Upcoming IASPM-AANZ Conferences

Call For Papers: IASPM-AANZ 2026 (Sunshine Coast)

The revolution will not be peer reviewed: Popular Music Tensions

Organisers: University of the Sunshine Coast (Music and Creative Industries Discipline)

Conference Date: 01-03 December, 2026 (pre-conference event on Monday 30th November).

Location: 90 Sippy Downs Way, Sippy Downs, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia

Deadline for Submissions: 26th June, 2026 — Midnight AEST

Conference Theme: Popular Music Tensions

Across political, ecological, economic, technological and cultural spheres, we are living through intensifying uncertainty, conflict, contradiction, disruption and transformation. This year’s conference will address the structures, institutions, intersections and relationships popular music has with social justice, political systems, and the broader geopolitical and socio-economic paradigm in which we find ourselves in 2026. In a time of global tensions and geo-political disruption, we ask what roles popular music has, does, and will play in social justice, political movements and cultural change (to name a few).

Tensions also operate within music itself: dramatic, harmonic, affective and other intrinsic tensions impact performance, production and reception. And they emerge in the structures and institutions that shape popular music — between music and commerce, community and capital, creativity and automation, tradition and innovation. We invite contributions that examine tension as a condition, a method, a structure, a sound, a feeling, a politic, or new theorisation of popular music.

Key topics may include (but are not limited to):

·      Tension and gender representation and expression

·      Tensions in music theory or musicology

·      Music and ethics

·      Joy and celebration of activism and resistance

·      Reclamation of power through music

·      Music and systems of power / hegemony

·      Songs of protest and social change

·      Music histories of social challenge or resistance

·      Fandom and activism

·      Venues’ role in collectivism and political action

·      Media representation of music and social justice movements

·      Social justice’s role in the creation of music communities and identities

·      Regulatory and industrial responses to popular music’s involvement in activism

·      Representation and social justice in the recording studio

·      Popular Music, creative labour, and cultural and economic value

·      Popular music in sites or zones of conflict, crisis and unrest

·      Tensions between local scenes and global industries

·      Tension and release in songwriting, production and listening practices

·      Popular music and ecological or climate anxiety

·      Tensions produced by platforms, algorithms and digital infrastructures

·      Creative labour, burnout, precarity and institutional pressure

·      Human and machine tensions in AI, music production and creativity

·      Interpersonal, subcultural or intergenerational tensions in scenes and fan communities

We also invite abstracts on any other aspect of popular music studies.

Submission Details:

We invite abstracts of 250–300 words for 20-minute papers or 90-minute panels. Please include a short bio (max 150 words) for each presenter. Please submit the required material to award4@usc.edu.au

Further enquiries: award4@usc.edu.au

NOTE: you must be a IASPM paid member to present at the conference. You are welcome to attend without being a member, but you will not be able to present.

The conference website is under construction and will be up and running in time for registrations by July 2026. We expect to have abstracts reviewed with invitations out by late July 2026.

Previous IASPM-AANZ Conferences

2023

Host University: Wintec | Te Pūkenga and the University of Auckland

Location: Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland and Kirikiriroa/Hamilton

Theme: Diversity In Popular Music Spheres

2022

Host University: RMIT University

Location: Narrm/Melbourne

Theme: Opening Up: Reconnecting, Remixing, Remastering

2020/21

Host University: UTS University

Location: Warrane/Sydney

Theme: Popular Music Scales