October 7, 2022

Online pre-conference

Deadline: June 1, 2022

Open to submissions by academics, activists, creative and media practitioners

How can we challenge norms on gender and sexuality? How can we disrupt the status quo and propose alternative, more inclusive narratives? Forms of unruliness, dissent, and going against the grain are expressed in various ways and transcend boundaries between research, activism, artistic and media practices.

Resistance exists in individual subversive acts and forms of collective action. For example, challenging systems of oppression in media production, representations going beyond stereotypes, and audiences engaging in oppositional reading practices. In Europe, resistance takes on additional meaning in the current context of the war in Ukraine, the horrible violations of human rights and the ongoing struggle against attacks on the press and disinformation.

In order to foster change, it is important to have opportunities for exchanging ideas and connecting with each other. As feminist scholar Sara Ahmed notes: collective movements are created by how we are moved in dialogue with others. This online pre-conference aims to create a space for sharing knowledge and having these constructive interactions.

Format

The program will consist of roundtable sessions exploring different aspects of resistance to norms on sexuality and gender in media. Speakers will be asked to prepare a 7-10-minute presentation. After the presentations, there will be plenty of time to discuss, share insights, and explore ways to collaborate.

Presentations can be inspired by research, creative, media, activist, and interdisciplinary practices. We are open to contributions by academics, activists, creative and media practitioners (e.g., journalists, filmmakers, podcasters, zine makers, slam poets, bloggers, artists, …). Submissions can cover diverse geographical areas and explore the intersection of gender and sexuality with other social categories such as age, ethnicity, class and (dis)ability.

Participation in the event is free.

We look forward to submissions on (but not limited to) the following topics:

• Collaborations between researchers, activists, artists, and media producers to resist norms on gender and sexuality
• Counter-hegemonic media and artistic practices (e.g., zine-making, podcasting, crafting, feminist and queer media, slam poetry)
• Challenging norms on ageing, gender and sexuality, subversive portrayals of older women, queer ageing in media and art
• Expressions of revolt by older women in media and art, tackling the intersection of ageing and sexism
• Resistance strategies in digital spaces and online articulations of feminist, queer, anti-racist, anti-ageist, anti-ableist activism
• Queer resistance in popular culture, expressions of unruly (queer) intimacies and sexualities in art, film, television, and literature
• Strategies for countering (online) attacks on women and minority journalists
• Feminist acts of mediated resistance during military conflicts
• Protests, activism and acts aimed at challenging gender inequality and intersecting systems of oppression in media production and journalism
• …

Submission

Please email a proposal (max. 250 words) that highlights how your work relates to the pre-conference topic, methods used, and perspectives you would like to bring to the discussion to genderandcommunication.ecrea@gmail.com. Proposals may include video, audio, images, text, hyperlinks and multimedia that illustrate your reflections in the proposal.

Individual submissions will be arranged in roundtables by the organizing team. If you would like to submit a pre-constituted roundtable (four or five presentations), please send a maximum 800-word proposal with the overall theme and the contribution of each speaker.

Organization

The ECREA pre-conference is organized by the ECREA Gender, Sexuality and Communication section in collaboration with the ERC-funded Later-in-Life Intimacy: Women’s Unruly Practices, Representations and Places research project (LiLI).

The ECREA Women’s network is a supporting partner of this event.

For questions, please send an email to genderandcommunication.ecrea@gmail.com

Timeline

• The deadline for submissions is the 1st of June 2022.
• We will notify all contributors by the 15th of June 2022.
• The event will take place on the 7th of October 2022.