Annual Congress of the Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CALACS)
May 13th – 15th, 2027
Hosted by CERLAC, York University
Toronto, Ontario
Call for Papers
Latin America and the Caribbean stand at a critical juncture. Across the region, democratic institutions face mounting pressure from authoritarian retrenchment, the erosion of citizens' rights, attacks on hard-won multicultural citizenship regimes, the rise of fundamentalist far-right movements, and resurgent populisms. These developments are increasingly enabled by lawfare, digital surveillance, transnational repression, and other forms of technology-driven authoritarian control. They unfold amid a wider geopolitical reconfiguration, marked by intensified United States influence, evolving regional security doctrines, and the continued entrenchment of extractivist and neo-extractivist models of accumulation. The Caribbean, in particular, sits at the center of converging and often contradictory pressures: the accelerating climate crisis, unresolved demands for reparatory justice, and uneven efforts toward regional integration. Together, these forces create a moment of acute vulnerability but also one of profound political possibility.
These pressures are being met by countervailing forces that are reshaping the region. Across rural, coastal, and urban settings alike, innovative practices of resistance, activism, and memory-making are redefining political and social life. Movements for oceanic justice and territorial defence, together with diverse ontological and epistemological traditions, challenge conventional understandings of development and politics and create space for alternative visions of collective life. Feminist and queer movements, as well as migrant and diasporic communities organizing across borders, are similarly redrawing the boundaries of political belonging and solidarity. Socio-territorial struggles are especially significant for their capacity to sustain collective action, mobilize action, and generate pedagogical and practical innovations over time.
These struggles are also waged on the terrain of memory itself. Hegemonic narratives — often constructed to legitimize state violence, dictatorship, and dispossession — are increasingly unsettled by clandestine, subaltern, and counter-hegemonic memories that contest official HIStories and demand accountability. The relationship among memory, plural memories and counter-memory accompanies a broader rethinking of justice. Movements are advancing pluri-jurisdictional and legally pluralist models — including Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and community-based justice systems — that challenge the state's monopoly over what counts as justice and who holds the authority to administer it.
CALACS 2027 invites papers, panels, workshops, roundtables, book presentations and creative interventions that engage with this moment of rupture and reinvention. We warmly welcome participants from Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean, and their diasporas — including established scholars, graduate students, early-career researchers, artists, activists, policymakers and practitioners. We are particularly interested in work that crosses disciplinary boundaries, engages non-academic and community-based knowledge, and experiments with new forms of scholarly and public engagement. We especially encourage new and emerging voices to bring their questions, methods, and perspectives into the conversation.
We welcome contributions on (but not limited to):
- Authoritarianism, lawfare, and digital surveillance
- Citizenship, rights, and multicultural regimes under threat
- U.S. hemispheric influence and regional security doctrines
- Climate crisis and environmental (in)justice in the Caribbean and in Latin America
- Reparatory justice and regional integration
- Oceanic justice and territorial defense
- Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and onto-epistemic worldviews
- Urban- rural relations, socio-spatial inequalities, and inter-connected struggles
- Feminist, queer, and migrant/diasporic organizing
- Socio-territorial struggles, memory, and pedagogies of resistance
- Hegemonic, clandestine/subaltern and counter-hegemonic memories; contested histories
- Legal pluralism and pluri-jurisdictional forms of justice
- Extractivism, neo-extractivism, and alternative development models
The CALACS congress will be hosted by our colleagues at the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) at York University in Toronto, Ontario, from May 13-15, 2027. Under the theme "Memory, Justice and the Reconfiguration of the Americas” the 2027 CALACS congress invites a critical reflectionon how political orders, collective identities, territories and forms of justice are being contested and remade. We invite reflections that engage with pressing and interconnected dynamics that examine democratic reconfigurations, intersectional alliances, socio-territorial movements, Afro-Indigenous resistance, oceanic justice, feminist and queer mobilization, migration and diaspora, digital surveillance, transnational repression, and technology-driven authoritarianism. We encourage submissions attentive to the intersections of gender, race, class, generation, disability, sexuality, and legal status across the region and its diasporas.
We welcome submissions for individual papers, panels, workshops, roundtable conversations, book presentations, and artistic or research-creation works. Contributions from artists, filmmakers, performers, policymakers, activists, community knowledge holders and scholars working in creative and non-traditional formats are strongly encouraged. The principal working language of the conference will be English, but we will consider proposals for presentations in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese. Proposals must be submitted via this Google form by October 31, 2026 at 11:59 pm EST.
Submissions should be send through this webform: https://forms.gle/ggpSs5ytJhsmYJQB9
For more information, contact calacs@yorku.ca or congress@can-latam.org
- Individual paper proposals should include the presenter(s) and institutional or community affiliation(s), a presentation title, and an abstract of no more than 200 words. Apply Here
- Panel proposals should include the organizer’s name(s) and affiliation(s), a panel title and brief description of the panel, the names and affiliations of all participants and an abstract of no more than 200 words. Panels may comprise four to eight participants and may be organized in one or two linked sessions. Proposals should indicate the intended session structure. Apply Here
- Roundtable proposals should include the organizer’s name(s) and affiliation(s), a title and description of the central question and format, and the names and affiliations of all participants. Roundtables may include five to eight participants. Apply Here
- Workshop proposals should include the organizer's name(s) and affiliation(s), a title, a description, the objectives of the intended audience, the proposed duration and format, and any material, accessibility, space, or technical requirements needed. Apply Here
- Book presentation proposals should include the author’s or editor’s name(s) and affiliation(s), complete bibliographic information, and a brief description of the book’s contribution. The eligible publication years are 2026 and first semester of 2027. Apply Here
- Artistic and research-creation proposals should explain their relationship to the congress theme and include the creator’s name and affiliation, a title, a description of no more than 200 words, the proposed presentation or installation format, and any accessibility, space, material, or technical requirements. Apply Here
Land acknowledgement of the conference venue: First Nations peoples have lived on this part of Turtle Island for millennia, stewarding the land, the water and all that contributes to life in this region. Today, the culture and presence of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples enrich the lands and people of this territory.
More than two centuries ago, the Mississauga people welcomed settlers to this territory, providing sustenance and engaging in trade and commerce. Between 1781 and 1820, eight treaties were signed between the Crown and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, who opened their territory to settlement. Today, York University’s Keele Campus is located on Toronto Purchase Treaty, No. 13 lands and is situated on the traditional territory of the Huron-Wendat and Haudenosaunee.
Treaty history is foundational, and it is our collective responsibility to honour the land, as we honour and respect those who have gone before us, those who are here and those who have yet to come. We are grateful for the opportunity to be learning, working and thriving on this land, and we commit to learn the truth and be active in the process of reconciliation.