DC27 Call for Proposals

DC27 Rotterdam 

The Future Is Ours! 

Communities in Electronic Music and Dance Culture 

8-9 April 2027 

Erasmus University Rotterdam 

Organized by:  Rotterdam Popular Music Studies and Dancecult Research Network 

Electronic Music and Dance Cultures (EMDC) are sustained by communities: crews and collectives, club crowds and festival publics, online scenes and local networks of care. From small DIY gatherings to global events, from neighborhood sound systems to platformed micro-scenes, EMDC carry histories, identities, and shared practices of resistance, joy and solidarity.  

This conference takes communities as its central focus and takes place in Rotterdam – birthplace of gabber and home of bubbling music. Under the banner The Future Is Ours!, named after a local hardcore track, we explore how EMDC communities form, transform, fragment, endure, and imagine futures in the face of social, economic, technological and ecological pressures. We invite contributions from scholars, artist‑researchers, community organizers, practitioners and participants who critically engage with past, present and possible futures of EMDC communities 

FUTURE [noun] - Rhythms of Need, Desire and Community Care 

The future of EMDC communities is shaped through the rhythms they create and sustain over time. These communities move across nights and seasons, through scenes that emerge, evolve and sometimes disappear. Their futures depend on spaces where safety, care, recognition, visibility, access and affordability are embedded as enduring practices rather than occasional interventions. Shared desires around sound, space, intensity and political relevance unfold across multiple temporal scales – from the immediate rush of a drop to the slow cultivation of trust, memory, resilience and solidarity.  

We welcome proposals on: 

  • Community needs and desires, including how safety, care, representation, affordability and access are sustained - or challenged - across scenes and generations. 
  • Community-led spaces, events and infrastructures as forms of future-making through continuity, temporal autonomy and the cyclical life of scenes. 
  • Care practices as ongoing rhythms of support, adapted across changing needs, intensities and crises. 
  • Sustainability, environmental change and temporal ecologies shaping the futures of communities. 
  • Musical futures and changing temporalities, including shifts in rhythm and tempo (e.g. increasing BPMs) and their implications for dance music cultures. 

IS [verb]: Being, Belonging, Fragmentation 

What is an EMDC community today, and what enables it to continue to be? Communities are continually made and remade through growth, fragmentation, visibility and exclusion. Industry pressures (platformization, festivalization and social media) and spatial transformations (gentrification, tourism and policy change) shape not only how communities evolve, but who belongs, who is recognized and whose futures remain possible.  

We invite work that critically engages with: 

  • Community growth and fragmentation: proliferation of micro-scenes, sub-genres and niche communities. 
  • Unequal futures: who gains and who loses as EMDC communities grow, move or disappear? 
  • Gentrification, urban redevelopment and touristification of EMDC neighbourhoods and “districts”. 
  • Platformization and algorithmic visibility of communities (social media, streaming, ticketing platforms). 

OURS [pronoun]: Community, Belonging, Difference 

EMDC produce togetherness: a collective. How do communities come into being? How do dancefloors become ‘ours’? How do exclusionary mechanisms play a role? And in what ways are they shaped by histories of marginalization, resistance, and mutual aid? To understand EMDC communities, it is crucial to understand the extent to which they are formed by race, gender, class, disabilities, migration, and space. 

We invite papers and panels that examine: 

  • Community-making: crews, collectives, scenes, circuits, and publics. 
  • Belonging, identity and difference in club cultures and festival communities. 
  • Intersections of communities with anti-racist, queer, feminist, decolonial and disability justice movements. 
  • Community histories and memory work (archives, oral histories, documentaries, fanzines, podcasts). 
  • Methodologies for researching communities: participatory, collaborative, ethnographic, digital, sonic. 

! [punctuation mark]: Urgent Threats and Possible Futures 

The exclamation mark signals urgency. Many EMDC communities are under threat from eviction, policing, regulation, platform policies, funding cuts, and the intensification of precarity. At the same time, communities experiment with new forms of organizing, inter-scene solidarity and technological innovation. 

We particularly welcome submissions on: 

  • Policing, surveillance and regulation of communities (licensing, noise, zoning, drug policy, security). 
  • AI and datafication: their impact on community organizing, visibility, creative labour and scene autonomy. 
  • Crisis, resilience and recovery: communities responding to pandemics, conflicts, disasters and economic shocks. 
  • Futurity and imagination: speculative, utopian/dystopian or experimental visions of communities. 
  • Alliances across communities: translocal, transnational and inter-scene solidarities and networks. 

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE 

Local organization: Pauwke Berkers (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Mark van Bergen (Tilburg University / Fontys Hogeschool), Timo Koren (University of Amsterdam), Miguel Neiva (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Danai Papathanasiou (Erasmus University Rotterdam) 

DRN Reps: Anita Jóri, Graham St John, Dave Payling 

ABSTRACTS 

We invite individual papers, panel proposals, and creative or practice-based presentations. Please email abstracts of max. 300 words in English – including a research question, theoretical approach, methodology, [preliminary] findings together with a short bio (50 words) – with your name, institutional affiliation and position, to: rpms@eur.nl. Abstract deadline: October 1, 2026. Participants will receive notifications of acceptance by  November 1, 2026. 

OTHER INFORMATION 

Each presenter will have 15-20 minutes (including Q&A). 

We unfortunately cannot offer online / hybrid options, due to budget limitations. 

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us: Pauwke Berkers at rpms@eur.nl 

Please check: https://dancecult-research.net/dc27-cfp/