[Commlist] CFP ICA 2027 pre-conference: Race, communication and repair: Confronting dehumanising pasts

*_CFP _**_ICA 2027 pre-conference: Race, communication and repair: 
Confronting dehumanising pasts_* 
<https://www.icahdq.org/mpage/ICA27-prepostconferences>
co-sponsored by the Communication History Division and the Activism, 
Communication and Social Justice Division
DATE: Thursday 3 June 2027, 8.30am-5pm
VENUE: _Civic House_ <https://agile-city.com/building/civic-house/>, 26 
Civic Street, Glasgow G4 9SH
Reparation has regained visibility in the public domain in recent years 
as a way to address the dehumanising pasts associated with historical 
harms inflicted through genocide, enslavement and colonialism. This 
preconference explores how media have harmed people and what reparative 
approaches to communication and research in communication studies might 
look like, i.e. approaches that acknowledge past harms while reorienting 
how humans relate to and understand one another as communities across 
the world grapple with uncertain futures. It examines the intersection 
between reparation and communication through the role of communication 
and communication studies in inflicting and repairing historical harms 
as well as the role of media in framing global reparation activism.
The CARICOM Reparations Commission and the African Union recently 
launched a partnership to demand formal apologies, financial 
compensation, and debt relief from former European colonial powers for 
the transatlantic trafficking in enslaved people. Both prior to and in 
the wake of #BlackLivesMatter, racial justice activists in the United 
States, Europe and Australia advocated for reparations to address the 
legacy of enslavement and colonialism and ongoing systemic racism and 
racial inequalities. Journalists have a responsibility to report on 
these calls for reparation but frequently have been caught up in fierce 
contestations over history as part of ideological ‘culture wars’.
Media institutions, especially in the Minority World, have in different 
ways confronted their own implication in historical injustices through 
official apologies, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programmes, 
or specific reparative initiatives such as /The New York Times/’ 1619 
Project and /The Guardian/’s Cotton Capital Project. Such critical 
moments in media reckoning call for closer attention to the modes of 
repair being undertaken, to how media reform intersects with goals of 
racial and reparative justice, to how mainstream media have framed these 
initiatives, and to the implications of these initiatives for audience 
trust.
Aside from media institutions, attention has turned to academia’s 
historical harms and its complicity in perpetuating harms in the 
present. #RhodesMustFall protests drew attention to the different ways 
in which the lack of post-Apartheid racial transformation at the 
University of Cape Town inflicted pain on Black students and staff. 
Student encampments highlighted the role of universities in contributing 
to the genocide in Palestine. The death of Professor Jason Arday raised 
questions about the complicity of both universities and media in ongoing 
racial harms. Fields such as media and communication studies have 
reflected on the way in which our own disciplinary pasts have 
dehumanised, silenced and harmed particular groups of people through 
academic scholarship, canonical texts and scholarly practices.
Calls for reparation are made amid significant global uncertainty. The 
rise of populism and disinformation on digital platforms, the growing 
influence of far-right media, and the mounting rhetoric against DEI 
initiatives have challenged reparative projects —and academia itself— 
through increasingly polarised political discourses. Social media have 
been instrumental to those advocating for reparation but have also 
caused harm through hateful content targeting marginalised communities. 
Harms of the past are perpetuated in the present through algorithmic 
practices, AI’s distortion of Indigenous knowledges and misinformation, 
and big tech data extraction practices in the Majority World.
The aims of this pre-conference are to examine the intersection between 
reparation and communication through (1) the role of communication and 
communication studies in inflicting and repairing historical harms; and 
(2) the role of media in framing global reparation activism. We 
encourage scholars to discuss how communication itself might be turned 
towards repair through emerging concepts such as ‘reparative media’ and 
‘media reparations’ and ‘algorithmic reparations’, which could offer 
ways of rethinking epistemic injustices.
We invite contributions that:
-explore the conceptual dimension of the intersection between reparation 
and communication
-examine the role of communication in inflicting or repairing historical 
harms
-discuss reparatory justice in relation to journalism, media 
institutions, social media platforms or artificial intelligence
-provide reparatory histories of media institutions, communicative 
practices or publics
-interrogate the role of media and communication studies in inflicting 
or repairing historical harms
-investigate the role of legacy and social media in framing global 
reparation activism
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
A 350-word abstract and a 150-word bio should be submitted to 
(communicationreparation /at/ gmail.com) by 29 January 2027. Participants will 
be notified by 26 February 2027 on the outcome of their submissions. We 
expect to have space for 15-20 papers as part of this pre-conference.
REGISTRATION FEE
The conference registration fee is USD**25. You do not have to be an ICA 
member or register for the main conference to attend this pre-conference.
ORGANISING COMMITTEE
_David Cheruiyot_ 
<https://communication-arts.uq.edu.au/profile/8276/david-cheruiyot> 
(School of Communication and Arts, University of Queensland, Australia)
_Khadijah Costley White_ 
<https://sci.rutgers.edu/white-khadijah-costley> (School of 
Communication and Information, Rutgers University, US)
_Wendy Willems_ <https://www.lse.ac.uk/people/wendy-willems> (Department 
of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political 
Science, UK)
The organisers are grateful for the financial contribution of the 
Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and 
Political Science towards the costs of this preconference.


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