Call for submissions
Race in Twenty-First Century Americas Conference
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
March 29-30, 2022
“Race and Rights: Empowering Our Communities”
Michigan State University is hosting the 2022 Race in Twenty-First Century Americas Conference entitled “Race and Rights: Empowering Our Communities.” The Race Conference brings together leading scholars, and community activists across the Americas, with a diversity of racial, ethnic and ideological approaches, in order to have important conversations about race. It is fundamentally designed to investigate systems of power that maintain racial stratification throughout the Americas. The first conference was held in 1999 under the leadership of Professor Emeritus Curtis Stokes until his retirement in 2019, and has continued to expand upon his scholarly commitment to racial politics.
Significance of theme
The Race in Twenty-First Century Americas conference comes at a critical time of heightend state sponsored brutality, in light of the assassination of Marielle Franco, the murder of George Floyd, and countless others, coupled by aggravated health and economic disparities made evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, has increased awareness of racial injustice and a call for change and social mobilization across communities. These growing concerns reflect systemic racial injustices that span across the Americas produced by national and transnational systems of government, capitalism, and neocolonial power. Thus, this conference calls on scholars, activists and community organizers to dialogue and strategize about creating the conditions for sustainable actions. We hope to enable richer and more nuanced insights of racial injustices in the Americas and facilitate possible sites of solidarity.
Conference format
The two-day conference will take place on March 29-30, 2022. The conference aims to have a hybrid format with panels taking place online and in-person. The in-person conference will take place at the MSU Union and will include a networking dinner, panels, and keynote speakers. The precise format will be announced at a later date as is subject to change during this unprecedented time.
Call for papers: The organizers welcome abstracts for papers, panels and workshops on the conference theme; and hope to include scholarship reflecting a range of disciplines and approaches. Scholars, Students and Community activists should discuss themes focused on, but not limited to: Voting Accessibility, Labor Rights, Indigeneous Land Rights, Community building and mobilization, Food and Water Accessibility, Transnational Coalition building, Violence against Trans Women of Color,
Immigration status and Reproductive Rights, Targeted Violence against Racial and Ethnic Groups, Tensions between neo-colonial forces and Indigenous governance, Mobilization strategies, Grassroots
movement building.
Junior scholars, post-doctoral researchers, community members, local, national and international
organizations are encouraged to submit abstracts for consideration.
The deadline to submit is Friday, November 12, 2021, and accepted papers will be announced by Monday, December 6, 2021.