Call for papers for a research panel that is organised by the IMISCOE Standing Committee on Popular Art, Diversity and Cultural Policies in Post-Migration Urban Settings (POPADIVCIT). The panel is to be held at the 14th IMISCOE annual conference in Rotterdam, 28-30 June, 2017.
Since its creation, POPADIVCIT has been interested in examining the various links between arts and migration as well as in exploring the representation of diversity in cultural policies. The previous workshops have been dedicated specifically and separately to the links between music and migration, literature and migration and also to the usage of images in migration and ethnic research.
This year it is proposed to concentrate our investigation on the intersection between music, literature and images through an exploration of three related artistic forms often used both by migrants and/or their descendants as well as by non-migrant urban artists: slam, rap and spoken word. We are interested in whether these fluid artistic forms are particularly apt to (re)present societies in processes of change.
The research panel will be organized in two sessions hosting 2 papers each. The papers should combine theoretical insights into and empirical research on the meaning of these three artistic forms in migration and post-migration societies. Are slam, rap and spoken word relevant modes of expression of the situation migrants and/or their descendants live in? Are they tools in social and political mobilization? Are they tools to inform the non-migrant population on the realities of migration and discrimination? Are they tools for building of new forms of solidarity between people with different ethnic and social backgrounds? Are they spaces of creation of new post-ethnic and post-racial identities?
Theses are some of the questions the papers should tackle from different research perspectives. Rap, slam and spoken word often combine sounds, words and images. They are performed live at different forms of urban artistic events but they are also recorded in videos and diffused on the internet. Visual approaches are therefore particularly interesting in combination or in dialogue with literature studies, music studies, sociology, anthropology and political science.
Proposals should be sent to Marco Martiniello (
Proposers will be informed of whether their paper has been accepted by end of April 2017. Draft papers are due by 15 June 2017.
The standing committee hopes to acquire limited funding for travel and accommodation in Rotterdam for those paper-givers who have no other sources for funding their participation in the workshop.