[Commlist] CfP: Musical Commemorations/Contestations in Postcolonial Contexts

***

*CALL FOR PAPERS*

**

*Musical Commemorations/Contestations**in Postcolonial Contexts:*

*Negotiating Memory, Identity, and Power*

**

*Editors:*

  * Bart Paul Vanspauwen (Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal)
  * Ana María Alarcón Jiménez (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain)
  * Livia Jiménez Sedano (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia,
    Spain)

As Bad Bunny's much-discussed Super Bowl halftime performance (February 
8, 2026) continues to resonate, this feels like a particularly fitting 
moment to announce a call for papers for a Special Issue/Edited Volume 
focusing on the intersections between music, dance, and cultural 
governance in postcolonial contexts.

**

*Focus and scope*

This special issue examines how musical and cultural commemorations 
function within the framework of – or in dialogue with – official 
transnational institutions designed to fortify language-based cultural 
systems (Lusophone, Hispanophone, Francophone, and Anglophone spheres). 
We are particularly interested in the programming and cultural outputs 
of yearly commemorative events such as 'Semana Cultural da CPLP', 'Día 
de la Hispanidad', 'Journée Internationale de la Francophonie', 
'Commonwealth Day', and similar institutional celebrations.

 From a hegemonic institutional perspective, these practices of 
commemoration involve the production of specific collective memories 
(Connerton 1989) that reproduce post-imperial and linguistic 
geographies. From a critical perspective, this involves a colonial gaze 
which emphasizes historical relations between the former colonizers and 
colonized, invisibilizing transnational connections, as well as 
circum-atlantic routes and links (Gilroy 1993, Kabir 2020). The social 
categories and identities expressed symbolically in these memorials 
reproduce those geocultural entities created in the course of 
colonization, that make part of what has been called "colonialidad" by 
authors of the decolonial theoretical framework (Quijano 2007, Mignolo 
2007, Bhambra, Gebrial & Nisancioglu 2018).

The objective is to analyze potential frictions between official and 
popular discourses surrounding these events as they address colonial 
reconciliation or continued (ethno-racial, social, linguistic) divisions 
in moments of cultural commemoration. We seek to understand how concepts 
such as latinidad, hispanidad, brasilidade, créolité, and similar 
identity constructs are reframed and renegotiated in these contexts, why 
these negotiations take place, and by whom they are conducted.

Furthermore, our aim is to inquire into the forms of cultural 
representation and negotiation that may be present across different 
postcolonial language spheres, offering new perspectives on how cultural 
governance works to articulate identities that either depart from or 
confirm received narratives of state cultures. On a broader level, we 
aim to examine the narratives of modern Western empires as constructions 
that reflect concrete social and cultural negotiations, particularly 
over traumas of colonialism and domination.

**

*Potential themes*

We welcome contributions that address (but are not limited to) the 
following themes:

·Music and dance performances and commemorative practices at official 
national and transnational celebrations

·Indigenous/colonial remembering in music and dance contexts

·Postcolonial justice, corrections, and reparations through musical 
expression

·Tensions between state-sponsored commemorations and grassroots musical 
practices

·The instrumentalization of postcolonial intangible cultural heritage in 
music and dance

·The promotion of postcolonial diversity and affective formations 
through sound and dance movement

·The interstitial connections between geographically dispersed 
communities within a language community

·Popular culture and official commemorations in conflict or dialogue

·The role of diasporic music and dance practices in reimagining 
transnational identities

·Decolonial approaches to musical and dance commemoration

**

*Key questions*

This special issue seeks to address the following questions from a 
comparative perspective:

·How do commemorative music and dance practices participate in political 
and affective economies within language-system-related contexts?

·In what ways have musical commemorations commodified transnational 
space through ideological framings/stagings of tradition/history?

·Which sonic, kinetic, visual, and discursive elements have been 
employed to reference colonial or postcolonial aspects in official 
celebrations?

·How are music and dance employed to evoke hospitality or other 
emotional renderings of reconciliation, diversity, or cultural mixture?

·How do official institutions mediate culture in regions that were 
colonized through musical and/or dance practices?

·What alternative commemorative musical and/or dance practices emerge in 
opposition to or in parallel with official narratives?

**

*Relevance*

Commemoration practices have acquired a special relevance and appeal in 
the current sociopolitical context of turn to the political right and 
how their symbols and imagined geographies take on the global scene 
(Appadurai 2013), involving the success of extreme-right parties in 
Europe and other parts of the world (Camargo 2024, Carmona, Sánchez & 
García 2012).

This special issue will contribute to a better understanding of how 
postcolonial states and transnational institutions deploy music and 
dance in cultural commemorations to remember or reinterpret elements 
that are relevant to the populations they serve or wish to appeal to. We 
aim to examine to what extent these cultural strategies operate to 
foster new national understandings and intercultural (or decolonial) 
competencies.

We particularly want to investigate whether musical and dance 
commemorative strategies may help to address postcolonial interstitial 
spaces. This project thus envisions a strong social mission: to situate, 
decolonize, and preserve valuable cultural heritage, aligning with Goal 
11.4 of the UN's 2030 Agenda and Goal 16: "promote peaceful and 
inclusive societies for sustainable development [...] and build 
effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels."

**

*Submission Guidelines*

Please send a title and a 300-word (maximum) abstract through the 
following Google Form:

https://forms.gle/j3ormoVuzksN3LvNA <https://forms.gle/j3ormoVuzksN3LvNA>

The document should also include:

  * Each author's name, email address, and institutional affiliation
  * A 50-word biographical statement for each author

**

*Timeline*

  * Deadline for abstract submission: April 1, 2026
  * Notification of acceptance: June 1, 2026
  * Full paper submission deadline: February 1, 2027
  * Expected publication: June 2027

We are approaching relevant journals in postcolonial studies, 
ethnomusicology, anthropology, sociology, cultural heritage studies, and 
performance studies for this special issue. Depending on the response, 
we will also consider publication as an edited volume with a major 
academic publisher.

*Cited references*

·Appadurai, A. (2013) /The future as cultural fact. Essays on the global 
condition./ London and New York: Verso.

·Bhambra, Gurminder K., Dalia Gebrial y Kerem Nişancıoğlu (2018) 
/Decolonising the University./ London: Pluto Press,.

·Camargo, L. (2024) /Trumpismo discursivo. Origen y expansión del 
discurso y de la ola reaccionaria global/. Madrid: Verbum.

·Carmona, Pablo, Sánchez, Almudena & Beatriz García (2012) /The Spanish 
Neocon. La revolución conservadora en la derecha española/. Madrid: 
Traficantes de Sueños.

·Connerton, P. (1989) /How Societies Remember/. Cambridge: Cambridge 
University Press,.

·Gilroy, Paul (1993) /The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double 
Consciousness./ London: Verso.

·Quijano, Aníbal (2007) "Colonialidad del poder y clasificación social" 
in Santiago Castro-Gómez and Ramón Grosfoguel (coords.) /El giro 
decolonial: reflexiones para una diversidad epistémica más allá del 
capitalismo global./ 93-126. Bogotá: Siglo del Hombre Editores.

·Mignolo, W. (2007) “El pensamiento descolonial: desprendimiento y 
apertura. Un manifiesto”. In Santiago Castro-Gómez and Ramón Grosfoguel 
(coords.) /El giro decolonial: reflexiones para una diversidad 
epistémica más allá del capitalismo global./ 25-46. Bogotá: Siglo del 
Hombre Editores.

·Kabir, Ananya Jahanara (2020) "Circum-Atlantic Connections and their 
global kinetoscapes: African-heritage partner dances." /Atlantic 
Studies/ 17(1): 1-12.


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