CRFR co-directors Lynn Jamieson, Shruti Chaudhry and PhD network researcher Chandreyee Goswami along with Sue Scott (Visiting Professor at Newcastle University) organised a two-day international workshop on ‘Friendship – Continuities and Social Change’ at the Edinburgh Future Institute, University of Edinburgh on 1-2 April, 2025. This transdisciplinary workshop brought together scholars from across career stages, based in both global north and global south contexts researching in a range of cultural contexts. They presented on research that asks new questions or adopts innovative methodological approaches to reflect on the part played by friendships in the context of current global disruptions and widespread social change. The workshop opened with Prof. Lynn Jamieson’s public lecture titled, Friendship as a Lever of Social Change? on 31^st March. Providing an impressive overview of wide-ranging empirical research, Prof. Jamieson considered whether the social research evidence suggests hope concerning friendships’ impacts on uncertain futures.

The two-day workshop included presentations from twenty-four scholars thematically organised into nine panels. On day one, the panels explored diverse themes ranging from navigating the spatial and temporal dimensions of friendship to understanding its interconnections with food, queerness and life-course or relational transitions. On day two, the papers addressed questions relating to friendships’ role in: challenging patriarchy in post-colonial contexts, tackling the ‘big’ issues of climate change and loss of biodiversity and (potentially) bridging ethnic/racial, religious and national boundaries. The workshop concluded with papers discussing the methodologies and ethical challenges in researching friendship. A connecting thread related to diverse perceptions, practices, and idioms of friendships in different cultural settings, and how these were often not expressed through the vocabulary of friendship. Even in contexts where the term friendship was used, the relationships were ambiguous, multifarious, and susceptible to change. Another theme emerging from the papers highlighted the transformative power of friendship but also its limitations in situations of ‘crisis’ and critical life-changes and events. Several contributors shared how while friendship was one of the ubiquitous relationships in their field sites, it was at times, difficult to observe, research, and write about. The trans-disciplinary character of the workshop enriched the discussions and broadened the horizons for understanding friendships.

Overall, the workshop was successful in bringing together researchers to collectively reflect on how we, as scholars, can do more to demonstrate the ways in which friendships can bring about meaningful social change in a wide range of global and relational contexts. It created a vibrant space for a much-needed dialogue on the theoretical significance of friendship and potential directions for future research in this area.