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Comparative Race & Ethnic Studies
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CRES Justice Conference 2024: Call for Proposals

Justice Conference graphic

Abstract Deadline: Monday, October 16, 2023

“We are a people in a quandary about our present. We are a people in search of our future.” Barbara Jordan

In her Keynote address at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan urged her audience to consider what it means to create and sustain a society in which all are equal. This query has become evergreen in the US where ongoing issues of equity and justice sit at the forefront of our discourse. It is within social movements and physical acts of movement that we can locate efforts towards advancing such a society. Thus, questions before us as scholars, students, activists, and community advocates are: What is the political work of movement and migration? What can these histories teach us about solidarity and community building? We intend to engage these questions and more at the 2024 CRES Justice Conference, themed: Movements and Migrations.

Hosted at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, on the lands of the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, we are mindful of the troubling ways concepts of movement and migration converge in the name of “Western expansion” and at the expense of Indigenous peoples. Fort Worth’s tagline, “Where the West begins,” signals a colonial logic that must be problematized and explored. This framing is emblematic of broader conversations about movement and migration that we desire to have. Taking inspiration from the critical work of the Palestinian Liberation movement and utilizing Ethnic Studies as a central lens, we seek to examine the global legacies and present impacts of colonial occupation from Brownsville to Kashmir, Afghanistan, South Africa, Baltimore, Sacramento, Turtle Island, Ireland, Mindanao, Iraq, Puerto Rico, Hawai’i and on.

We are seeking work that takes up the multiple valences of movement and migration from various interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary contexts (including historical, literary, cultural, pedagogical, visual, socio-political analyses and more). We especially seek papers that apply a decolonial lens to their work. 

 

Proposed topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • Migration crises
  • Histories of migration
  • US/Mexico border crisis
  • Recent rejections of asylum seekers in the US
  • Movements as disruptions of temporality, generations, and memory  
  • Movements grounded in gender liberation, sexuality, reproductive justice, etc
  • Migrations across physical, metaphorical, theoretical borders
  • Transnational movement and movements
  • Social justice movements
  • Solidarity as a verb (ideological commitments in movement work and relationship building)
  • Migration narratives in diasporic literatures, cinema, and other media
  • Critical geographies/geographies of liberation  
  • Decoloniality and migratory routes
  • Digital technology and migration narratives
  • Inter/ethnic coalitions and border imaginaries
  • Class dimensions of movements and migrations
  • (In)visibility and movement
  • Real, utopic, and imaginary landscapes 

 

Submission Guidelines:

There are three avenues for presenters to submit their abstracts:

  1. Individual Papers (for faculty and graduate students)
  2. Panel Proposals composed of 3-4 papers (for faculty and graduate students)
  3. Poster Presentation (for undergraduate students). 

Required information that each author must provide depending on the selected presentation avenue as part of their submission:

Background Information:

1) Title,
2) Author name(s) with preferred pronouns,
3) Institutional affiliation(s), CV, and
4) Email address

Paper Information:

An abstract of no more than 300 words.

AV Equipment Needed?

Indicate whether you will require AV equipment for your presentation.

Background Information:

1) Titles for each paper,
2) Author names with preferred pronouns,
3) Institutional affiliations, CVs and
4) Email addresses for each participant

Paper Information:

A 150-word overview of the panel theme and no more than 300 words for each paper (3-4 papers per panel).

AV Equipment Needed?

Indicate whether you will require AV equipment for your panel.

Background Information:

1) Title,
2) Author name(s) with preferred pronouns,
3) Institutional affiliation(s), and
4) Email address

Paper Information:

An abstract of no more than 300 words and a PDF file of the visual components of your proposed poster.

 

Additional Presenter Opportunities: 

TCU Undergraduate Student Paper Contest

We will accept a panel of 3 finalists who submit outstanding proposals. These recipients will serve on a panel together as a featured session. 

Outstanding Graduate Student Paper 

We will select an outstanding graduate paper submission and the winner of the award will receive a $300 prize. For consideration, full papers of no more than 10 pages double-spaced (not including references) must be submitted by October 16 with your proposal submission.

Conference Lodging Support

We have need-based lodging opportunities for accepted presenters. We will lodge presenters for up to 2 nights at the TCU Hyatt. Once your proposal is accepted, you will have the opportunity to request lodging support.