Tag: South Africa

CFP ICA Preconference: Rethinking Global Discourses of Racial Inequality (South Africa)

ConferencesCall for abstracts: Preconference: Rethinking Global Discourses of Racial Inequality, 4 June 2026, Cape Town South Africa. Submission deadline: 15 February 2026.

Organizers invite submissions for an in-person pre-conference titled, “Rethinking Global Discourses of Racial Inequality,” at the International Communication Association’s 2026 meeting, jointly organized by the Language & Social Interaction (LSI), Intercultural Communication (ICC), and Ethnicity & Race in Communication (ERIC) divisions.

This pre-conference responds to the current global moment, marked by intersecting discourses of racism, resistance, justice, and empowerment. Across societies, renewed attention to racial inequalities has sparked calls to reimagine the conceptual and methodological tools we use to study how race is constituted, normalized, and contested in communication practices.

Their aim is to create an interdisciplinary and supportive space where all participants (particularly students and early-career scholars) can share their work, receive constructive feedback, and build networks for collaboration across divisions and disciplines. By bringing together scholars from LSI, ICC, and ERIC, organizers seek to advance cross-divisional dialogue and develop innovative approaches to understanding and transforming global discourses of race and inequality.

CFP ICA 2026: Intercultural Communication Division (South Africa)

ConferencesCall for papers: Intercultural Communication Division, International Communication Association, Cape Town, South Africa, 4-8 June 2026. Deadline: 1 November 2025.

“The Intercultural Communication (ICC) Division welcomes research that applies, extends, or develops theory, method, and analysis to explore how communication intersects with culture in local, national, international, and transnational contexts. We are committed to supporting interdisciplinary research that examines culture, identity, history, and geopolitical relations, and especially invite work grounded in non-Western, decolonial, Indigenous, and underrepresented perspectives from across the globe.

This year’s conference theme, “Communication and Inequalities in Context,” calls on us to reckon with how communication both reflects and reproduces the deep structural inequalities that mark our world. For intercultural communication scholars, this theme underscores the urgency of examining how power operates across and within cultural boundaries through colonial legacies, migration policies, linguistic hierarchies, digital divides, and uneven access to resources. These dynamics are not abstract: they shape people’s lives, sense of belonging, and ability to communicate with dignity and agency.

We therefore invite submissions that interrogate how intercultural communication research can confront, resist, or reimagine these inequalities. What communicative practices foster solidarity, healing, and justice across borders? How do marginalized communities navigate cultural difference amid systemic oppression? What responsibilities do scholars bear in addressing epistemic, material, and institutional imbalances within the field itself? How can our work amplify the voices, languages, and knowledges that are often silenced?

In line with the theme, the ICC Division seeks submissions that ask bold, justice-centered questions and that push our field to think more critically about how we engage difference, power, and global inequities. We particularly encourage contributions that attend to intercultural communication as a site of both struggle and possibility in the face of rising authoritarianism, climate crisis, digital surveillance, and social unrest.”

CFP ICA 2026: Regional Hubs

ConferencesCall for proposals of Regional Hubs to complement International Communication Association convention, Cape Town, South Africa, 4-8 June 2026. Deadline: 1 November 2025.

In conjunction with the 76th Annual ICA Conference (ICA26) on 4-8 June 2026 in Cape Town, South Africa, ICA will once again welcome Regional Hubs worldwide to host events concurrent with the annual ICA conference. ICA’s Regional Hubs offers a window into ICA – its community and scholarship. They provide communication scholars in various regions around the world an opportunity to foster community and build intellectual networks. It reflects ICA’s commitment to welcome and support a broader global community of communication scholars.

While there is no substitute for an in-person experience at an ICA conference, organizers recognize that a significant and growing proportion of current and potential ICA membership resides in the Global South, making travel to in-person attendance inaccessible due to fiscal, political, environmental, health, and other hurdles.

In response to these concerns, ICA’s Regional Hubs Initiative offers a window into ICA – its community and scholarship. The Regional Hubs also provide communication scholars in various Regions around the world an opportunity to foster community and build intellectual networks. It reflects ICA’s commitment to welcome and support a broader global community of communication scholars. Since its inception at the virtual ICA 2021 and continuing at the hybrid conferences in ICA22, ICA23, ICA24, and ICA25, each year, the organization has hosted around 10 ICA Regional Hubs.

Regional Hubs host sessions for regional submissions, with some Hubs receiving over 100 submissions, from which some were selected for oral presentation and others for posters. Most of the Hubs hosted themed workshops and invited lectures from local and global scholars, including some who joined from other Regional Hubs and others from the main ICA Conference location.

Some Hubs live-streamed presentations and sessions from the primary conference location (Paris in 2022, Toronto in 2023, Gold Coast in 2024, and Denver in 2025) and organized local panels to facilitate discussion around them. A few organized Blue Sky workshops or workshops on special topics such as scholarly publishing, submitting grants, and scholarship applications. Some Hubs live-streamed their locally-originated events on platforms such as Facebook and YouTube and often garnered considerable local media coverage. In some cases, the Hubs hosted those presenting papers selected for the ICA conference remotely from their locations. Finally, after the selection of Hubs, some Hubs collaborated on organizing joint Hub-to-Hub sessions.

CFP ICA 2026: Communication and Inequalities in Context (South Africa)

ConferencesCall for papers: Communication and Inequalities in Context, International Communication Association, Cape Town, South Africa, 4-8 June 2026. Deadline: 1 November 2025.

The ICA 2026 conference theme invites critical reflection on the dynamics between communication and inequality and its tensions across different social, cultural and geographical backgrounds. As such, it is a call to engage with research exploring the deep divisions and existing interpersonal, institutional, and structural inequalities in our societies.

In a world shaped by the unequal distribution of political, economic, societal, cultural, and communication resources, considering the complex architecture of global inequalities remains a critical issue. Communication scholars have long recognized how structural divides shape all communication processes, from persistent barriers rooted in historical inequities to emerging forms of digital exclusion and fragmentation. Today, as disinformation, extremism, polarization, hate, oppression, and algorithmic discrimination pose global challenges, the specific contexts in which people encounter these phenomena–including political institutions, media systems, regulatory capacity, and social norms—may fundamentally shape their lived experiences. Thus, it becomes crucial to examine how and under what conditions these forces unevenly affect different communities and individuals across multiple domains of life and in various geographical and cultural settings. For example, communication barriers may impact disaster preparedness and response in vulnerable individuals; the increasing complexity of digital literacy requirements constitutes a significant threat to inclusion, and global internet governance and infrastructure decisions create and amplify disparities between and within different nations and communities.

Such inequalities and power dynamics are also expressed within/across communication research. From gender gaps in publications and language barriers for scholars from non-English-speaking countries to the invisibility of knowledge produced in the Global South and calls to de-Westernize communication research, several divides in communication in terms of the subject of study, the body of evidence, analytical frameworks, and academic cultures limits our ability to gain insights relevant to the current global social and political condition.

In this spirit, organizers invite submissions for papers and panel proposals that address the conference theme along the lines outlined here. Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following issues and topics:

*The evolving landscape of the relationship between communication and inequality.
*Conceptualizations and theorizations of communication inequality and inclusion/exclusion.
*The dynamics and implications of enduring inequalities and new divides for communication scholarship in different settings.
*Broader social and communicational outcomes of communication divides.
*Tensions and intersectionality of power hierarchies in communication.
*Algorithmic biases and marginalization (e.g., algorithmic decisions reinforcing disparities faced by marginalized groups; societal implications of algorithmic; data inequality, algorithmic fairness).
*Cross-border communication inequalities.
*Inequalities across and within communication research, including power imbalances in knowledge production within the field, and differences in opportunities, resources, and capacities among researchers, institutions, and regions.

Stellenbosch U: Webinar on African Perspectives on Intercultural Competence (South Africa but online)

EventsAfrican Perspectives on Intercultural Competence. UNESCO Chair on Intercultural Competences, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

The UNESCO Chair on Intercultural Competences hosted by Stellenbosch University is pleased to announce a monthly webinar series on “African Perspectives on Intercultural Competence.”

The May monthly webinar will be held on 22 May 2025, 15:00 Central African Time (CAT): “Fostering Intercultural Competencies Through Culture and Arts Education in Africa” presented by Chief Moomen (Ghana), Poet, playwright and creative producer; and Jill Pribyl (Uganda), UNESCO Chair of Dance for Global Citizenship Education. Moderated by Cristina Cusenza of UNESCO. Open to all interested colleagues. Register here.

The July webinar will be held 24 July 2025: “Intercultural Competences for Peacebuilding in Africa: Road to Global Peace,” presented by Dr. George Mutalema, founding director of the Africa Peace and Development Network. Register here.

CFP World Anthropological Union (South Africa)

Conferences

Call for papers: World Anthropological Union, 11-15 November 2024, University of Johannesburg, South Africa (in person). Deadline: 31 January 2024.

Reimagining Anthropological Knowledge: Join others in Johannesburg, South Africa, from November 11th to 15th, 2024, for a transformative exploration of anthropological knowledge under the theme: “Reimagining Anthropological Knowledge: Perspectives, Practices, and Power.” Organizers invite you to contribute your insights to this groundbreaking event organized by Anthropology Southern Africa and hosted by the University of Johannesburg.

Key Themes for Panel Proposals:
– Changing fields of anthropological subdisciplines
– Politics of producing social, cultural, linguistic, biological, and paleo-anthropological knowledge
– Post-covid practices in anthropological knowledge-making
– Digital worlds and the role of new technologies in fieldwork
– Legitimacy of museums and collections as knowledge repositories
– Truth and/or post-truth in knowledge-making and representation
– Anthropology as the humbling practice of learning
– Tensions between local and academic knowledge production
– Disaggregating local knowledges in light of critical decolonial perspectives
– Challenges and successes of the decolonial imperative

CFP: 8th Int’l Conference on Multicultural Discourses (South Africa)

Conferences

Call for papers: 8th International Conference on Multicultural Discourses: The Choice/Voice of cooperation in the Post-Pandemic World, 26-28 October, 2023, Cape Town, South Africa. Deadline: 30 August 2023.

The 8th International Conference on Multicultural Discourses, under the auspices of the International Association of Multicultural Discourses, will be co-organised by the Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS), the University of the Western Cape (UWC), South Africa, and the School of Contemporary Chinese Discourse Studies, Hangzhou Normal University, China. The theme of this year’s conference is “The Choice/Voice of Cooperation in the Post-pandemic World.” The event will be hosted by the University of the Western Cape at the Life Sciences Auditorium, University of the Western Cape (UWC), Robert Sobukwe Rd, Bellville, Cape Town, South Africa, October 26 – 28, 2023.

Deadline for submission of abstracts and panel proposals: 30 August, 2023. Notification of acceptance will be sent out not later than 10 September 2023 for the abstracts received before the closing date, the rest will receive feedback as they are received.

CFP Global Knowledge Exchange Preconference (South Africa)

ConferencesCall for submission: Global Knowledge Exchange Preconference @ ICA in Africa, Cape Town, South Africa, 15 November 2023. Deadline: 30 June 2023.

The Global Knowledge Exchange Preconference at the 2023 ICA in Africa regional conference in South Africa is designed to facilitate mutually beneficial knowledge exchange without reinforcing systemic inequities in academia. It does so by bringing together emerging and senior scholars both within and outside the African continent into structured conversations with each other about how best to study media and communication in Africa.

Participants will be placed into four-member cohort groups consisting of an emerging scholar based in Africa, an emerging scholar studying Africa from outside the continent, a senior scholar based in Africa, and a senior scholar studying Africa from outside the continent. Cohort groups will be organized around research interests. Cohorts are not expected to engage in collaborative research; rather, the goal is to nurture and develop each member’s own research projects and interests by recognizing the various ways members can learn from each other.

The preconference schedule will include dedicated time for each group member to discuss and receive detailed feedback on a current or future research project. It will also include presentations and discussions about topics such as how to offer constructive feedback, project development, research collaboration, and geographic disparities in scholarly knowledge production.

CFP Language, Multilingualism, & Decolonization Practices in Higher Education (South Africa)

ConferencesCall for Papers: Language, Multilingualism, and Decolonization Practices
in Higher Education, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa, 12-14 July, 2023. Deadline: 28 February 2023.

The Academy for Multilingualism invites proposals for papers and posters to be presented at an international conference on Language, Multilingualism, and Decolonization Practices in Higher Education. The purpose of this conference is to bring together academics, researchers, and higher education practitioners working on diverse projects on language, multilingualism and decolonization in higher education institutions. The aim is to promote discussion at the intersections of language, multilingualism, and decolonization practices in higher education. To share and foster theoretical and practical approaches to enhance knowledge exchange between academics, researchers, and higher education practitioners of diverse languages. To gain a better understanding of the intersections of language, multilingualism and decolonization in a changing higher education landscape. Abstracts may be submitted in any official language of South Africa. Should you wish to submit an abstract in a language other than English, please accompany your abstract with an English translation.

CFP 8th International Conference on Multicultural Discourses (South Africa)

ConferencesCall for papers: 8th International Conference on Multicultural Discourses, December 12-14, 2022, University of the Western Cape, Rondebosch, South Africa. Deadline: 1 October 2022 (extended to 15 November 2022).

The 8th International Conference on Multicultural Discourses, under the auspices of the International Association of Multicultural Discourses, will be co-organized by the Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS), the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, and the School of Contemporary Chinese Discourse Studies, Hangzhou Normal University, China. The conference theme will be: The Choice/Voice of Cooperation in the Post-pandemic World.

Mankind is witnessing yet again the centennial moment of global transformation and the world is ridden with grave challenges and great opportunities. To answer to these uncertain winds of change, scholars from diverse fields such as communication, media, language, literature, culture, history, international relations, etc. are invited to offer their insights into topics of, but not restricted to:
· Discourses of globalization, cultural equality, interconnection;
· Discourses of security, conflict, war, peace;
· Discourses of protectionism, (in)tangible borders, immigration, racism;
· Discourses of development, cooperation, common prosperity;
· Discourses of digital, multi-modal, cinematic representations;
· Discourses of nuclear armament, climate change, poverty.