Konferenz: Sociological explorations of sexuality in Europe: bodies, practices, and resistance in troubled times

On the 14th and 15th of February, Stefan Ossmann participated at the 'Sociological exploration of sexuality in Europe', conference, organised by the RN23 Network of the European Sociological Association in Cracow, Poland. He gave a presentation on the topic 'When the media poly is not my poly: An analysis of similarities and differences of self-perception and media representation of polyamorous relationships'.

Here the link to the program, below the abstract, further below impressions from the conference.

Although becoming a hot topic within the last five years throughout different academic disciplines, we still know little on polyamory (multiple emotional and sexual usually long-term relationships by the knowledge of all involved persons). The most things we do know have been explored by interviews and questionnaires on affected people, while the media representation has so far been overlooked by researchers. The latter draws its importance by the impact of media framing the societal discourse, especially when it is a new topic with no or minor personal experience by the audience.  

Within the project “Polyamory in media, social and identity perspective” funded by the Austrian Science Funds FWF with a duration of 36 month, 368 newspaper and magazine articles published in Austria, Germany and Switzerland over the period of one decade have been examined by a qualitative content analysis. Those findings were contrasted with the results of 34 narrative biographical interviews from 14 polycules conducted in Vienna, Austria.

The research questions in detail aimed to find similarities and/or differences on the aspects of love and life history, classification within the (extended) LGBT acronym, social acceptance and the possible demand for legal and religious recognition. Furthermore, unexpected findings on poly testimonials and advice literature supplement the results.  

The conference in Cracow will be the first time that the results media representation as well as the self-perception are brought together and presented to the academic community and the public.