Announcements
Call for papers for volume 36
Activism and Audiovisual Archive
Date of publication
January 2027
Deadline for Submission of Proposals
2026, 16 of October
Coordinators
Javier Moral Martín (Polytechnic University of Valencia)
Jordi Revert Gomis (University of Valencia)
Silvana Santucci (CONICET, Argentina)
Abstract
The digitalization of the modes of production, circulation, and preservation of images has profoundly transformed the relationship between audiovisual archives, artistic practices, and political action. The proliferation of recording devices, the expansion of digital repositories, and the circulation of synthetic images have turned the archive into a central element of symbolic dispute and meaning-making in a society whose need for preservation runs parallel to the increase and dissolution of physical documents.
Drawing on the contributions of Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida in the 20th century, we understand the archive not as a neutral repository of the past, but as a device shaped by relations of power: who preserves, what is made publicly available, and which narratives remain excluded are fundamental questions in the configuration of collective memories that define a social context.
This issue invites reflection on audiovisual practices that critically intervene in contemporary archives, exploring their connections with activism, political resistance, subaltern memories, anarchivism and the production of identities. We welcome interdisciplinary contributions that examine the archive as a space of conflict, creation, and historical reinterpretation within emerging digital ecosystems.
Some of the lines of research proposed for this issue are the following:
- The archive as a political device. The audiovisual archive as a space of power, production of narratives, counter-narratives, and ideological dispute.
- Community archives and collaborative practices. Participatory models of archive creation and management emerging from collectives and social movements; anarchivism.
- Memory, justice, and human rights. The use of archives in processes of historical memory, reparation, and denunciation.
- Aesthetics of activist archives. Formal and discursive strategies of audiovisual activism; artistic practices based on the reappropriation, montage, and resignification of archives.
- Digital technologies and new archival ecologies. The impact of platforms, algorithms, and artificial intelligence on the configuration of archives and their ideological trajectories.
