Cayman Islands will be hosting the 7th instalment of the Queering Paradigms conference series, 11-12 June 2016. Venue to be announced.

Queering Paradigms is a well established conference and book series which seeks to challenge sexual and gender discrimination by raising awareness and providing intellectual tools to empower academics and activists. This year’s conference will focus particularly on issues affecting the Cayman Islands and the wider Caribbean Region.

Queering Paradigms 7

Call for Papers

We are delighted to announce that the 7th Queering Paradigms Conference (QP) will be held:

11-12 June 2016, Grand Cayman, the Cayman Islands

The 7th instalment of the established applied queer studies conference is organised by a group of Cayman Islands residents and LGBTIQ+ activists, under the sponsorship of Canterbury Christ Church University (UK).

After highly successful incarnations of QP in South America (2012, Rio de Janeiro; 2014 Quito) QP return to the Americas, for the first time taking place in the Caribbean Region.

The aim of QP7 is to challenge Queer/LGBTIQ+ discrimination and to provide intellectual tools for empowerment of both academics and activists in the Cayman Islands and the wider Caribbean region.

VENUE: to be announced

KEY NOTE SPEAKERS

We are delighted to announce that Professor Emeritus Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni, Justice of the Inter American Court of Human Rights and Rt Revd Dr Alan Wilson, Bishop of Buckingham, have kindly accepted to be the Key Note Speakers of the conference. Justice Zaffaroni will address the conference on the topic of decriminalisation of homosexuality and Rt Revd Dr Alan Wilson, will speak on the topic of religion and homosexuality

CALL FOR PAPERS

We welcome papers with both local and regional relevance and more general applied queer studies contributions under the following themes:

1) religion and faith
2) law, human rights and equality
3) HIV, health, mental health
4) sex work, abuse and trafficking
5) family and kinships
6) race, ethnicity and Caribbean Identities
7) activism, political participation and leadership
8) art and culture

Please send abstracts and panel proposals by 30 April to both Olivia Connolly, President of the Student Society of the Truman Bodden Law School of the Cayman Islands, ([email protected]) and Professor Bee Scherer, CCCU ([email protected]). Paper abstracts should be around 300 words long and include an indication whether the paper is intended to be an original (unpublished and not under review) contribution to the peer-reviewed QP7 book, to be published 2017 with Peter Lang, Oxford (containing 16-20 chapters).

FUNDRAISING DINNER

The conference will be a public event, with participation and attendance being free of charge. In order to cover the necessary costs associated with the conference, the organisers are hosting a fundraising dinner at ICOA on 28 April 2016. Tickets are available at the price of $100 CI/person. The dinner will begin at 07:00 PM, and will be attended by Her Excellency, Governor Helen Kilpatrick as a guest of honour.

Please contact Olivia Connolly at [email protected] if you would like more information or to purchase tickets