Call for Papers (UPDATED)

2022 Annual Conference

March 30-April 2, 2022, Denver, Colorado, USA

Borderlands inform the stories we tell, the concepts we draw upon, the ways we frame the world, and the pedagogical experiences we offer. To borrow from Gloria Anzaldúa (1987), the borderlands are not only observed, they are lived. As teachers, scholars, researchers, and learners we all navigate multiple and diverse borderlands. As such, the organizing theme for the 2022 Annual Conference is Borderlands Pedagogy: Living and Navigating the Diverse Borderlands of Teaching and Learning. The theme, however, will encompass a wide range of topics, approaches, and areas to enhance our continuing theoretical encounters of understanding what borderlands are and how they affect our lives and the lives of others.

The Association for Borderlands Studies invites proposals for individual papers and complete panels, roundtables, and book presentations related to the study of borders and borderlands, including but not limited to: 

·       Global Public Health

·       Indigeneity & Indigenous Movements

·       Media & Arts

·       Economy & Development

·       Spatial Planning, Cites, & Territory

·       Demography

·       Intersectionality

·       Gender

·       Race/ism & Ethnicity

·       Conflict/Cooperation

·       Migration/Citizenship

·       Security/Securitization

·       Theory/Methodology

·       Pedagogy

·       Everyday Lives & Lived Experiences

·       Governance/Political Economy/Institutions

·       Ethics/Human Rights/Humanitarian Issues

·       Populism/Nationalism

·       Environment

·       Representations of border/lands

For Submissions:

·      Panel is a group of papers with a similar theme that has been organized by the person submitting the proposal to make a unified session. A panel must have a chair and 3 or 4 presenters.

o   We would like to kindly remind you that all members of your panel must be a member of ABS to present their paper and a WSSA conference registrant.

·      Paper is a single paper submitted by one or multiple authors. The program committee will organize individual papers into panels and assign a chair/discussant. Individual papers will be given approximately 15 minutes. The program committee will organize these papers into thematic panels.

·       Roundtable is an open session on a topic with no papers. A roundtable must have an organizer and at least three participants.

·       Book Presentation is an open session where the author can introduce their new monograph to the ABS members.

Please include the following information in your paper, or panel proposal:

·       Title of presentation

·       Key words

·       Name and affiliation and email address of all authors

·       An abstract not to exceed 250 words

o   Scholars willing to serve as moderators or discussants should indicate their interest in the proposal.

Important Dates:

·       Deadline for all submissions: December 10, 2021 JANUARY 20, 2022

o   Please submit proposals through www.wssaweb.com/conference-overview.html 

§  Create ConfTool user account

o   Register to the conference at www.wssaweb.com/conference-registration.html

o   Pay your ABS membership at https://absborderlands.org/membership/

·       Notifications of acceptance will be sent early in January 2022 AFTER THE SUBMISSION DEADLINE and a preliminary program will be published prior to the start of the conference.

Important Information:

·       ABS Membership: Please note that non-members can also submit their proposals, but in order to present at the ABS annual conference you must become a member of the ABS and must pay WSSA registration fees (the WSSA does the invaluable job of organizing the entire conference and venue). We encourage you join the ABS prior to submitting your proposal, that way you can ensure that your membership will be finalized before the annual conference. Please join ABS at https://absborderlands.org/membership/

2022 ABS Program Committee:

T. Mark Montoya, ABS President-elect & Program Chair/Coordinator (Northern Arizona University, USA)

Paul Richardson, ABS Vice-president (University of Birmingham, UK) 

Naomi Chi, ABS President (Hokkaido University, Japan)

Francisco Lara-Valencia, ABS Executive Secretary & Treasurer (Arizona State University, USA) 

Andréanne Bissonnette (Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada)

Dhananjay Tripathi (South Asian University, India)

Élisabeth Vallet (Université du Québec à Montréal & CMR-Saint Jean, Canada)

Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera (George Mason University, USA)

James Gerber (San Diego State University, USA)

Todd Hataley (Fleming College, Canada)

Virpi Kaisto (Eastern Finland University, Finland)

Xavier Oliveras González (El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, México)

**For inquiries about this call, please contact the Program Chair at: absborderlands@gmail.com**

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To All WSSA Council and Section Coordinators,

The following message is being sent on behalf of Dr. Jussi P. Laine, WSSA President-Elect/Program Coordinator, to all persons who have a user account with ConfTool, and to all addresses on my Call for Papers list.  Please forward it to all of the people whom you may be trying to persuade to present at the conference.  The attached “Deadlines and Important Dates for Coordinators” has been updated to reflect the additional six weeks before the submission deadline.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: 

Dear Colleagues,

At WSSA we are very grateful for your high interest towards the upcoming Annual Meeting. We fully understand that the enduring COVID-19 pandemic keeps causing challenges and unpredictability, which may make planning your travels more challenging than before. As unfortunately the pandemic is still strongly affecting many parts of the world, we have decided to EXTEND THE DEADLINE for paper submission until January 20, 2022.

The meeting is being organized as a physical event and we very much hope to see you all in Denver in-person. Should you not be able to travel due to a government issued travel restriction, or similar official action, there will be a way to accommodate your participation virtually. Your participation is very important for us, not only for the sake of this conference, but also in order to for us to secure the continuation of these meetings where we can all meet one another in the future.

At our end, we are working hard together with the venue in Denver to make the event not only a great success, but most importantly safe for everyone to attend. The sooner you register, the better we can review our options regarding the specific needs of an in-person meeting in the current circumstances and determine how we can better scale the event to suit the in-person attendance level.

For those of you who live outside the United States, here is some important information:

Since November 8, 2021, all non-immigrant, non-citizen air travelers to the United States are required to be fully vaccinated and to provide proof of vaccination status prior to boarding an airplane to the United States. 

The Moderna vaccine, the Janssen vaccine, and the Comirnaty/Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are the only vaccines currently accepted by the U.S.

To monitor the status of travel restrictions to the U.S., you can use this website:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/from-other-countries.html

Message from WSSA President Anthony Amato

WHERE SHOULD YOU STAY IN DENVER?

With AirBnB, Vrbo, and dozens of discount services, it is tempting to take advantage of them to save money when attending the WSSA. Aside from the many nightmare stories that have come to light in the last three years, there are several compelling reasons to stay at Hilton Denver City Center. Many downtown properties in Denver have already filled, and finding a room from March 30 to April 2 will be nearly impossible. Saving a little money could be quite costly and result in picking up a few dollars now only to lose c-notes later.
Many attendees might not realize it, but there is an even more important reason to stay at the Hilton Denver City Center. Attendees’ stays at the conference hotel make it possible for us to put on the conference. The room block reserved for the conference is basically part of a trade-off for the event space for conference. We use over two dozen meeting rooms at our annual meeting. We get these meeting rooms at reduced charge or no charge to the WSSA only if we fill a certain number of guestrooms, which is specified in the contract with the hotel. If we do not fill the guestrooms, we pay a huge penalty--in the tens of thousands of dollars fyi. This is standard practice in the hotel industry. In several cases in the past, our failure to meet our room quota resulted in huge penalties that the WSSA had to pay. A low room take also makes it difficult for us to book hotels for future years because prospective hotels demand evidence of past room takes. When attendees stay at other hotels, AirBnBs, or Vrbos etc., the hotel suffers, but the WSSA suffers more.
It is important that all attendees rent rooms at the conference hotel. Otherwise, the WSSA will be seriously impacted by the financial burden of the penalties. Of course, you can choose not to stay at the conference hotel, but will there be a future WSSA conference for you to attend? In short, decide stay at the Hilton Denver City Center. The WSSA can benefit even from stays of one or two nights in the conference hotel. Thank you.

Sincerely Yours,
Anthony Amato, WSSA President