Call for Papers

Caribbean In/Securities and Creativity: Diasporic Dialogues

drums by the fireSunday 25 and Monday 26 June, 2017

Venue: The Knowledge Centre, British Library, London

DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: April 21, 2017

Following our diaspora-focused conference in 2016, this year’s two-day event will include a conference and an art and research exhibition speaking to the theme of Caribbean and diasporic dialogues where the role of creativity is highlighted in negotiating the in/securities permeating such dialogues. The event is a result of collaboration between the Centre for Caribbean and Diaspora Studies (CCDS) at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Caribbean In/Securities: Creativity and Negotiation in the Caribbean (CARISCC), an international research network funded by the Leverhulme Trust and seeking to explore interactions between the precariousness of insecure livelihoods and neighbourhoods, and the negotiation of risk through creativity, in a Caribbean context. CARISCC deploys the term ‘in/securities’ to foreground the interplay between security and insecurity as negotiated and shaped by everyday interactions and responses as much as by top-down processes and formal politics.

The conference organisers welcome papers addressing Caribbean and diaspora in/securities literally, culturally and ontologically and / or in comparison relative to the wider diaspora. Cross-disciplinary explorations identified within our various practices are welcome, as well as perspectives that address, open up and/or complicate a nuanced understanding of Caribbean in/securities, tensions and responses in terms of creative expression in the region, across the diaspora, and within a shared globalization.

Suggestions for Proposals (papers and panels) include but are not limited to the following:

  • in/security and mobility: the Caribbean outside/within the metropolis
  • (re)signifying in/security in Caribbean and diasporic arts practices
  • vulnerability, resilience, globality: a creolised diasporic imaginary/reality
  • transnational/transcultural literary production as in/securities
  • singing in/security: reconsidering dance, song and musical forms
  • enslavement/emancipation in/securities and expression: history/poetics
  • politics and in/securities: configurations of power/powerlessness in intercultural encounters and discourses

Performance artists are encouraged to submit proposals. Abstracts from postgraduates and early career researchers are very welcome.

Abstracts (no more than 300 words for papers of 20 minutes maximum) should be emailed to: The Conference Committee at Caribbean@gold.ac.uk. Please include your full name, institutional affiliation, title, phone number and email address with your proposal. Be sure to include a proposed title and a short bio.

We encourage panel proposals, which should include a detailed abstract for each paper, a designated chair, and a short statement explaining why the submissions should be considered as a panel rather than as individual presentations. Do bear in mind that all papers must represent previously unpublished work.

Deadline for Abstracts and Panel Proposals: 21 April 2017.

Notification of acceptance: 2 May 2017.

Photo credit: Joan Anim-Addo.