[Commlist] Vista: Call for papers on “Reparing the Irreparable”

Vista: Call for papers on “Reparing the Irreparable”

It is open, between September 18 and November 39, 2023, the call for 
papers for Vista on “Reparing the Irreparable”.

Thematic Editors: Ana Cristina Pereira (Universidade do Minho, 
Portugal), Gessica Correia Borges (Universidade do Minho, Portugal) e 
Marta Lança (BUALA)

In this number of Vista, we propose to think about Repairing our broken 
world as a program of “countervisuality”, in that it seeks to grasp the 
lie of “visuality” and to propose alternatives (Mirzoeff, 2011, 2023). 
Such demand entails awareness of its own conceptual and ethical 
impossibility since it implies ending the world as we know it so that a 
new life can emerge (Ferreira da Silva, 2022; Mbembe, 2020/2021). 
Awareness of the right to reparation is coeval with colonialism and 
slavery and has been a demand of the victims of these historical 
processes ever since (Araujo, 2017; Azoulay, 2019; Savoy, 2022). Faced 
with the impossibility of repairing the brutality of colonial violence 
(Mbembe, 2020/2021) — the occupation, pillage, ethnocide, uprooting, 
abductions, rapes, epistemicide, large-scale looting, and extractivism — 
it becomes necessary to perform its “necrology” (Hicks, 2020). To insist 
on the gesture of reparation towards an “ethics of incommensurability” 
(Tuck & Yang, 2012) is vital to the continuous process of healing and care.

All around the world, governments of former colonial powers and their 
institutions — such as universities and museums — are being pressured to 
establish reparation policies. These include safeguarding the rights of 
the descendants of dispossessed and enslaved people, apologies for the 
atrocities of colonialism and the practice of large-scale slavery, the 
implementation of affirmative policies (for example, racial-ethnic 
quotas in acceding university and leadership roles within institutions), 
 the revising of historical narratives and, consequently, of curricula 
(through the inclusion of excluded narratives, historical subjects, and 
artists), the restitution of looted objects, the decolonization of 
public space (for example, through the dismantling of racist statues and 
the memorialization of victims of Slavery), the forgiveness of odious 
debts, and the payment of financial compensations.

The discussion about reparation processes is not new, but it has been 
gaining preponderance worldwide in recent years. In Portugal, a few 
voices have been participating in this global discussion, especially in 
academia, but also outside of it — in the Parliament, the art world, and 
in activist circles. In this context, we highlight the ““IV Encontro de 
Cultura Visual” and the Reparations Workshop organized by Ana Cristina 
Pereira and Inês Beleza Barreiros, coordinators of the Visual Culture 
Working Group of SOPCOM, in collaboration with the theater company “mala 
voadora” (Porto), between June 23rd and July 8th, 2023. During this 
period, the aim was to bring together artistic, academic, and social 
activism practices around the theme of Reparations. This issue of VISTA 
also aims to continue the work developed during that period.

We invite paper proposals (or other more disruptive forms) that 
contribute to the critical and counter-hegemonic debate on:

- Repairing through restitution: on restitution of stolen objects, 
acquired under unclear circumstances or within a colonial power dynamic 
(Figueiredo 2022). On the repatriation of human remains. On how to 
decolonize museums and on “curatorships of discomfort” (Vlachou, 2022);
- Repairing public space: on the politics of memory in the public space 
(statues, street names, spaces of power, etc.). On “memory work as 
reparation” (Sturken, 2022);
- Repairing the historical narrative: on school curricula, textbooks, 
and their images, the (visual) sources of the historical narrative, and 
representativeness (Sousa et al., 2022);
- Repairing the planet: on ecology and politics, on extractivism and how 
to counter it. On forms of “restorative justice”, including the one 
contemplating landscapes, rivers, mountains, and trees;
- Repairing through art: on the role of artistic production and cultural 
practices in these processes (Demos, 2020; Eugénio, 2019). How are these 
being addressed and with which outcomes;
- Other themes that may contribute to thinking about reparations.

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission (full manuscript): from September 18 to November 30.

Journal publication date: continuous edition (January to June 2024)

LANGUAGE

The manuscripts may be submitted in English or Portuguese. Papers 
selected for publication will be translated into Portuguese or English 
and must be published in both languages.

EDITING AND SUBMISSION

Vista is an open access academic journal following demanding peer-review 
standards, based on a double-blind review process.  After submission, 
the papers will be forwarded to two reviewers, previously invited to 
evaluate them according to their academic quality, originality, and 
relevance to the journal’s objectives and scope.

Originals must be submitted through the journal’s website 
(https://revistavista.pt/). If you are accessing Vista for the first 
time, you must register before submitting your article (instructions for 
registration here).

The guidelines for authors are available here.

For further information, please contact: (vista /at/ ics.uminho.pt)

Sofia Gomes
Communication and Society Research Centre Instituto de Ciências Sociais 
| Universidade do Minho
Campus de Gualtar | 4710-057 Braga, Portugal



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