INTERNATIONAL AND INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE
Paris, February 17, 2027
Le Havre, February 18-19, 2027
https://bandungspirit.org/

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS AND FOR PARTICIPATION (Deadlines: July 31, 2026 and October 31, 2026)
The conference is open to individual and group paper presentations. Those willing to present their papers are invited to submit their abstracts until July 31, 2026 (for a possible publication in an edited volume to be launched during the conference) or October 31, 2026 (for a paper presentation in the conference). The notification of selected abstracts for publication or for presentation will be communicated to their authors progressively according to their availability. The earlier the abstracts are submitted, the sooner the authors will get notified. A certain number of selected papers may be published as an edited volume to be launched during the conference.
The terms of reference is available at https://bandungspirit.org/IMG/pdf/the_rise_of_asia-2027-cfa-a-with-cover.pdf
Abstracts of 200-300 words are to be submitted online at https://forms.gle/2F3dS1QrDNQTugUs8

OFFLINE AND ONLINE PARTICIPATION
The conference will be organised offline (physically) with possible online (virtual) participation following the circumstances. The programme will be based on offline (physical) participants on Paris time zone.

INTRODUCTION
LAI (League against Imperialism and for National Independence) was not a conference, but an international organisation active from 1927 to 1937 bringing together communists, socialists, nationalists, trade unionists, and pacifists in order to coordinate their myriad ‘assaults against empire’. Founded with the support of the Communist International, the LAI at its peak had a membership of several hundred people, from every inhabited continent, among them prominent interwar activists and future heads of state. The organization aspired both to become an international movement and to coordinate specific instances of mass struggle. It was inaugurated by the “First Congress against Colonial Oppression and Imperialism” in Palais d’Egmont Brussels on February 10-14,1927.

Its initiator, Willi Münzenberg, a German communist and the chair of the Workers International Relief, invited many personalities from European and American Left and anti-colonial nationalists from the colonised world. The Brussels Congress was attended by 174 people representing 134 organizations from 34 countries. The list of attendees and organizations identifies delegates from the following places: the United States, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Peru, Venezuela, ‘Central America’, Colombia, China, India, the ‘Dutch East Indies’ [Indonesia], Korea, ‘Indo-China (Annam)’, Persia, the Philippines, South Africa, ‘West Africa’ [Sierra Leone], ‘North Africa’ [Lamine Senghor, from Senegal, representing the Comité de Défense de la Race Nègre], Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Germany, England, France, Holland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Italy, Syria, and Palestine. Among those present in Brussels were emissaries of the Chinese Kuomintang party in Europe, Jawaharlal Nehru of the Indian National Congress, accompanied by Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, Josiah Tshangana Gumede of the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, Messali Hadj of the Algerian Étoile Nord-Africaine, and Mohammad Hatta of the Perhimpoenan Indonesia. Moreover, many activists from the European and American Left were present, such as Fenner Brockway, Arthur MacManus, Edo Fimmen, Reginald Bridgeman, and Gabrielle Duchêne, as well as intellectuals such as Henri Barbusse, Romain Rolland, and Albert Einstein.

Today, 100 years after LAI, the recent wars in Ukraine and in West Asia (Iran, Israel, Arab countries, USA) raise questions: is the imperialism dying and a new world order emerging? Why? In what way? And what new world order is emerging?

Those fundamental questions may be broken down into more specific questions, such as:
• Brussels 1927, Bandung 1955, Belgrade 1961, Havana 1966, what ruptures and what continuities?
• In what ways colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism continue to take place?
• What impacts of foreign military bases on socio-cultural, economic, environmental and political life of the hosting countries?
• What role NAM, BRICS, SCO and other Non-Western institutions play in the changing world order?
• Are Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, Nasserism, Sukarnoism still relevant today?
• Is socialism still promising to replace capitalism?
• What role played by social movements and other non-state actors movements in the fight for human emancipation?
• Is the present UN still relevant to the global challenges today? What is necessary? UN reform or UN replacement by a new structure?

It is to discuss those such questions that the 11th edition of the Rise of Asia Conference Series is organised. It encourages the participation of scholars from a wide range of scientific disciplines (area studies, cultural studies, ecology, economics, geography, built environment, architecture, urban studies, history, humanities, languages, management, political and social sciences, international relations…) and practitioners from diverse professional fields (business, civil society, education, enterprise, government, management, parliament, public policy, social and solidarity movements…) as well as artists and writers, based in diverse geographical areas (Africa, North, Central and South America, Australia, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Oceania, Pacific…).

(Darwis Khudori, Conference Initiator and Convenor)

FINANCING
Please, notice that the organising committee does not provide a travel grant to any participant. The presenters and participants are supposed to find the necessary funds for their own participation (visa, international and national transport, accommodation).