Popular representations of diversity and belonging in the Netherlands

    • Final Consortium Meeting

    Final Consortium Meeting

    Call for Papers

    Re/Present!

    Re/Presentation in Practice: Inclusion beyond stereotypes, healing beyond rhetoric, Europe beyond exclusion

    What does it mean to change representations and, in doing so, change social realities? How can we think such a possibility, practice it, perform it and teach it on local-global sports fields, in hip hop cyphers, in classrooms and in public discourse? The research consortium Re/Presenting Europe examined these questions in our collaborative work on representation, belonging, and diversity in postcolonial and diasporic Europe. Our five-year funding period is coming to an end, and we invite you to share work in these areas and think together as we conclude ours.

    Where: Utrecht, Basecamp (Pauwstraat 13a) and the Bibliotheek Neude (Neude 11)

    When: 27-29 May 2027 Proposals Due: 25 October 2026

    Proposal form here

    This international conference will showcase work on representations and practices that contest systematic racialisation and unsettle stereotyping. It will focus on dominant domains of representation and practice, notably: education, sports and popular musicking, including dance. We situate our research in theorisations and analyses of racialisation and representation in the wake of European colonialism that reveal damage. We emphasise healing and reparative, inclusive, more accurate, and community-centred knowledges and practices. A necessary part of this conference, then, will be to offer and invite methodological papers that discuss co-creative, consultative, reflective processes when we engage with communities that have been othered and misrepresented in mainstream and popular domains. We invite reflection, comparison, and comparative, transnational research on these topics.

    We invite proposals for research presentations. We welcome both individual paper proposals and complete panel proposals. There is a limited amount of space for workshops and roundtables – please contact organisers directly if this interests you. 

    Possible subthemes and questions:

    • Research on the tension between positive and inclusive expressions of belonging, and those that stereotype or racialise. These submissions should connect with education, sports, music or health – highly visible sites of representation that have profound reach and impact in society.
    • Methodological reflections on how Black and othered populations co-create positive, constructive, expressive, and joyous practices that shape/shaped the Netherlands andEurope.
    • Embodied knowledge and forms of expression and their location in relation to formal academic production and community expertise.
    • Analyses of classroom practices, language, and content that exclude/include formerly colonised, ethnically minoritised and/or racialised populations in High Schools and Universities. The related societal problem of alienation and lack of belonging among “othered” groups in academia. Papers examining teachers’ language, relationships with students, and culturally-informed expectations for behaviour as constructive of – or challenging – normative representations of national and European identity.
    • Research examining the connections between representation and differential societal outcomes resulting from structural racism and colonial exploitation. Can representation alone achieve societal change?
    • Addresses lived-experience voices in scholarship. Analyses of, and methods for addressing, the problem that scholarly critiques of racialisation and social construction have not sufficiently included input from those whose everyday experience is shaped by them. In contrast, research and showcases of how community groups have provided experiences of ‘being seen’ and ‘belonging’, and analyses in the dominant domains listed above.
    • Alternative/Complementary to Western Biomedical ways of addressing healing and health of diverse populations.

    Submission guidelines

    Proposals include an abstract (200-250 words), a short bio (100 words), and contact information. Please submit through this form by 25 October 2026. We will send notifications of selected papers in the following weeks.

    Questions

    Should you have any questions about the call for papers or the conference, please do not hesitate to reach out to the organisers:

    Isabella Hall Allen (i.w.a.hallallen@uu.nl) Irene Bouwman ( i.bouwman@uu.nl)