{"id":7519,"date":"2026-09-14T21:13:54","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T21:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.interamericanstudies.net\/?page_id=7519"},"modified":"2026-09-14T21:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T21:24:13","slug":"laboratories-of-change-bielefeld-2027","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.interamericanstudies.net\/?page_id=7519","title":{"rendered":"Laboratories of Change (Bielefeld, 2027)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Call for papers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spanish Version<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ninth Biennial Conference of the International Association of Inter-American Studies (IAS)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laboratories of Change: The Americas between Progress and Backlash<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

June 2 \u2013 4, 2027
  Bielefeld University, Germany<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The present historical moment is marked by far-reaching global upheavals, many of which are closely related to current events in the Americas. Over the past five centuries, developments originating in or profoundly shaped by the Western Hemisphere have transformed societies across the globe \u2014from European conquest, colonialism, and transatlantic slavery to the US, Haitian, and Latin American revolutions, the Cold War and the political and cultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s to #blacklives matter, #niunamenos and the rise of Trumpism. Today, technological innovations, political realignments and social struggles in the Americas are once again generating shifts far beyond the hemisphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The history of the Americas reveals a recurring, though never linear, tension between transformation and reaction. Radical movements for social change challenge entrenched power structures and repressive regimes, ushering in periods of political, technological, social, and cultural transformation. Yet such advances frequently provoke counter-movements, authoritarian projects, and periods of conservative backlash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can we conceptualize these shifting relationships between progress and regression, emancipation and repression, resistance and reaction? How do North and South, centers and peripheries, and local and global forces shift and interact in these processes? What has made the Americas such a consequential laboratory of political, social, cultural, and technological change? And to what extent are the categories of \u201cprogress\u201d and \u201cbacklash\u201d themselves adequate for understanding complex, contradictory, and regionally uneven transformations?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conference places particular emphasis on the inter-American, transregional, and global dimensions of these dynamics. It invites critical reflection on the roles of colonialism and imperialism, capitalism and extractivism, migration and exile, cultural exchange, and transnational networks. Of equal importance are the agency, alliances, and internal tensions of counter-hegemonic movements and historically marginalized groups, including Indigenous and Afro-diasporic communities, feminist and LGBTQIA+ movements, labor movements, and ecological, antiracist, and decolonial initiatives.  The conference also places particular emphasis on works and practices of cultural production\u2014including literature, film, visual art, music, performance, and popular culture\u2014as sites in which transformation and reaction are imagined, negotiated, contested, and remembered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Bielefeld University and the International Association of Inter-American Studies have, since their respective foundations, been committed to interdisciplinary scholarship. We therefore welcome proposals from across the humanities and social sciences, including American, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, African Diaspora and Indigenous Studies, literary and cultural studies, history, media studies, sociology, anthropology, political science, and gender and queer studies. We particularly encourage contributions that cross disciplinary, linguistic, and regional boundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We expressly welcome historically oriented contributions, including research on periods, processes, and archives whose significance does not depend on a direct or immediately demonstrable connection to the present or future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n