Call for Posters

The Politics of Métissage: The Theories, Methods, and Perceptions of Mixing Lifeways and Identities
McGill University
1-2 May 2025 

Organizers
Yann Allard-Tremblay (Political science, McGill University)
Elaine Coburn (International Studies, York University) 

Description
Settler colonial contexts, and colonial contexts more broadly, are marked by the encounter between different worldviews and lifeways. Problematically, such encounters are far from freely determined and equitable. The relationships between Euro-Modern and Indigenous lifeways and their associated identities are structured by racialized, colonial logics of disqualification, destitution, and elimination. These logics – and the associated experiences and consequences of dynamics of incorporation, assimilation, and elimination – have led many to approach encounters between lifeways and identities apprehensively, in ways that seek to preserve difference and separation. Yet, historically and into the present, lifeways and identities have been mixed in complex and dynamic ways. This 2-days academic conference seeks to explore questions related to the mixing of lifeways and identities – or métissage – and the wide range of perspectives and political considerations that pertain to this topic, as developed across settler and colonial contexts. 

Specifically, the conference seeks to investigate (1) theoretical, (2) methodological, and (3) perspectival questions regarding the mixing of lifeways and identities. Theoretically, the conference is interested in investigating how métissage is understood, that is how lifeways can be differentiated and mixed, and how this informs, produces, and shapes both individual and collective identities. Participants are invited to consider different perspectives, discourses, and accounts through which these categories have developed and manifested, in relation to Indigenous and settler ontologies, politics, and cultures. Methodologically, the conference is concerned with the various ways in which “mixing” lifeways and identities can be negotiated and assessed. We invite participants to engage with various Indigenous and non-Indigenous theoretical responses to métissage: from embracing the border between lifeways and their contradictions, as in mestizaje, nepantlera, and ch’ixi theorizing, to emphasizing differences and refusing mixing, as in the theorization of incommensurable and irreconcilable differences, passing through processes of mutual elucidation. Perspectival questions invite us to ask how “mixing” plays out politically and in terms of diverse Indigenous and settler self-conceptions of identities. We are concerned with how métissage raises questions around a range of key political issues and contemporary debates, for instance, issues around authenticity or belonging. 

What is seen as a “problem” from a given approach, may become a strength in other perspectives and contexts, so that we particularly invite participants to consider why this is so, in the terms of those with whom we are dialoguing. Reflecting with others about these questions thus demands an ethos of genuine dialogue and humility about our own perspectives. This conference accordingly seeks to open areas of encounter between theorists from different settler colonial and Indigenous contexts, facilitating conversations across varied traditions of Indigenous and non-Indigenous social and political thought. The hope is to contribute, together, to the deparochialization of political reflections and to facilitate greater mutual understanding around existential questions as asked and answered by Indigenous and settler peoples in and beyond the violent context of coloniality. 

This conference is made possible by the generous financial support of:
The Indigenous Studies and Community Engagement Initiative
Yan P. Lin Center
Centre de Recherche en Éthique
Groupe de Recherche Interuniversitaire en Philosophie Politique
McGill Dean of Arts Development Fund 

Call for Posters
On the second day of the conference, selected graduate students and postdoctoral fellows will be invited to present their research related to the theme of the conference during a poster session. 

Interested graduate students and postdoctoral fellows should submit a 300 words abstract about the research they would like to present during the poster session, making explicit how it relates to the theme of the conference. Posters for the conference will need to be submitted by 13 April 2025 so that they can be printed.

Submit an abstract in .pdf or .doc to: yann.allard-tremblay@mcgill.ca

Deadline: 20 March 2025.