Call for proposalsIII InterAmerican Students International ConferencePoints of (in)flexion in the Americas
Bielefeld University
20-22 October 2021

Recent sanitary, economic and climatic junctures, among others, have tested societies on a global scale. In the Americas, multiple crisis scenarios have become apparent, ranging from the expo-nential rise in populist, fascist and anti-gender discourses to the normalisation of direct, cultural and structural violences (Galtung, 2003). Moreover, we are facing a possible restructuration and/or strengthening of new systems of intersectional oppression, cristalysed by means of politics of fear (Wodak, 2015) nourished by new and old discourses on social order and security. However, in the face of an increase of femicides, the remilitarisation of the public space and police violence, mas-sive processes of social mobilisation and resistance have simultaneously arised in countries such as Guatemala, Colombia, Mexico, Perú, United States, Chile and Brazil, among others.The pandemic has rapidly unveiled local and global structures of inequality, which prioritise the care of hegemonic bodies. This troubles or questions the supposition that we are facing an unpre-cedented crisis, new normality or states of exception. We are therefore interested in analysing these junctures from the framework of (bio)necropolitics (Mbembe, 2003; Valenzuela Arce, 2019), preca-rious lives (Butler, 2004), Gore capitalism (Valencia, 2013), and other approaches that prove useful to understand the complexity of current scenarios in the Americas.The space for InterAmerican dialogue is important because it enables the analysis of the joint of pandemia, inequality, various social uprisings and political struggles, and dissident aesthetics and narratives. Moreover, it enables a deeper reflection upon life, death, social relationships, care policies, different forms of collectivity or community beyond the logics imposed by nation states, digital capitalism and liberal democracy.The III InterAmerican Students International Conference aims at becoming a space of transdiscipli-nary exchange and discussion of current issues. We are concerned and interested by how new forms of power have been built from different contexts, as well as resistances and senses of community in the face of an unequal global structure. The conference will therefore deepen in the following subject areas:

Political Processes and Social Movements in the Americas
-Migratory waves, forced displacements and diasporas.
-Social protest, movements and resistances.
-State, democracy and sanitary crisis.
-Feminisms, corporealities, care policies.
-Remilitarisation and authoritative dynamics.
-Structural inequalities, inclusion
-exclusion experiences of native peoples and Afro-descendants.
-Environment, anthropocene and political ecology.

History in the Americas
-(Post)memory, uses and abuses of the past.
-History of ideas in the Americas and its global entanglements.
-Historiography, oral history, knowledge conservation and circulation.
-Environmental history and inequalities in the Global South.

InterAmerican thinking and narratives
-Production of discourses on life and death.
-Bodies, narratives and identities.
-Transmedia narratives, digital poetics and subjectivities.
-Sociocultural processes and intercultural practices.
-Interamerican thinking and ecology of knowledge.
-Counter-narratives, aesthetics and articulation of upcoming futures.

Submission informationThe call for presentations is open to bachelor, master and PhD students of InterAmerican Studies, Latin Ame-rican Studies, North American Studies and related fields, and activists or groups conducting research related to the subject areas of the conference. Individual and panel discussion proposals (3-5 people) are welcome.
Please send your proposal to congresoiasbielefeld@gmail.com before 15 July, 2021, including: title of the presentation, name and academic/group affiliation, email address, keywords, and an abstract of up to 400 words in either German, Spanish, English or Portuguese.Due to the current COVID-19 situation, the conference will be held online

Important dates
Submission deadline: 15 July, 2021
Proposal acceptance: 1 August, 2021
Participants confirmation: 15 August, 2021
Further information
Students’ Association IAS / Fachschaft IAS
congresoiasbielefeld@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/congresoias