Conference Theme: “(Re)Membering & ( Re)Storing Resistance in Ethnic Studies”
When: 31st October – 3rd November 2024
Where: California State University
The oldest ethnic studies association in the United States, the Association for Ethnic Studies (AES), was founded in 1972. A non-profit organization, AES provides an interdisciplinary forum for scholars and activists concerned with the national and international dimensions of race and ethnicity. The Association welcomes scholars and teachers at all educational levels, students, libraries, civic and governmental organizations, and all persons interested in ethnicity, ethnic groups, intergroup relations, and the cultural life of ethnic minorities. As a non-profit corporation, AES provides a vehicle for interested members and donors to promote responsible scholarship and advocacy in the diverse fields of inquiry which constitute ethnic studies.
The Association for Ethnic Studies (AES) invites community leaders, teachers, students, academics, early scholars, teacher practitioners and grass root organizers to join us for the 52nd annual AES conference focusing on: (Re)Membering & Restoring Resistance in Ethnic Studies. The Conference will consist of film screening, paper and panel presentations, and workshops. AES is an avant garde committed to drawing upon ethnic studies scholarship and praxis to address questions facing Black, Chicana/o/x, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian American, immigrant, Arab, Muslim, transgender/genderqueer, and marginalized communities. Conference ocall upon Ethnic Studies communities to (re)member and restore resistance through humanizing and liberatory theories, methodologies, and pedagogies to study and challenge how the contemporary social and political context has diminished, targeted, and appropriated our commitments to social transformation.
This year’s theme draws upon Cynthia B. Dillard and Amber M. Neil’s (2021) “Still Following Our North Star: The Necessity of Black Women’s Spiritual (Re) Membering in Qualitative (Re)search”. Dillard & Neil remind us that:
“(Re)search for Black women begins with a deep, persistent search for one’s self, one’s humanity. It is a spiritual desire to (re)member who we are and whose we are, a courageous search again in the mind, body, and spirit (Dillard, 2006, 2021). When Black women (re)member in qualitative inquiry, our (re)search helps us see ourselves as African people and envision our work more clearly. It likewise alerts us when our humanity is being assaulted. It is our process of examining the spirit of our work and the internal yearnings and questions that drive our inquiry…”
Aligned with Dillard & Neil’s epistemological stance, conference organizers invite ethnic studies practitioners, educators, activists to consider how (re)membering is call to “look both inside and outside of ourselves” (p.1187) and deeply activate our senses to the ancestral, present, and futurist humanities needed to embody Ethnic Studies. Following Revilla (2021), we imagine the possibility of restoration. We consider ethnic studies as a space for restoring and protecting our spirits and renewing our commitments to student and community grassroot movement building through “liberating educational process,” rooted in reconstructing the systems and structures at the center of Western imperialism and Eurocentrism (Hu-Dehart, 1993).
The conference is being hosted by the Department of Ethnic Studies at California State University Bakersfield. The city of Bakersfield, California is a historical location given the associations with residential redlining, school segregation, and farmworker struggles in the surrounding communities (Rosales, 2016).
Abstracts due by August 30, 2024
Full call and more information here
QualPage 