Cambridge, United Kingdom
17 October 2025
Deadline for applications – 30 August 2025
The Catalysts for Decolonisation research lab are holding a one-day conference on October 17th 2025, in the Allison Richard Building at the University of Cambridge. Empire, colonialism, and anticolonialism have been central drivers of world history for the past centuries, and they continue to shape present day realities. From ongoing practices of settler colonialism, through to climate colonialism, economic imperialism, and resurgent far-right nationalisms drawing upon imageries of empire, it seems to be obvious that ‘empire’ and ‘colonialism’ have never gone away. At the same time, we are in a moment of history where we are also witnessing a proliferation of resistance against empire and colonialism: from the halls of universities (as seen in the Palestine encampments) through to frontline battles against settlers, militarized violence, and nefarious capital. Di erent disciplines across the arts, humanities, and social sciences have highlighted di erent dimensions of these processes of colonialism and anti-colonialism. At this one-day conference, we hope to put these di erent disciplines in conversation with one another, taking the strongest tools from di erent disciplines, such that we can produce a truly interdisciplinary understanding of empire, colonialism, anti-colonialism, and decolonization. With this in mind, we are issuing this call for papers for presenters from across the arts, humanities, and social sciences, open to presenters at all career stages. We welcome expressions of interest in all areas related to empire, colonialism, anti-colonialism, and decolonization, including (but not limited to):
• Historical and comparative accounts of empire, colonialism, anti-colonialism, and decolonization.
• Tracing material forms of resistance to empire.
• Conceptual and empirical work highlighting the importance of anticolonial thought and practice.
• Considerations of the role of universities (and education broadly) in anti/colonialism and decolonization.
• Tracing links between the social, political, cultural, and economic organisations of metropoles and colonies.
• Provocations and discussions of ongoing practices of colonization / anti-colonialism.
At the end of the event we will come together to produce a conference manifesto, which will be shared publicly on the Catalysts for Decolonisation webpage.
Submission
Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words, along with a title for the proposed presentation, and a brief author biography.
Submissions should be sent to [email protected] by 30 August. We will communicate decisions on the papers by the second week of September.
Please note, a limited amount of travel bursaries will be made available. Further information will be communicated about this at the time of paper acceptances.
