[ecrea] Call for Papers for Pre-conference “The Cultural Politics of Protest – Confronting Social Justice and Inequality in Communication Studies”

Call for Papers for Pre-conference “The Cultural Politics of Protest – 
Confronting Social Justice and Inequality in Communication Studies”

Organized by the Ethnicity and Race in Communication (ERIC) Division and 
endorsed by the Popular Communication Division
International Communication Association (ICA) 2014, Seattle, Washington, USA
Thursday, 22 May 2014
http://www.icahdq.org/conf/2014/culturalpoliticscfp.asp

Call for Papers

The 1999 WTO protests in Seattle - also known as 'The Battle of Seattle' 
- was the largest and one of the most important public demonstrations in 
US modern history. The protest became a critical intervention, in 
drawing attention to a form of corporate governance that had previously 
gone unquestioned, and more broadly, exposing the inner-workings of 
neoliberal capitalism and the rampant inequality it produces across the 
globe. What was striking about the protest was that it was not organized 
by a specific group, or based upon a singular set of political aims. 
Rather, the protest consisted of a disparate and diverse range of groups 
and interests, from NGOs, anti-globalization activists, unions, and 
environmentalists, who came together and organized one of the largest 
protests of its kind, leading to the collapse of the WTO talks, and 
arguably, the transformation of international trade.

Inspired by this moment, this pre-conference imagines what a similar 
politics of protest and solidarity might look like for the social and 
cultural movements of the 21st century. For many, the anti-globalization 
movement lost its momentum following 9/11 and the shift in the agenda 
towards an almost exclusive focus on terrorism, Islamism, and homeland 
security. In light of this shift from corporate to ethnic governance, 
the pre-conference asks, how do politics of ethnicity and race, as well 
as its intersections with gender, class, sexuality etc. figure in the 
new politics of protest?

The recent Occupy movement is clearly significant here, but the 
preconference will consider also other forms of action and protest. The 
purpose is to foreground issues of social justice and inequality in 
communications studies. It is particularly interested in engaging 
scholars researching social and cultural identities in relation to 
popular communication and the media. Too often scholars in this field 
have been criticized for contributing to a type of identity politics 
that is trivial and marginal, and more decisively, neglects issues of 
political economy and redistribution. This preconference aims to address 
these criticisms directly and situate cultural and identity politics in 
the political economy within which they are embedded. Drawing thematic 
links to the 2014 conference theme, “Communication and ‘The Good Life’,” 
the preconference explores how minority groups, through staging 
different forms of protest against social injustice and inequality, can 
build alliances and solidarities that lead to heightened forms of 
community and collective flourishing.

The preconference is broadly based upon the following question: how can 
communication studies of racial, ethnic, gendered and sexual identities 
better address questions of social justice and inequality? For this 
purpose, rather than full research papers, participants will be invited 
to produce critical interventions in the shape of extended abstracts or 
position papers lasting no longer than five minutes. Following keynote 
talks, the one-day event will be made up of three roundtable sessions 
that will each consist of around ten short presentations. Each of the 
three sessions will be chaired by one of the preconference conveners and 
include invited speakers who will deliver short position talks to open 
the session. Based on the session themes, these invited speakers have 
been selected from prominent names working in the field (academics 
and/or activists-artists). In order to maximize discussion, the short 
papers by presenters will be distributed beforehand.

The roundtable session themes are:

I. From Trayvon Martin to the March on Washington at 50: Race and Protest
In the wake of the July 2013 “not guilty” verdict in the trial of George 
Zimmerman – charged with the shooting murder of unarmed African-American 
teenager Trayvon Martin - in Florida, over 100 rallies and vigils were 
held across the US to protest the verdict, and to push for the repeal of 
so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws. Later that summer of 2013, the 50th 
anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was 
marked with a wide variety of speeches and performances reflecting upon 
the half-century since the original event (and Martin Luther King’s 
famous ”I Have a Dream Speech”). In this roundtable, authors are asked 
to consider the role and use of contemporary protest and demonstration 
in the service of highlighting/fighting racism and socio-economic 
inequality, as well as the representation(s) of such demonstrations. The 
examples given above – the Trayvon Martin vigils and the March on 
Washington anniversary – are very different phenomena: one a more 
spontaneous, grassroots response, the other a highly orchestrated, 
potentially co-opted affair. Presenters are free to discuss all aspects 
of protests, as well as their representation(s), and how they fit within 
the sphere of not only Race & Ethnicity Studies, but also Popular 
Communication.

I. Media, Human Rights and Social Justice
This session seeks to register and examine the construction and 
articulation of human rights and social justice discourses in media 
around the globe. To do so, it seeks papers that explore how, within 
today’s highly mobile, networked media landscape, the relationship 
between cultural production and consumption has been altered to 
neutralize the state’s capacity to disregard ‘inconvenient’ human rights 
violations and challenge the traditional press’s role as gatekeeper of 
what gets defined and reported as a human rights issue and what does 
not. Of central concern is the question: How have mobile, social and 
entertainment forms of media served as tools through which human rights 
are being defined, civic discourse constituted and activated, and social 
justice sought, particularly as these tie into questions of recognition 
and agency. Panelists will pursue this question by examining the 
potential for human rights media to operate both vertically to produce 
outcomes and horizontally to stimulate ‘structures of feeling’ 
(Galchinsky (2012) around the globe; that is, as vehicles to vertically 
“reach up” from individuals and communities to challenge government 
bodies and other power holders to enact new policy or take action, and 
horizontally as tools through which citizens, activists, and artists 
speak to each other, represent their concerns and seek recognition.

I. Popular Music and Radical Politics: Where are Today’s Protest Songs?
Taking the late 1970s and early 1980s as a point of departure, and in 
particular Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s 1982 “The Message” 
(widely considered to be the first ”political” rap song), in this 
roundtable, authors are asked to address the question: “Where are 
today’s Protest Songs?” Following in the footsteps of “The Message” rap 
and hip hop artists such as Public Enemy, N.W.A., Ice Cube, Tupac, and 
Mos Def continued the tradition of politicized music which highlighted 
social inequality, police violence and racism. While a number of these 
seminal musicians continue to perform, we ask authors to consider how 
the next generation of musicians has taken the baton from their 
predecessors. Presentations are not limited to research on rap and hip 
hop (these are used as examples), but are open to research on all 
contemporary musical forms utilized in the service of social change.

In the final session, participants will attempt to draw up a working set 
of questions and propositions that, in light of the day’s discussions, 
they believe protest movements needs to address. The aim is to 
underscore what communications and media studies can bring to the 
discussion on the politics of protest.

Please join us to share your insights and expertise.

How to Participate

*** Submit an Abstract to Present Your Work during the Preconference
Deadline: 25 January 2014
Notification of Acceptance: February 5, 2014

PLEASE INDICATE WHICH OF THE THREE SESSIONS YOU ARE SUBMITTING TO!!!

We invite five minute presentations are based on abstract submissions 
(250 words). Again, applicants are asked to specify which of the three 
sessions they are submitting to. If accepted, the participants will be 
asked to circulate short position papers prior to the preconference 
(deadline 30 April, 2014). While the preconference is designed to be of 
interest primarily to media and communications researchers, due to the 
highly interdisciplinary nature of its topic we invite submissions from 
neighboring disciplines as well as from activist networks and the 
creative industry. We will particularly encourage creative and 
experimental formats.

Potential topics include but are not limited to:
-Racial/ethnic/gendered/sexual identities in protest movements
-Cultural politics in the neoliberal era
-Representation post 9/11
-The media and social justice
-Popular culture and resistance
-Media studies, anti-racist politics and intersectionality
-Representing protest
-New media activism
-Social movements and media strategies
-The politics of representation/recognition/redistribution
-Mediated forms of solidarity and commonality
-Contesting 'neoliberalism'

Please include the following information in your submission:
- Title of presentation
- Name(s), affiliation(s), and email address(es) of author(s)
- On co-authored submissions, the name, affiliation, and email address 
of the author who will be presenting the work at the Preconference
- A 1 page (250 words excluding notes and references) abstract in 12 pt. 
Times New Roman in Word doc/docx format
- For each author, a 100-word-maximum description of the author’s 
area(s) of research interest related to the digital divide in 12 pt. 
Times New Roman in a separate Word doc/docx format file

Please email your submission to the ERIC Chair Miyase Christensen and to 
Preconference Co-conveners Patrick Murphy (Popular Communication, Temple 
University) and Anamik Saha (ERIC, Goldsmiths, University of London). 
E-mails: (miyase.christensen /at/ ims.su.se); (murphy.p /at/ temple.edu); 
(a.saha /at/ leeds.ac.uk).

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU SEND YOUR SUBMISSION TO MIYASE; PATRICK AND ANAMIK 
SIMULTANEOUSLY!

If you would like to just attend the Preconference to join in the 
dialogue without any other involvement, please email the Preconference 
Organizer, Miyase Christensen, (miyase.christensen /at/ ims.su.se), to indicate 
your intention so that we can include you in all emails of Preconference 
announcements.

Please contact Miyase Christensen, (miyase.christensen /at/ ims.su.se), for any 
other questions or further information.

About ERIC --

The Ethnicity and Race in Communication Division is concerned with 
methodological approaches and research that apply, extend or develop 
communication theory and analysis through an examination of race and 
ethnicity within local, international and transnational contexts.

The division also works to advocate for the improved status, 
representation and opportunities for underrepresented scholars in 
communication.

About Popular Communication –

Popular Communication is concerned with providing a forum for scholarly 
investigation, analysis, and dialogue among communication researchers 
interested in a wide variety of communication symbols, forms, phenomena 
and strategic systems of symbols within the context of contemporary 
popular culture.

Division members encourage and employ a variety of empirical and 
critical methodologies with application to diverse human communication 
acts, processes, products and artifacts which have informational, 
entertainment, or suasory potential or effect among mass audiences.

About the International Communication Association (ICA) --

ICA is an academic association for scholars interested in the study, 
teaching, and application of all aspects of human and mediated 
communication and is a truly international association with more than 
4,800 members in 77 countries. Since 2003, ICA has been officially 
associated with the United Nations as a non-governmental association (NGO).

Further information about ICA is available at http://www.icahdq.org/ and 
complete details about ICA's 64th Annual Conference in Seattle, 22-26 
May 2014, are available at http://www.icahdq.org/conf/index.asp.


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