International Conference on Decolonizing Minority Rights Discourse

9-10 May 2025 | Cluj/Kolozsvár, Romania

Call for papers

Deadline for submission of abstracts: January 13, 2025

Tom Lantos Institute, Birmingham Law Faculty (University of Birmingham), Sapientia University and the Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities are jointly organizing an international conference on “Decolonizing the discourse of minority rights” which will take place at Sapientia University, Romania on 9. 10 May 2025. The conference aims to bring together scholars from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds but with a common interest in decolonial and minority rights issues. Early career researchers are particularly encouraged to participate.

Background

Despite formal processes of decolonization, colonial connotations such as the “standard of civilization” or the supposed inability of certain people to govern their own affairs continue in more subtle forms to inform, shape and govern current global affairs and institutions, to the disadvantage of marginalized communities. In recent years, there have been calls to proactively look at ways in which colonial legacies can be undone and how colonial links can be disconnected, if possible. As part of this “decolonization” agenda, it is necessary to investigate what a decolonization project would look like in the area of ​​minority rights.

The mainstream discourse on minority rights embodies a range of biases and normative assumptions, which ignore the centrality of power relations, subaltern agency, political economy, hegemonic structures of global governance and patriarchy, among others, in conceptualizing minority and its protection. As a result, some of the basic concepts, such as the definition of minority, the state, discrimination, violence and protection, are often archaic, one-dimensional and marked by colonial understandings. Therefore, there is an urgent need to decolonize the fundamental principles in contemporary minority rights discourse. In doing so, it is imperative to critically examine power relations and subaltern agency in the workings of minority rights, and in doing so to reveal the type of discourse they produce. (Shahabuddin, 2023).

For example, the very conception of minority needs to be critically re-evaluated through decolonial lenses to expose a sense of ‘otherness’ and/or ‘backwardness’ embedded in the concept. The decolonial project also requires a critical examination of the reification of the state itself as part of a much broader notion of decolonizing the state as a precondition for decolonizing minority rights discourse. The minority rights decolonization agenda must also integrate the often ignored aspect of minority resistance. Moving beyond an elitist discourse of minority rights and minority protection within institutional sites, the decolonial project calls for a strong focus on learning from grassroots practices. It is in the daily struggles of minorities to protect their lives and livelihoods that actual decolonization takes place. In this sense, the project must critically engage with the perception and role of law in the protection of minority rights and reflect on how legal concepts and categories themselves can be instruments of oppression in some cases. This will then help highlight the strategic use of law as a site of contestation and also explore other possible languages ​​of resistance, such as social movements, outside the realm of law. In decolonizing minority rights discourse, it is also vitally important to take seriously the political economy of violence and expose how minorities suffer multi-level economic marginalization by powerful states, international finance.

institutions, postcolonial states and national and transnational corporations. Compared to civil and political rights, this is rather a neglected area in the contemporary discourse on minority rights that needs proper attention. Similarly, the role of history and knowledge production, political symbolism, alternative notions of advocacy and participation, and the conception of culture and the power relations embedded in it are all intrinsically linked to the project of decolonizing minority rights discourse. The conference is designed to provide an opportunity for much-needed discussion and debate on these issues and also to identify and investigate other innovative ways of decolonizing contemporary minority rights discourse.

Themes of the conference

We welcome proposals from all regions and relevant disciplines, with any research approach, as long as they focus on decolonial and minority rights issues. The works can fall into one or more of the following guiding themes:

• Definitional Debates and Minority Classification
• Historiography and the production of knowledge
• Eurocentrism and the discourse of minority rights
• Intra-European development hierarchies and the discourse on minority rights
• Statehood and the “minority question”
• Imperial, post-immigrant and autochthonous minorities
• Minorities and indigenous peoples
• Decolonization, minorities and the postcolonial state
• Minority protection beyond protectionist rhetoric
• Promises and Perils of the Right to Self-Determination
• Resistance and social movements
• Effective participation and minority agency
• The ethics of activism
• The role of law and legal institutions
• The Political Economy of Minority Oppression
• Intersectionality
• Minorities and Global Governance
• Transitional Justice and Reparations
• Minority Rights and Climate Justice

Application processes

Please submit an abstract of your work using this online form by January 13, 2025. Successful applicants will be notified by February 3, 2025.

Our intention is to publish an edited volume of selected conference papers. Draft papers (approximately 6,000 words) are welcome, preferably at least two weeks before the conference.

Logistics

The registration fee for the conference is EUR 100. This includes attendance at all conference sessions and lunches and tea breaks during the conference. Participants are responsible for travel and accommodation arrangements.

A limited number of scholarships are available to cover all or part of travel and accommodation costs and registration fees. Preference will be given to participants from Southern and Eastern and Central European countries.

Contact: All questions should be sent to: [email protected]