May 26, 2022
Paris, France
Deadline (EXTENDED): March 1, 2022
ICA 2022’s location in Paris is a significant one for critical race scholars. Paris was a key site for the Négritude movement, and became a city of exile for influential Black scholars and artists including James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, Sidney Bechet and Richard Wright. Building on the 2019 #CommunicationSoWhite ICA preconference, the theme of this event centers on exile and scholarship on the edges. It considers what it means to experience exile in our own fields and disciplines, to be pushed out, excluded, living outside the boundaries. It also addresses ways to tackle the pain of exile, or to understand exile as replenishing and restorative.
This preconference has two purposes:
– It follows up critical conversations around #CommunicationSoWhite, in terms of both Chakravartty et al.’s (2018) Journal of Communication article and the 2019 ICA pre-conference (organized by Eve Ng, Khadijah Costley White, Alfred Martin Jr., and Anamik Saha). Since then, there has been a greater recognition amongst our departments, associations, and institutions about the historical marginalization of racialized folk in university culture, followed by some increased investment in equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives. As such, the first aim of the preconference is to reflect upon the new forms of equality, diversity and inclusion that have been implemented in media and communication since the #CommunicationSoWhite moment.
– The second aim is to extend the discussion beyond academia, and consider the recent broader political attacks on critical race scholarship. The past year has seen the disturbing trend of populist right-wing political forces across Europe and the US painting critical race theory (whatever they understand it to be) as a threat to liberal democracy. This has also been a pronounced trend in France, which finds political leaders attacking such critical scholarship as fundamentally at odds with French liberal ideals. As such, the preconference will provide a space for delegates to reflect upon these troubling new political currents and conceptualize our responses to it as academics and activists. We will explore these complex conditions of intellectual and political contestation through the theme of ‘exile’; in terms of what it means to be forced into exile, in our disciplines, in our institutions, in national life, but also in terms of choosing to go into exile, as a form of refusal of and resistance to conditions in former birthplace or intellectual homes.
Overall, this preconference will explore the marginalization and alienation of critical race scholarship in media and communication and political discourse more generally, and responses thereof (both in regards to interventions and survival). We aim to build conversations between academics and scholars from different national contexts, since the challenges and attacks experienced are not unique to one particular region.
Submissions
We anticipate many submissions will center on the U.S. and other Western contexts; we also hope the pre-conference will provide a discussion that spans both global North and South, and we encourage participation by submitters from outside North America and the U.K.
Please submit either:
(1) An abstract of 500-1,000 words, including notes and references. We encourage different types of submissions including position papers, case studies, and more conventional research papers that tackle any issue relating to the preconference themes. Please include your name, affiliation, and contact information (submission does not need to be anonymous).
(2) A panel proposal. Panels should include a minimum of four participants. We will accept panels following a traditional format where presenters each speak for 10-15 minutes before a Q-and-A period. We also encourage alternative panel format, such as high-density panels (six or more participants who each speak for 6 minutes or less), or panels where panelists circulate their papers to each other ahead of time to generate a more engaged discussion. Provide a 400-word rationale describing the panel overall, a 200-word abstract for each participant’s contribution, and a list of participants’ names, affiliations, and contact information.
Exclusions: Submissions should not consist primarily of previously published or in-press scholarship.
Deadline:
Please submit by Tuesday, March 1, 2022, 16:00 UTC, by emailing BOTH Anamik Saha at a.saha@gold.ac.uk and Khadijah Costley White at klw147@comminfo.rutgers.edu.
Travel grants
Depending on funding availability, we may have the ability to offer one or two modest travel grants (maximum $400). If you are a graduate student and/or a scholar resident in a non-Tier A country (see https://www.icahdq.org/page/tiers for a list), please note this status in your submission and indicate that you would like to be considered for a travel grant.
Date and Location
The pre-conference is currently being planned as an in-person event for Thursday, May 26, 2022, in Paris, France (specific location to be announced – will be either at the conference hotel or a short distance away). Should Covid-19 conditions mean that in-person events are unadvisable or impossible, the event will be held virtually.
Registration
Early registration fee, by March 31: $US40
Regular registration fee: US$60
Lunch will be included for all registered participants.
Note that if the conference becomes virtual, registration fees will be adjusted down.
Organizers
Department of Media, Communication and Cultural Studies
Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
a.saha@gold.ac.uk
School of Communication and Information
Rutgers University, USA
klw147@comminfo.rutgers.edu
School of Media Arts and Studies, WGSS Program
Ohio University, USA
evecng@hotmail.com
l’Institut d’études culturelles et internationales (IECI)
Université de Versailles, Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France
simondawes0@gmail.com
Co-Sponsors
ICA IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access) Committee
ICA Ethnicity and Race in Communication division
