around four thematic clusters. Each cluster will bring together scholars from different disciplines working on related phenomena:

1. UAPs, UFOs, and extraterrestrial encounters: From late-1940s accounts of flying saucer sightings to recent U.S. Congressional hearings featuring whistleblowers and alleged first-hand military witnesses, how has the presence - or absence - of evidence shaped public, institutional, and military discourse on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs)?

2. New religious movements, alternative spiritualities, and occulture: In contexts that, by definition, resist rationalist explanations yet often place strong emphasis on tangible demonstrations of supernatural agency, how is ambiguous evidence negotiated, interpreted, and legitimised?

3. Political conspiracy narratives: How does conspiratorial thinking emerge through alternative forms of causality, locating evidence not in rational proof but in intuition, synchronicity, and felt interconnectedness? In what ways do conspiracy narratives reify and weaponise coincidence as objective evidence? What roles do the internet, social media, and AI play in the recent resurgence and transformation of conspiracy theories?

4. Ghosts, cryptids, and paranormal phenomena: What are the complex and often nebulous relationships between evidence, hoax, and narrativisation in accounts of paranormal phenomena? How do technology and scientific discourse contribute to the construction and validation of evidence in paranormal practices such as ghost hunting?

Across all clusters, we are interested in questions such as:

- What counts as evidence, and for whom?

- How are absence, secrecy, or unverifiability turned into argumentative resources?

- Which linguistic, visual, narrative, or performative strategies are used to establish credibility?

- How do the affordances of different media environments shape evidential practices?

- How do participants anticipate, pre-empt, or counter scepticism?

Format and Goals

This will be a small, intensive workshop designed to prioritise discussion and exchange over lengthy presentations. Contributions will take the form of short, focused papers, followed by extended discussion sessions and cross-thematic roundtables.

A central aim of the workshop is to explore how interdisciplinary cooperation on the construction of evidence can be meaningfully organized across disciplines, objects of study, and methodological traditions. The workshop provides an ideal setting for launching this longer-term interdisciplinary conversation.

Submission Details

We invite submissions of abstracts (up to 300 words, excluding references) for our upcoming workshop.

Please submit your abstract by 15 May 2026 to m.polato@mmu.ac.uk and lucia.assenzi@ph-tirol.ac.at

Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 15 June 2026.

We look forward to your contributions!