Call for Papers #10: Visual forms and narratives of protest in the Spanish-speaking world (20th-21st centuries)

Call for Papers #10: Visual forms and narratives of protest in the Spanish-speaking world (20th-21st centuries)

 

Imagen: Marcela Peńa Rojas { Isonauta } (2024) “Somos supervivientes, no delincuentes (5to Estallido Social). Octubre 2024”

 

Keywords: social movements, visual culture, activism, photography, performance, muralism, cinema, documentary, cyberactivism, historical memory, Latin America, Spain

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Editors:

Sabrina GRILLO (Université Paris-Est Créteil)
sabrina.grillo@u-pec.fr

Virginie N’DAH SEKOU (Université Paris-Est Créteil)

virginie.ndah-sekou@u-pec.fr

Deadline: 15/03/2027

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Protest movements, as a reaction to political, economic, social or environmental injustices, are a constant feature of the contemporary history of the Spanish-speaking world. From the labour struggles of the early 20th century to recent social uprisings such as the 15-M movement in Spain, the student movement in Chile and feminist protests in Spain, Mexico and Argentina, the diversity of causes and actors has generated a visual archive that is as dense as it is diverse in its forms and uses. Protest movements generally arise as a reaction to injustices: political, economic, social, cultural or environmental. This repertoire of images, symbols and staging documents discontent while actively constructing narratives, forging collective identities and (re)constructing public space. How can these multiple dimensions be articulated in order to understand their scope and effectiveness? Do the visual forms and narratives of protest reflect this transversality? New technologies have expanded the repertoires of action, as well as their modes of dissemination, and have consequently multiplied the visual and narrative forms of protest. How do photographic, film and digital images interact with the narratives and discourses of protest? 

This issue invites researchers, artists, and activists to explore the visual forms and narratives of protest in the Spanish-speaking world during the 20th and 21st centuries. We seek to deepen our understanding of the dialectical relationships between visual production, discourses of mobilisation, and sociocultural transformations. We are interested in analysing how images create networks of solidarity, how they negotiate the tension between aesthetics and ethics, and how digital platforms are redefining strategies for visibility and political action. By bringing together specialists in history, communication, visual arts, and social sciences, along with the voices of the creators themselves, this issue aims to trace a critical cartography of the visualities that have accompanied, and often catalysed, social change in Spanish-speaking countries.

 

The topics of interest are articulated around the following axes, although they are not limited to them:

1. Objects, bodies, and stagings of protest

• Iconographies of resistance: analysis of symbols, colours, and emblematic objects (the green scarf, the raised fist, the pots and pans).
• The body as political territory: performance, choreography of dissent and physical presence in public space.
• The materiality of discontent: posters, murals, graffiti and other forms of urban art as an ephemeral archive of the struggle.
• Transnational visual dialogues: borrowings, adaptations and circulation of protest aesthetics between different Spanish-speaking countries.

2. From aesthetics to ethics: visual narratives and affects.

• The ethics of representation: visual testimony, revictimisation.
• The role of photojournalism and documentary film in constructing the imagery of protest.
• Artistic strategies to generate empathy, emotion and mobilisation.
• Art, memory and reparation: the use of images to make past struggles visible and demand justice in the present (children of the disappeared, historical memory, etc.).

3. Protest on social media and new media ecologies

• Memes and GIFs as tools for satire, counter-information and political mobilisation.
• The role of platforms (Instagram, TikTok, X) in redefining the aesthetics and virality of protest.
• Streaming and citizen journalism: real-time documentation and its political and ethical implications.
• Cyberfeminism and LGTBIQ+ activism: new forms of organisation and visual representation in the digital environment.
• Digital archives of protest: citizen and academic initiatives to preserve the visual memory of social movements.

Contributions structured according to the four sections of Umática magazine will be accepted: research articles, visual essays and creative projects; details of which can be found here: https://revistas.uma.es/index.php/umatica/Secciones

 

Contributions must comply with the editorial guidelines of Umática magazine, available at: https://revistas.uma.es/index.php/umatica/about/submissions

 

Contributions must be submitted via the Open Journal Systems application: https://revistas.uma.es/index.php/umatica/user/register

 

If you have any questions, please contact the editorial team of Umática at alo@uma.es

 

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