The University of Arizona Press
When: April 17-20, 2024
Where: Tempe, Arizona
Join us in Tempe for the 2024 Latino/a Studies Association Conference. This year’s theme is “Placing Justice and Joy in Latinx Studies.” Learn more about the conference at the LSA website.
From the meeting, “As LSA celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2024, the conference site committee invites you to consider the productive relationship between justice and joy in the context of Latinx placemaking. In mainstream media, battles over social justice and Latinx joy are often bracketed off from one another. Social justice as a concept has come under fire, alongside other lightning rod issues such as DEI, critical race theory, and ethnic studies. In stark contrast, one can easily conjure up exceptional images of Latinx joy such as Selena or Celia Cruz dancing, and Latinx athletes pumping their fists as they celebrate a win. Where along this spectrum does Latinx placemaking fit? What interventions do Latinx communities make as they both counter harmful rhetoric and celebrate their own resilience in the face of anti-immigrant and anti-Latinx laws, border crises, and other forms of violence? How do Latinx communities create a sense of place amidst so much displacement, from transnational migration to gentrification? As scholars, we seek to consider how justice and joy are bound up with one another, co-creating a shared sense of place.”
“The Latina/o Studies Association (LSA) is a national non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and cultivating Latino/a/x Studies. The organization arose as a response to a momentum in Latino Studies for creating an autonomous professional space in which to engage current scholarship, exchange pedagogical models, improve mentoring structures, and increase opportunities for professional development. LSA offers those whose research and activism focuses on issues relevant to global Latina/o/x populations opportunities to present their research, exchange ideas in live and virtual interchanges, and build coalitions that further cultivate the field. The organization brings together Latino/a/x Studies scholars from across the country through a variety of means, primarily through a biennial conference and a series of topical webinars.”
