[Commlist] CfA: annual conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) on "Regenerations"

the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) invites submissions for 
our **27th annual conference**, #AoIR2026 <http://aoir.org/aoir2026> 
*Regenerations* from *14-17 October, 2026* at the Hyatt Regency 
<https://www.hyatt.com/hyatt-regency/en-US/mexhr-hyatt-regency-mexico-city> Mexico 
City/CDMX, México.


*The deadline for submissions is *1 March 2025 at 11:59 PM* in your 
local time zone*.


Please find the full call for papers below:


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Regeneration(s): Association of Internet Researchers 2026 Conference


Proposals Due: 1 March 2026



_Overview_


Regeneration(s) opens us up to exploring deeper processes of 
technological, cultural, political, artistic, and infrastructural 
renewal. Online cultures are born, mature, decay, and are reborn in 
slightly different forms; generations of internet researchers train and 
mentor each other; new ideas and approaches emerge. Regeneration here is 
not simply understood as technological repair or sustainability, but as 
a relational and ethical process grounded in ongoing responsibilities to 
land, peoples, data, and communities; Regeneration is cyclical and 
inseparable from complex histories of resistance as a counterweight to 
the logics of optimization and maximization that characterize the tech 
industry.


Generation and generativity as productive capacities are also contested 
processes and capacities as AI companies try to frame generativity as 
automation, reproduction, and passivity at scale. The challenge then is 
to generate technical, political, and communal imagination and maps that 
allow us to articulate embodied, alternative, and active generative 
futures around collective technological use. This also offers an 
opportunity to think seriously about how our scholarly networks 
themselves are generated, regenerated, and maintained.


This year’s conference is co-hosted by scholars and institutions in both 
Mexico City/CDMX, MX, and Los Angeles, CA, two cities with complex and 
entangled histories. Although they are often thought of as distinct 
worlds - one, the historic capital of México, and the other, a 
paradigmatic U.S. metropolis molded by migration, sprawl, and 
imagination. Both historically and now, they are inextricably tied; from 
colonial and imperial trade routes to cross-border familial legacies, to 
twentieth century labor markets and migration. Turning colonial 
historical narratives on their heads, Chicano activists of the 1960s and 
70s reminded the world with an insistent rallying cry, “the border 
crossed us.”


In recent years, both have seen unprecedented investment from tech 
companies expanding infrastructure and the transformation of core 
industries and craft by the increasing encroachment of AI, even as both 
cities struggle with severe drought and other environmental and economic 
consequences hastened by legacies of resource extraction. Mexico 
City/CDMX has also experienced challenges posed by a significant influx 
of so-called “digital nomads,” particularly from the North. Worsening 
gentrification and an ever-growing population of non-Spanish speakers 
have sparked a backlash, pushing back against displacement and economic 
stratification. Los Angeles, too, has been subject to the crisis of 
housing affordability and gentrification, a perennial issue exacerbated 
by the tech hubs like Silicon Beach. It is against these backdrops and 
complex, intertwined but distinct histories and cultures that we invite 
the AoIR global community of internet scholars to participate in this 
conference.



_Call for Participation_


AoIR 2026 solicits work exploring the theme of regeneration(s) in all of

its manifold usages.


Possible topics include (but are not limited to):


  * Regenerative technologies: Regeneration and Indigenous feminist
    theories of relationality and care; Technologies that add to rather
    than extract, lab cultures, autonomous infrastructure.
  * Platform genealogies: The evolution and reconfiguration of social
    media, online communities, and digital economies.
  * Generative media and AI: Challenging and deepening engagement with
    the realities and rhetorics of “generativity.”
  * Activism and continuity: Intergenerational organizing and learning
    in digital social movements, creation and care.
  * Reflection: Legacies of scholarship, reflecting on generations of
    AoIR and Internet Studies scholarship, mentorship, and
    intergenerational collaboration.
  * Multispecies ethics: Biological, ecological, digital systems.
  * Identity and community: Engagements with the theme through
    dimensions of identity, including race, sexuality, ethnicity,
    ability, language, citizenship, and culture.
  * Digital age and life course: Generational identities online;
    intergenerational communication and conflict; youth, aging, and
    digital inclusion.
  * Technological generations: Successive waves of internet platforms,
    infrastructures, and protocols; how technologies inherit, disrupt,
    or forget previous generations.
  * Cultural memory and legacy: Internet nostalgia, digital
    preservation, and the archiving of online histories.
  * Digital caretaking: Skill shares and makerspaces, familial tech
    maintenance, community pedagogy.
  * Technoptimism/pessimism: Imaginaries of regeneration, resilience,
    and refusal.


We also welcome submissions on topics that address social, cultural, 
political, legal, aesthetic, economic, and/or philosophical aspects of the

internet beyond the conference theme.


The committee extends a *special invitation* to students, researchers, 
and practitioners who have previously not participated in an AoIR event 
to submit proposals, and to scholars from the Global South, Black, 
Indigenous, and People of Color globally, LGBTQIA+ peoples, scholars 
living with disabilities, and people outside or adjacent to the academy. 
With this in mind, AoIR renews its commitment to travel scholarships, as 
well as other initiatives, to support conference participants. We will 
also follow the lead of last year’s committee and continue to experiment 
with forms of multi/bilingualism to further our mission of diversity and 
inclusivity within internet research. The conference committee will 
accept applications, in English, for participation in Spanish at the 
conference. Please make these selections within ConfTool.


This year’s conference will offer opportunities for hybrid participation 
for keynote and plenary viewing only in order to focus on multilingual 
access at the conference itself.



_To Apply_


We will once again use the ConfTool submissions management software 
system to manage the CFP process. To submit, please use this link 
<https://www.conftool.org/aoir2026 <https://www.conftool.org/aoir2026>>. 
Please note: all applicants will need to recreate a ConfTool account for 
the 2026 instance, even if you have submitted in the past.


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For more information on how to submission guidelines, please visit our 
website. <http://aoir.org/aoir2026 <http://aoir.org/aoir2026>>



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