Common Ground: Locating Solidarities in the Francophone Postcolonial World
Call for Papers
Friday 12th June 2026, University College Cork. In-person and online
Keynote: Dr Nicki Frith, University of Edinburgh
Solidarity, transnational collaboration, and collective action have long been at the heart of anti-racist, anti-imperial struggles in the francophone postcolonial world. Such movements, coming from markedly different contexts, have found common ground through the shared goal of social justice and liberation, for example, the Négritude movement, or the establishment of the International Section of the Black Panther Party in a newly independent Algiers, then the so-called ‘Mecca for revolutionaries’. More recently, we have seen in the francophone postcolonial world and beyond expressions of solidarity for the Palestinian people in the face of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, predominantly organised by grassroots networks and activism, and despite the relative inaction of French and other Western governments.[1]
While such movements, organisations, and individuals have demonstrated the power, even the necessity, of expressing solidarity in the face of oppression, the notion of solidarity has equally been mobilised as a tool of empire. For instance, solidarity has long been positioned as a product of French colonisation by French colonial elites, for example the Third Republic Prime Minister and Minister of the Colonies, Albert Saurraut, described French colonisation as the “lien de solidarité qui unit les colonies à la métropole” (Saurraut 1923: 116). Solidarity has therefore been used on both sides of colonial history: as a weapon to bolster the power of the colonisers, yet also as the very thing that could overthrow it.
It is such tensions that this study day seeks to address, bringing together postgraduate researchers (MA, PhD) and early career researchers working within francophone postcolonial studies to explore the power, radicality, but also limitations of solidarity in francophone contexts. This study day, in and of itself, also hopes to be a site of solidarity, offering an opportunity for like-minded early career researchers to come together to network with, and support, one another in the face of ongoing and increasing pressures being placed internationally on the Arts and Humanities.
Themes include but are not limited to:
- Cultural representations and/or embodiments of solidarity (literary, sonic, artistic, filmic etc.)
- Transnational solidarities, across linguistic, geographical, socio-political contexts
- Anti-imperial, anti-colonial struggles as sites of solidarity
- Grassroots activism and activist networks (environmental, social, political, feminist, decolonial etc.)
- Student activism
- Public protest
- Intersectionality as solidarity (race, gender, sexuality, class etc.)
- Solidarity in the digital age
- Decolonial and postcolonial feminisms
- Communities of care
- Trade union solidarities
- Performing solidarity
- The politics of solidarity
- The weaponisation and the limitations of solidarity
- Forging solidarity within the academy and places of work
The conference will take place in person and online on Friday 12th June 2025 at University College Cork, Ireland. Please send abstracts (250 words) for 20-minute papers in English or French and a short biographical note to: lkennedy@ucc.ie by Monday 2nd March 2026. Proposals for full panels (3-4 speakers) are welcome.
Call for Flash Presentations
We also welcome proposals from final year undergraduate and MA students to present a snapshot of their research in five minutes, using one PowerPoint slide OR one creative method of their choosing. Presentations may be on any topic related to francophone postcolonial studies. To express interest in giving a flash presentation, please email lkennedy@ucc.ie by Monday 2nd March 2026 with a short biographical note.
[1] See: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza-strip-un-commission-finds
