ICIG Call for submissions, WSCA conference, 2025
Sudhiti Naskar
Intercultural Communication
Program Planner: Keisuke Kimura, Miami University of Ohio, kimurak@miamiOH.edu
The Intercultural Communication Interest Group (ICIG) invites submissions from intercultural communication teachers, scholars, and practitioners who examine different cultural phenomenon within trans/national contexts that can provide us with a nuanced understanding of the world we live in. ICIG also supports co-sponsored programs with other interest groups that consider the conference theme.
The 2025 convention theme is support. “Support” encompasses critical ideologies, acts, practices, and sites of inquiry for us to carefully examine how we view, understand, and make sense of the meaning and capacity of communicating through differences. Specifically, interrogating the role of support in challenging the historical continuum of power and envisioning the equitable and accessible care for marginalized communities is particularly urgent in today’s world more than ever, given ongoing institutional barriers such as #CommunicationSoWhite, restriction on academic freedom, anti-DEI and anti-trans legislatures, and policed anti-war protests. Therefore, ICIG asks members to critically engage with the role of support (in its various forms) in intercultural communication in order to foster constructive academic conversations and actions, advocating for social (in)justices and creating inclusive and equal space. Submissions may consider the following questions, including but not limited to:
- What does support look like in intercultural communication research and pedagogy?
- How is support embodied and performed through institutions and lived experiences?
- What role do cultural norms, values, and traditions play in shaping community support systems and resources?
- How do intersecting identities such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, religion, and more influence and inform the support needs and experiences of individuals and communities in intercultural contexts?
- How can interdisciplinary approaches, theories, and methodologies enrich the understanding and practices of support in intercultural communication?
- How can support systems be established and practiced to address, understand, and solve the individual, communal, and social challenges at the intersections of multiple identities and cultures?
- How do sociohistorical and political power dynamics affect the practice and condition of support in intercultural relationships and contexts?
- How can intercultural communication scholarship challenge, disrupt, and dismantle the colonial logics of power and Western/U.S.-centricity through the act of support?
- In what ways can imbalanced power relations be interrogated and mitigated to ensure or gain equitable access to support resources across cultural groups?
- How can intercultural communication scholarship envision the possibilities of support in everyday and academic contexts? More specifically, how do we envision the possibilities of support for historically marginalized groups through the production of knowledge in the (settler)colonial, white supremacist, patriarchal, and cisheteronormative society?
- What are the emerging and exigent discourses of support in the study of intercultural communication that need particular attention in and across the U.S. and global contexts?
Instructions to Submit:
Please turn in your submissions through the WSCA website: www.westcomm.org . Detailed submission instructions are here. The following formats are accepted.
I. COMPETITIVE PAPERS
A. All authors are encouraged to send their papers to the Intercultural Communication Interest Group for competitive selection. Papers should reflect the conference theme and may include research employing any methodology, theoretical developments, critical analysis as well as critiques. Please submit each paper to only one interest group. All papers should be submitted via the online submission system of the WSCA website by the deadline. Please do not email your submissions to the interest group planner. Your electronic submission should include two separate attachments.
Attachment 1: Cover Page
a) The paper’s title
b) Names of all authors, affiliation(s), email address (es), phone number(s)
c) Any audio-visual requests. This information should be included for each author. Since, equipment availability is extremely limited, please provide a brief rationale for AV requests. See the WSCA policy on Audio-Visual Equipment at Conventions in the Policies and Procedures Manual.
Attachment 2: Paper with all author identification removed
a) A 100-200 word abstract of the paper (with title appearing on this page);
b) A maximum of 30 pages of text;
c) No information in the paper that identifies the author(s) beyond that which appears on the title page.
B. Student/Debut Papers: The Intercultural Communication Interest Group welcomes student and debut papers. If your paper is a student or debut paper please note this on the title page under the title of the paper. In addition, please indicate whether each author is a bachelors, masters, or doctoral student.
II. PROGRAM (PANEL) PROPOSALS
A. Program proposals should focus on a unifying theme relevant to research, theory, or instruction in the area of intercultural communication. Programs such as panels may consist of a chair, individual presenters, and a respondent in a format traditionally presented at conferences. However, debates, roundtable discussions, performance activities, or other unique formats are encouraged. Innovative program proposals, especially those that provide opportunities for interaction among participants and attendees, are encouraged. Programs co-sponsored with other interest groups are encouraged. Programs that relate to and extend the convention theme are encouraged.
B. Proposals should be submitted via the online submission system of the WSCA website by Monday, September 2, 2024. Please do not email your submissions to the interest group planner.
Your proposal submission should include:
a) Thematic title of the program/panel and 150-word abstract
b) Names, addresses, phones, e-mail addresses, and affiliations of all participants
c) Up to 400-word rationale for the panel
d) Title and brief description/abstract of each presentation on the panel
e) Equipment needed for panel (because equipment may be limited, please provide a brief rationale for AV requests)