[Commlist] Digital Intimacies conference, Relational Futures CFP - abstracts due 30 June

This year’s Digital Intimacies conference is being hosted by The Centre 
for Global Indigenous Futures 
<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/D1tdCoV1kpfX5z4WnI1_Rhx?domain=globalindigenousfutures.com/>on 
December 1st and 2nd at Macquarie University on the Wallumattagal 
Campus, North Ryde, Sydney. The theme is Relational Futures.

Can digital technologies hold us, bring us home or bring us back to 
ourselves? These questions are inspired by Indigenous speculative 
fictions and particularly, anthologies edited by Mykaela Saunders and 
Grace L Dillon. In the Overture to This All Come Back Now, Mykaela 
Sanders connects the works of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander 
writers to a genre that Anishanaabe scholar Grace L Dillon calls 
‘Biskaabiiyang – Returning to Ourselves’. Saunders and Dillon’s works 
speak to the possibilities beyond colonialism and the themes that 
circulate, including “family and other kin, Old People and ancestors, 
the destruction of land and water, the archive, technology, language, 
law, ghosts, hauntings, warm and deep belonging, and despairing 
alienation” (Saunders 2021, p. 14).

Colonial categories and dichotomies separate out envisioning and 
storytelling from intellectual and political work towards social and 
societal reform – treating one as fictional and the other as factual. 
Simultaneously, Saunders (2021, p. 9) points out, settlers recycle the 
fantasy of endless consumption of finite resources. Critical thought 
that centres relationships and connections, or relationality (Graham 
2014), complicates this. Relational thinking asks us to change – our 
ideas, our values, our behaviours, our actions – to improve our 
connections with others. Digital technologies are not beyond but of us. 
They are dreamed up, designed and used by humans to connect. They are 
made of and powered by resources extracted from stolen lands, from mines 
staffed by but very rarely owned by colonised peoples.

Digital technologies can and do change, often rapidly. How might they 
change if good relationships between humans, and between humans and the 
rest of universe, were their sole purpose? Is it possible to create and 
use digital technologies in radical ways that prevent and address harm, 
and build towards equitable and just futures? Are online cultures 
towards this vision? What of increasing digital surveillance and 
policing, and digital consumption of identities? What can we learn from 
marginalised communities who are already resisting carceral 
technologies? These are the questions we hold in mind when think of 
relational futures.

You can see more information here:

https://www.globalindigenousfutures.com/digital-intimacies-call-for-papers 
<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/q9nVCp81lrtzq8D62tDMImL?domain=globalindigenousfutures.com> 


Please send a 250 word abstract and short presenter bios 
(toCGIF /at/ mq.edu.au) <mailto:(CGIF /at/ mq.edu.au)>by June 30th (*next week!*) – 
Successful papers will be notified by July 15th.


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