Yossi David
ERIC Vice Chair and 2024 Conference Program Planner
The Department of Communication Studies
The Lab for Communication and Social BIAS Research
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Pronouns: he/him/his
Email: davidyos@bgu.ac.il; davidyossi4@gmail.com
The Ethnicity and Race in Communication (ERIC) Division welcomes research works that apply, extend or develop communication theory and analysis through an examination of race and ethnicity within local, national, international and transnational contexts. ERIC is dedicated to hosting examples of interdisciplinary research at the intersections of race, ethnicity, diaspora, transnationalism, class, gender, sexuality, national identity, and other forms of identities. Central to the questions articulated in the Division are the interpenetrating threads of colonialism, slavery, and capitalism that are perpetuated by the ideology of ethnic and racial exclusion, and in turn perpetuate marginalization. The Division also works to advocate for the improved status, representation, voice, and opportunities for scholars with non-Western perspectives, scholars from the Global South, and underrepresented scholars in communication at diverse multi-layered intersections.
In our time of ever heightened ethnic and racial marginalization and exclusion locally, regionally, globally, and transnationally—and including within the discipline—the Division invites interdisciplinary papers that engage with a diverse variety of questions on ethnicity/race on their own or in combination with other topics such as national identity, diaspora, migration, extractive capitalism, empire, militarization, nuclear proliferation, transnationalism, sexuality, and/or gender. It interrogates the ways in which the production of knowledge in the discipline is embedded in logics of exclusion and erasure. Ethnicity/race must be an integral part of papers that include these or other related topics. Both theoretical and empirical approaches and submissions that address shifts in cultural, social, economic, political as well as technological fronts are welcome.
We particularly welcome scholarship that engages with the 2025 ICA Conference theme Disrupting and Consolidating Communication Research. The Division takes the call as an invitation to critically interrogate the concept of disrupting and consolidating communication, attending to the raced, classed, gendered, colonial contexts within which disrupting and consolidating communication are conceptualized, understood, mobilized, and practiced and the interactions between them. We note here the historically constituted political and economic processes that have shaped hegemonic conversations on what it means to be human and what it means to have rights. Critical to the discursive constructions of rights and the articulations of universal registers for mobilizing around rights are the interplays of power and control. The call offers us an invitation to critically engage with the concept of the global as a signifier attached to disrupting and consolidating communication, attending to the unequal patterns in global distributions of power and the ways in which these patterns are intertwined with mobilizations around questions of disrupting and consolidating communication.
The relationship between the universal and the cultural is of critical importance in disciplinary engagement with questions of disrupting and consolidating communication. Disrupting and consolidating stereotypical discourses are fundamentally raced, deeply intertwined with the overarching projects of colonialism and racial capitalism, and reworked into the extractive logic of extreme neoliberal capitalism. Settler colonies have deployed constructions of racial and ethnic facets to mobilize occupations, creating extractive zones and building ever-expansive enclosed spaces for extreme exploitation of disposable labor. Contemporary imperial formations continue to organize around disrupting and consolidating language to militarize spaces, mobilize occupations, and create spaces for profiteering for neoliberal capitalism. Race and culture are constructed as static essentialisms, turned into sites of intervention under the language of human rights. Simultaneously, the language of culture is deployed by postcolonial elites to perpetuate oppressive practices that threaten human rights, paradoxically reproducing the whiteness of the settler colonial apparatus and facilitating the expansion of extractive global capital. Difference is manufactured as a tool for silencing claims to rights from the margins.
Recognizing these foundational tensions that animate critical conversations around disrupting and consolidating communication, we ask, what are the interplays of race, ethnicity and communication in the theoretical registers underpinning disrupting and consolidating communication? How do critical engagements with race, ethnicity and power shape the conceptual terrains for engaging with questions of disrupting and consolidating communication? We note here the contemporary significance of building transformative registers for disrupting and consolidating communication amidst the profound challenges of climate colonialism, rising hate, growing global inequalities, pandemics, hunger, depleting democracies, accelerated proliferation of Islamophobia, attacks on migrant rights, rapidly escalating militarization, expansion of the surveillance state, and wars. What are the possibilities of disrupting and consolidating communication from positions of ethnic and racial marginalization when the hegemonic structures are organized to silence dissent? How does a decolonizing framework for disrupting and consolidating communication shape the organizing of communities at the raced margins?
This theme offers an opening for activist and intellectual interventions within and across different contexts and cultures that complicate the concept of disrupting and consolidating communication, situating it in analyses of power and control, and turning to critical readings of the raced context of disrupting and consolidating communication. The Division encourages submissions that engage with the conference theme vis-à-vis the continuing and intersecting disrupting and consolidating communication, situated in relationship with proliferating disinformation and hate on platforms, the inequalities mobilized and entrenched by the pandemic, and the exponential growth of authoritarian techniques of repression that disrupt and consolidate communication. These works might reflect on the role of disrupting and consolidating communication in the constructions and negotiations of intersectional margins, in the mobilization of anti-racist interventions, and in the empirical engagement with human rights in decolonizing research methods. Also, we invite scholarship that examines the ways in which the conceptualization and mobilization of human rights are intertwined with white supremacy, settler colonialism, postcolonial nationalism, anti-minority racism, and anti-migrant sentiments, and simultaneously offer registers for dismantling these systems of marginalization.
Submission Formats
All submissions MUST follow the APA 7th edition style of formatting and citations.
o Research Papers: These types of submissions should present complete papers on previously unpublished work on a topic of clear interest to members of the Division. Papers should not exceed 8000 words, including references (not counting tables). All submissions must provide a title, a 150-word abstract summarizing the topic and scholarly significance of the paper, and two or three keywords that identify the thematic focus of the work. All information identifying the author(s), including name(s), institutional affiliation(s), etc. must be removed. Student papers should be clearly marked as such on the title page. Submissions should indicate if the paper may be included on the Division’s interactive paper (poster) sessions for the 2025 conference (details below).
o Paper Panels: These proposals should include up to four papers organized around a coherent theme that will be of clear interest to members of the Division. If submitters wish to include a Discussant for the panel, proposals should name the same person to serve as Chair and/or Discussant. Panel proposals shouldinclude contributions from at least two different countries, feature gender balance, and include not more than one contributor from a single faculty, department or school. These submissions require a 400-word rationale and a 75-word description (for the conference program) summarizing the topic and scholarly significance of the session, two or three keywords that identify the thematic focus of the session, and suggested divisional and interest group co-sponsors. Proposals should include names and institutional affiliations for each participant as well as a title and 150- word abstract for each paper to be featured in the session.
o Extended Abstracts: These types of submissions should present extended abstracts on previously unpublished work on a topic of clear interest to members of the Division. The abstract would typically include information about the purpose, novelty or knowledge gap being addressed, results, conclusions and implications of the work conducted. Abstracts should have a minimum word count of 2500 words and should not exceed 3000 words, excluding references and tables. The Extended Abstract must provide a title, a 150-word abstract summarizing the topic and scholarly significance of the paper, and two or three keywords that identify the thematic focus of the work. All information identifying the author(s), including name(s), institutional affiliation(s), etc. must be removed. Student papers should be clearly marked as such on the title page. Submissions should indicate if the paper may be included in the Division’s media/poster sessions for the 2020 conference (details below). If accepted, the final full paper, based on the prompt for the Research Paper submissions above, must be submitted by Monday, February 12, 2025, at 12:00 Noon EST (ICA Headquarters time). Submissions will be considered complete only with the final full paper submission.
o Interactive Paper (Poster) Session: All research papers and panel proposals submitted to the Division should indicate whether submitters are willing to have their papers included in the Division’s media/poster session for the 2025 conference. Submitters are strongly urged to propose papers that are particularly well suited to the visual/interactive format of the media/poster session and will present their work making the best use of these formats.
o Research escalator: The research escalator session is a chance for scholars with a less developed research idea to be matched with established discussants to help flesh out the ideas. The goal of the session is to help develop the paper idea into a future conference submission or a journal manuscript. These sessions are often an opportunity for emerging researchers to gain insight from more experienced researchers.
Those interested in participating should submit an extended abstract of up to 1000 words. The successful applicants will be matched with mentors. It is expected that a more fully developed version of the paper will be sent to the mentor 6 weeks prior to the conference (i.e., mid-April) such that they can review the piece.
During the research escalator session, the submitters will make a flash (2 minutes, no slides) presentation of their idea and then spend the bulk of the session in discussion with their mentors for small group interaction.
To get a sense of these sessions please take a look at the video produced by the Children Adolescents and Media session at https://youtu.be/Pypa_EYuGG8.
Please note: Be sure and select Research Escalator when submitting your work, or it will be reviewed like a high-density extended abstract. If you have a preferred mentor or would like a mentor with a specific type of expertise (e.g., methodological expertise), please note this on the first page of the research escalator abstract.
Exclusive Submission
The papers or panel proposals submitted to ERIC may not be submitted to any other ICA Division or Interest Group. Submitters can submit one paper, extended abstract or panel proposal, as the first author and up to three different papers, extended abstracts and/or panel proposals as an author not in the first position in collaborative works to ERIC. Please note that the paper, at the time of submission, should not have been published in the public domain (e.g. in a journal or edited collection).
Deadlines
All submissions are due online on WEDNESDAY, 1 NOVEMBER, 2024 at 12:00 Noon EST (ICA Headquarters time). This deadline is strictly enforced. To reach the conference website, go to the ICA home page at http://www.icahdq.org and follow the link for 2025 Conference Submission section, which includes the general guidelines and instructions. It is essential that you read those guidelines and instructions carefully and prepare your submission prior to logging on to prevent being timed-out or related glitches. To avoid technical problems, early submission is strongly encouraged. Acceptance/rejection notices will be sent directly by ICA to submitters by mid-January 2025.
Awards for Top Papers, Travel
Based on submission ranks as yielded through the review process, ERIC will confer “top paper” awards for the two highest ranked papers. There are separate awards for faculty and student papers. The Division will also offer student travel awards based on ranking and financial need. In order to be considered for any award, the recipient must be a member of ERIC and should write directly to the Division Chair, Mohan Dutta at M.J.Dutta@masey.ac.nz. They should provide a short explanation (max. 400 words) describing the circumstances the student is facing with regard to fulfilling the financial aspect of conference travel. More details on how to apply for these awards will be sent to all members once the decisions on papers/panels have been released by the ICA.
Publication Opportunity in Collaboration with Communication, Culture and Critique
ERIC has a publication collaboration with the ICA journal Communication, Culture and Critique (CCC) to select the strongest student-only submissions appropriate for the scope of CCC. These submissions will be recommended for publication in Communication, Culture and Critique. All student-only submissions to the Division will be automatically considered for this, as long as they meet the eligibility requirements. More details about this collaboration will be sent to all members in September.
Awards for Outstanding Thesis and Outstanding Book Chapter/Journal Article
This year, ERIC will be soliciting nominations for its very first Outstanding Thesis Award and Outstanding Book Chapter/Journal Article Award. The nominated theses and book chapters/journal articles should be about ethnicity/race and should have been written by authors who are members of the Division. More details about these awards will be sent to all members in September.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about the ICA 2025 ERIC submission process, please contact program planner Yossi David at davidyos@bgu.ac.il; davidyossi4@gmail.com
| DIV/IG KEYWORDS | ||