[Commlist] CFP: ISIR Annual Symposium - Hidden Labour in the Screen Industries

Please find the CfP for the Institute for Screen Industries 
Research symposium at the University of Nottingham below.

*Hidden Labour in the Screen Industries*

*Call for Papers*

**

The Institute for Screen Industries Research (ISIR) invites 
contributions for its 2026 annual symposium, held in-person at the 
University of Nottingham on 23 June. This event sets out to interrogate, 
document and conceptualise marginalised, ignored or otherwise peripheral 
forms of work that sustain global screen production, aiming to push 
forward a broader and more inclusive research agenda. We prioritise 
investigations into the ‘grey zones’ of screen labour: those liminal 
spaces where work is performed but denied the status of 
creative-cultural contribution. By exploring these zones, the symposium 
seeks to understand the screen industries as stratified labour 
organisations where legitimacy is unevenly distributed based on 
proximity to perceived 'creativity'.

We seek to deconstruct the international supply chains that underpin 
screen production and the specific regimes of value that govern them. 
This requires a critical mapping of how prestige and status are granted 
or withheld across global production ecologies.

We encourage diverse contributions (empirical, conceptual, historical, 
or contemporary) that unsettle the ontological status of ‘creativity’ 
and explore how different schemes of value are distributed in 
production, policy and research contexts. We are keen to hear from 
researchers at all levels, including ECRs.

*Confirmed speakers include:* Kay Dickinson (University of Glasgow), 
David Lee (University of Leeds), Kate E. Taylor Jones (University of 
Sheffield), Jilly Kay (Loughborough University), Helen Wood (Aston 
University)

*Key questions/themes might include: *

  * Unpicking how the industrial fetishisation of 'innovation' through
    new technology functions to mystify and transform the human labour
    required to maintain systems within the global supply chain.
  * Interrogating how taxonomies of ‘creativity’ enforce the
    invisibility of support labour within established industrial
    hierarchies.
  * Mapping international screen industry supply chains as geographic
    distributions of material and social value.
  * The discourses that dictate the distribution of ethical concern
    within production environments.
  * The material and logistical networks often excluded from symbolic
    accounts of screen production.
  * How frameworks of cultural justice can be extended to include
    specialised non-creative contributions.
  * New approaches and frameworks that move beyond the above/below the
    line dichotomy.
  * Methodologies for amplifying screen labour and worker voice.
Please send 200 word abstracts to (_Julia.szivak /at/ nottingham.ac).uk_ 
<mailto:(Julia.szivak /at/ nottingham.ac.uk)> and 
(_Jack.newsinger /at/ nottingham.ac).uk_ 
<mailto:(Jack.newsinger /at/ nottingham.ac.uk)> by *15*^*th* * May 2026.*

**

*Symposium Details:*

*
*

  * Date: 23 June 2026.
  * Location: University of Nottingham.
  * Cost: Free to attend; lunch and refreshments provided.
  * Bursaries: A limited number of travel bursaries are available to
    support attendance by ECRs and non-salaried researchers. Please
    indicate if you would like to be considered.


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