Call for Papers: Migrant Artistic Communities: Transnational Trajectories and Practices of Inclusion (Panel)

As part of VII CHAM International Conference On the Move – Diasporas, Mobilities and Transcultural Practices in a Changing World, (Lisbon, 15-17 April 2026) we will be convening a panel on Migrant Artistic Communities: Transnational Trajectories and Practices of Inclusion (P03).

Since 2017, migrant theatre and performance artists formed advocacy networks addressing cultural participation, self-representation, and political agency within a fractured pan-European space. In the UK for instance, migrant theatre networks developed policy visions in the context of Brexit; and in Portugal, the Union of Black Artists (UNA) put forward strategies on decolonisation of artistic and institutional practices against racism and xenophobia. In Germany and France, migrant artists’ alliances built on a substantial history of migrant and diasporic movements such as the Turkish theatre movement in Germany, or the various Afropean theatre alliances and resistance movements in France since the 1980s, underpinning an organisational building that allowed for new intersectional approaches to emerge. Recent developments in postmigrant theory reflected on such approaches, showing the semantic instabilities of national identity constructions as well as institutional building in contemporary migration societies. Prompting a rethinking of cultural strategies, artistic networks are active in building complex transnational connections across diverse cultural actors and communities, acting as sites of transgression and de-territorialisation.

Facilitated by Migrant Dramaturgies Network, this panel will draw on a wide array of artistic-cultural productions emerging from migrant artistic communities, discussing the aesthetic and political strategies developed and mobilised in their cultural frameworks after the so-called ‘European refugee crisis’. Contributors to this panel are encouraged to engage with emerging migrant artistic positions on pan-European cultural ecologies and social shifts, reflecting on the unique vantage point these artistic communities offer over existing cultural canons and practices of exclusion and inclusion.

Keywords: Migrant arts networks; Migrant cultural production; Transnational theatre and performance; Practices of inclusion and exclusion

Submit your paper proposal by 30 September 2025 at: https://shorturl.at/eK6xy