CfP: IASPM CESE 2nd International Conference (01.-03.04.2027, University of Ljubljana) Deadline: 15.09.2026
Power, Platforms and Peripheries: Popular Music in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe
IASPM CESE 2nd International Conference, 1–3 April 2027, Faculty of Social Sciences, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Organized by the International Association for the Study of Popular Music – Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (IASPM CESE) and by the Centre for Cultural and Religious Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
The second conference of IASPM CESE (International Association for the Study of Popular Music – Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe) brings together scholars, researchers, and practitioners to examine how popular music is made, valued, and circulated in a region shaped by structural asymmetries. While CESE is often approached through histories of transition, this conference foregrounds the present – and the realistic, utopian, and dystopian futures – by focusing on the infrastructures, market dynamics, and platform ecologies that condition what becomes visible, viable, and exportable.
We start from the premise that “periphery” is not a geographical label but a relational position produced through unequal access to capital, media systems, touring routes, rights regimes, and the discoverability logics of global digital platforms. These asymmetries also raise pressing questions of inclusion and exclusion: who is recognised as a legitimate music worker or cultural actor; whose labour is rendered invisible; and which bodies, voices, and genres are amplified or marginalised across scenes, institutions, and industries. We therefore welcome contributions that engage feminist, queer, and post-/decolonial perspectives on popular music in CESE, including how ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and migration shape participation, representation, and opportunity.
At the same time, history and memory remain crucial for understanding these dynamics. Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe is shaped by distinct cultural formations, socialist and post-socialist trajectories, language ecologies, and media infrastructures that continue to organise taste, legitimacy, and routes of circulation. Rather than treating “history” and “memory” as a separate register, we approach them as active forces sedimented in institutions, genres, repertoires, professional networks, and public imaginaries that structure how music scenes and industries operate today.
The conference also foregrounds the contemporary political economy of popular music – especially the changing configurations of power brought by platforms, data, and transnational market integration. We invite contributions that areengaging the region’s cultural specificities while tracing how sectoral structures (live, recorded, media, policy, and intermediaries) shape what becomes sustainable, scalable, and exportable. How do CESE music markets negotiate platformisation and concentration? What forms of policy, infrastructure, and professional practice enable or constrain careers? And what “peripheral futures” become imaginable – and workable – across different countries in the region?
We welcome contributions that cover, among other topics:
CESE as a “peripheral market” and what peripherality means in practice (unequal visibility, bargaining power, language barriers, touring routes, media infrastructures, platform logics).
Comparative music industries across CESE, including country-to-country analyses (structures, revenues, live sector, collecting societies, export offices, radio/TV ecosystems, subsidy regimes) and shared analytical vocabularies.
From scenes to sectors: bridges between scholarship and industry practice (labels and management, venue ecologies, festivals, export strategies, professionalisation, career sustainability).
Platformisation and discoverability (“who gets heard”) in the streaming era (recommendation systems, playlists, platform governance, metrics, definitions of “success,” metadata, language, marketing, and international reach).
Policy, regulation, and cultural intervention in small markets(quotas, public funding, media regulation, competition policy, state support, public service media, and policy successes/failures).
Empirical and data-driven research on CESE popular music(airplay/streaming data, charts, repertoire shares, concentration measures, ticketing, audience surveys, network analysis, and mixed-method approaches).
Regional flows within CESE beyond “Westward” narratives (intra-regional touring circuits, media exchange, diaspora routes, language adjacency, and regional hubs).
Labour, precarity, and the conditions of music work (rights and royalties, gig economies, informal economies, gendered labour, care work, burnout, portfolio careers, unionisation/collective organising).
Future-facing genres, infrastructures, and innovation(electronic micro-industries, hybrid folk-pop economies, AI tools, new distribution and monetisation models, shifting aesthetics under market constraints).
Re-thinking “popular music” from the periphery (global hits and local memory, local repertoires, how “mainstream” is built in small markets, and what counts as “local success” vs “global recognition”).
Feminist, queer, and post-/decolonial approaches to CESE popular music, including questions of representation, canon formation, and access to resources; and how race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, disability, and migration shape participation and opportunity across scenes and industries.
Inclusion/exclusion and “belonging” in music worlds(gatekeeping, safety, institutional discrimination, informal networks, professional norms), including intersectional perspectives on who gets to perform, produce, curate, fund, or be heard.
History, memory, and cultural specificity as active infrastructures of the present, including socialist and post-socialist legacies, post-Yugoslav and post-imperial trajectories, language ecologies, media institutions, and the ways these shapetaste, legitimacy, and routes of circulation today.
Submission details:
We encourage both individual papers and organized panels (3 or 4 presenters).
Individual abstracts should be 200–300 words, accompanied by a brief bio (100 words) and a list of relevant references (approx. 5).
Panel proposals should include a collective abstract, individual abstracts for all participants with their bios, and a general list of relevant references.
Deadline: September 15, 2026
Acceptance of papers: November 20, 2026
Format:
Individual presentations: 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for discussion
Panels: 90 minutes for three presentations
Please submit your abstracts to: iaspmcese[at]gmail[dot]com
Each applicant should be a member of IASPM. Each accepted speaker will have an option to join the IASPM CESE branch during the conference (the expected fee is between 20 and 30 EUR).
If you have any questions, please contact IASPM CESE via the general email (iaspmcese[at]gmail[dot]com).