Call for Papers

This call for papers is now closed

(Un)doing categories

When categories undo themselves and us:
Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

Presentation

Aiming to make its components distinct, observable, and as a consequence controllable, Euro-US modernity remains inseparable from processes of mass objectification of the world. The contemporary importance of "categories" and categorisation for framing and governing societies, individuals and non-human realities depends upon epistemologies and practices of theoretical abstraction, definition, classification, hierarchisation, differentiation and, as such, assignment to a category. The production of tools for understanding and analysing the world must therefore be considered in conjunction with the historical transformation of relations of domination and the imposition of uneven material living conditions (Chow 1998; Curiel 2013; Grosfoguel 2022; Colin and Quiroz 2023).

The conference "Undoing Categories" considers hegemonic categories as attempts to produce, naturalise, and legitimise relations of power and a hierarchical social order in terms of class, race, gender, and sexuality (Scott 1986; Vicente 2021). It is, however, imperative to note that the labour of assigning and maintaining order does not operate without faultlines nor without producing its own margins (Kosofsky Sedgwick 1990; Lemebel 1996; Bento 2006; Cabral 2011; Espinosa Miñoso 2016). It is in this sense that certain bodies, certain entities and certain social movements refuse to subscribe to a normative course, and organise in a manner to make and hold space, or even more radically, to overthrow the existing order.

This conference addresses the current controversies and questions pertaining to the categories of sex, gender and sexuality in their changing relation to race and class as two other vital frameworks. Extending the work on critical epistemologies of feminist, queer and decolonial movements and thinking (Bakshi, Jivraj, and Posocco 2016), it seeks to centre the contemporary crises that cut across these categories, displacing them and even resulting in their collapse. One of the key objectives constitutes developing a critical approach to these categories since their institutional inclusion within French academia remains recent, fragile, and often contested. Given that the processes of racialisation and coloniality pervade and structure these categories (Anzaldúa and Moraga 1981; Mama 1995; Mohanty 2003), the scientific committee especially welcomes proposals that link the category of race and racialisation to sex, gender and sexuality, and/or draw upon decolonial and postcolonial critical approaches.

The aim of the conference is to think with and against the categories of sex, gender and sexuality. The conference will invariably engage with questions of critical import as well as processes of normativisation associated with the inclusion of these categories in existing academic fields of knowledge. It will assess the risks and potential value associated with the conceptual tools of critical thinking of "categories in becoming". In particular, the conference will consider the construction of these categories and their operations, both historically (D'Emilio 1983; Laqueur 1992; Chauncey 1994) and in contemporary debates (Suess 2014; Oso, Grosfoguel, and Christou 2018). It will reflect upon the following questions: How do these categories make and unmake us, as bodies, individuals, and entities. What are the historical and political logics of their transformation and their enactments of (re-)claim, (re-)appropriation, and resistance? What new perspectives do they bring to knowledge, and what are their constitutive limits?

This inter- and trans-disciplinary conference (mainly within the fields of humanities and social sciences) aspires to foster stimulating dialogues in various disciplines (linguistics, philosophy, sociology, history, psychoanalysis, etc.) and epistemologies (feminist and queer theories, decolonial studies, Marxism, etc.)

Conference strands

STRAND 1 – TELLING: Genealogies, archives, epistemologies

Due to their disparate emergence and several transhistorical changes, categories do not remain homogenous monoliths. Histories of sex, gender and sexuality comprise numerous instances of reversals, constitutive heterogeneities, indecisions and epistemic violence (Fausto-Sterling 2000; Davidson 2001; Dorlin 2006; Valentine 2007). The inter-implicated or transversal genealogies of categories make it possible to relate bodies of work that often appear siloed; it is possible, for instance, to read trans-archives in conjunction with those of slavery (Snorton 2017), or reflect upon sexological discourses in relation to imperialist ideology (Bentouhami 2022). The historicisation of contemporary categories then relies on a close relationship to archives (Plumauzille and Rossigneux-Méheust 2014). In this regard, it appears conceivable to think about the constitutive instability of the dominant categories (Stoler 2019) and the reticence to the very processes of archiving (Manalansan 2014) together with how the projects of counter-archives (Sayegh 2021) and community archives (Zimmermann 2018) make it possible to resist cooptation constituted by the categories of power.

STRAND 2 – DECOLONISING: Racialisation and sexuality

Colonial un/thinking in relation to the differences that sustain the very subjects of feminisms (Millán 2011, Bacchetta 2015) centres whiteness to render it a current and unfinished history (Ahmed 2007). White feminism still holds the privilege of an unmarked position (Lépinard 2019), participating in the west-centred epistemicide (Moreira 2016). Sexuality and its constituent categories comprise a field, forming a set of practices, behaviours, learning and socio-cultural constructions subtended by a given historical moment. Decolonising sexualities is therefore both necessary and complex. Following anti-racist and decolonial queer/trans critiques, the main objective of this strand is to challenge the processes of (re)production of 'sexuality' simultaneously revealing the institutional, social and psychic processes that inform racialisation of social relations (Viveros Vigoya 2018).

STRAND 3 – INTERPRETING: Psychoanalysis and queerness

Queer psychoanalysis. Is 'queer psychoanalysis' needlessly repetitive, a pleonasm, an oxymoron or a utopia? Whilst psychoanalysis can read as a technology of gender (De Lauretis 2007) due to its two-part psychosexual framework, it has been considered a tool for normalisation and categorisation as well (Preciado 2020). Some psychoanalysts lay claim to a queer psychoanalysis (Bourlez 2018) or a hybrid psychoanalysis (Ayouch 2018) based on the inherent queer potential of this praxis. Queer theories challenge the balance between politics, the clinic and psychoanalytic theory, calling into question the ethics of those who practise it. These practitioners include politicised analysts, situated in time and space (Haraway 1985), practising a non-universal, non-hegemonic psychoanalysis. This strand underscores the idea that the aim of psychoanalysis is to systematically interrogate the self-evident, to question the norms and categories.

STRAND 4 – ABOLITION

Bodies and subjectivities are not monolithic formations in terms of categorisation. They resist categories in multiple ways, participating in their very production, laying a claiming to them and occasionally liberating themselves from them. Concepts that seek to describe and capture the real are impacted upon by magnifying glass effects (Hacking 1995), processes of re-appropriation/re-invention (Eribon 1999), and radical flight (Wittig 1980). This strand will focus on the redefinitions of categories enacted by minority and subaltern positions. Opacity as a refusal of legibility (Glissant 1990), 'autohistoria-teoría' (Anzaldúa 1987) or biomythography (Lorde 1982) as new languages and empowering methodologies, the political re-appropriation of a slur such as 'queer' (Warner 1991) and/or the prospects of abolishing categories altogether (Bey 2022) comprise grounds for creative experimentation as well as indispensable survival strategies from which to imagine a general overthrow of the categories in place.

Paper proposal instructions

Paper proposals may be submitted in French, English or Spanish. They should be no more than 5000 characters long, excluding spaces but including the bibliography. The following should appear at the beginning of the proposal: title, category/strand, and 3 key words. We seek both theoretical and empirical contributions from all disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Contributions from masters' students, PhD students, early career fellows and independent researchers are welcome.

The proposal should clearly set out the topic, the framework for analysis, the key argument and any working hypothesis, the field(s) and/or corpus, the methodology and results, if any. On a separate document, the author should provide full contact details and a biographical note.

Please submit proposals as a single PDF file to the following e-mail address: defairelescategories@gmail.com.

The due date for submission is 15th December 2023. The Scientific Committee will undertake anonymous review of the proposals. Notification of acceptance and the programme will be sent from 1st April 2024 onwards.

After the acceptance of draft paper, a full written paper will be requested and sent to the discussants and other session members by 1st September 2024.

The in-person conference will be held on 8th, 9th and 10th October 2024 at the Maison Sciences de l'Homme Paris Nord. If you are submitting a paper proposal, please plan in advance to participate in the entire three-day conference.

Send my proposal via e-mail: