The Inaugural Gender and Sexuality Politics Conference (GSPC)
29th and 30th September 2025
Online
Overview:
The APSA Women’s Caucus Chair, Associate Professor Sara C. Motta, and LGBTQIA+ Caucus Chair, Dr Blair Williams, are teaming together to co-host the first annual flagship GSPC in Australia.
Feminist, WOC, First Nations and LGBTQIA+ scholars increasingly face isolation and marginalisation within the neoliberal modern/colonial university, alongside direct attacks on both the communities we belong to and the critical work we do. This conference aims to re-engage and energise these communities by fostering mentorship, strengthening networks, and amplifying our diverse and plural collective voices within and beyond our institutions.
The conference thus embraces a plurality of ontologies, epistemologies, ethics and methodologies. Our diverse, plural and inclusive ways of thinking about, embodying and practising politics are urgently needed at this historical and political conjuncture.
The GSPC will be significant as the first gender and sexuality politics conference held in Australia. In prioritising community and inclusivity, the GSPC will reimagine the traditional conference format, aligning with feminist temporalities as a form of resistance to neoliberal linear and careless time. To ensure accessibility and affordability for all scholars, the conference will be held online only and in carer-friendly hours. We will make full use of online opportunities for networking, mentoring, relationship-building and sharing with one another. This structure is designed to support scholars who are financially precarious, disabled, geographically bound, and/or have caring responsibilities, ensuring broad participation and engagement.
Submissions:
We invite scholars of gender and sexuality politics (broadly defined), international relations and policy, as well as those from cognate disciplines, to submit an abstract in the form of paper, panel, roundtable, performance, strategic dialogue and more!
We welcome research engaging with:
- Gender politics and policy-making
- Feminist international relations
- Gendering genocide
- First Nations struggles for sovereignty and gendered complexities
- Decolonial (feminist) theory and practice
- Backlash against women’s and/or LGBTQIA+ rights
- The media
- Disability politics
- Men and masculinities
- Politics and resistance of non-binary, genderqueer, intersex and trans politics and communities
Please send 200 word abstracts to ausgspc@gmail.com by 21st July 2025, 5pm.
Also, find more information on the Women’s Caucus and the LGBTQI+ Caucus.
