Questions for Antiracist Conference Organizing

Dr. Sumyat Thu University of Washington, Seattle

Rethinking how we take up conference genres

• Keynote speech genre, for example:
  • What might be inadvertent ways that this traditional conferencing genre reinforce the White patriarchal values of isolative individualism, objectivity, and detached, rational discourse?
  • If you are to take up this keynote speech genre as a conference organizer, what might be intentional ways of organizing the genre so that it leads to a more collaborative, antiracist, and equity-minded space of learning and knowledge making through the keynote?
  • Remembering that the keynote speech traditionally serves as a focal point of the conference to provide rich ways of thinking and talking about the conference theme, what might be different ways of taking up this genre to work toward this goal?
• Call for more inclusive, antiracist knowledge making:
  • In the CFP (call for uptake), how can we structure and foster ways of knowledge making, communicating, and sharing that engage the whole body?
  • How can we foster ways of knowledge making and sharing that are not narrowed in on academic arguments and invite various culturally-affirming forms of meaning-making such as inquiry-based narratives, storytelling/sharing, reflections, embodied and movement-based meaning making?

  • How can race-based affinity group conversations be held as part of the conference for attendees to make connections and process together the conferencing experience?

Working toward publicly-engaged scholarship

• Does conferencing function as a space for knowledge sharing and producing for academics only? Can it also be a space of inviting the larger community within and beyond the university and learning from each other? Can it be a space of orienting towards making publicly-engaged scholarship?
• How can we foster conversations and collaborations among academics, student activists, and community organizers?
• How can we help facilitate relationship and coalition building among these different stakeholders?
• How can publicly-engaged scholarship contribute to the goal of making antiracist conferences?
• What might be our responsibility and possible contributions to local sites and communities where the conference takes place?

Practicing equitable conferencing experience

• Conferences can often function as performative spaces of professionalism and prestige, perpetuating the characteristics of White, male dominant culture. Instead, how can we help organize and practice conferencing as a space of collective recognition, belonging, sharing, and celebration?
• In physical conferences with registration fees, how can financial barriers be mitigated for scholars and attendees especially of marginalized and less institutionally supported backgrounds?
• In providing food and refreshments at physical conferences, how can multicultural inclusiveness be considered as part of feeding our bodies at the conference?
• How can we create spaces of learning and support, especially prioritizing the visibility of BIPOC scholars, multilingual (non-native English speaking) scholars, and scholars of international and immigrant identities?
• How can access be practiced as an integrative part of how we communicate to each other while recognizing that people have different access needs?

• How can mindfulness or meditative reflection breaks be incorporated as part of the conference as a time and space for checking in with ourselves and our emotions to better practice rhetorical, mindful listening and speaking with each other?