Dear Colleagues, I hope this email finds you well. My name is Dr Regner Ramos, and I'm an Assistant Professor at the University of Puerto Rico School of Architecture. My current research project explores how mobile technologies are changing and informing queer spatial practices in San Juan, Puerto Rico (there's more info here <http://elsite.xyz/about>). I want to invite the members of the AOIR to a conference we're organizing here at the University of Puerto Rico next February 2019. called 'Sites Queer: Technologies, Spaces and Otherness'. We've got an open Call for Papers at the moment, and I'd like to encourage members working on topics that touch on any of these aspects to submit. If there are any questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch. *CFP - **Sites Queer: Technologies, Spaces and Otherness* *University of Puerto Rico School of Architecture, Río Piedras Campus* *Abstract Submission Deadline: 31 August 2018* *Conference Dates: February 7-9, 2019* Much of queer theory, history, art and performance have been discussed from Anglo American and European perspectives. *Sites Queer* is an interdisciplinary three-day conference exploring the multiple ways in which LGBTQ+ spaces and identities get reconfigured, performed and contested through the technologies and spatial politics of diverse ethnic cultures. We welcome submissions from all cultural backgrounds, and are particularly interested in inviting research projects rooted in Latin American, Asian, Aboriginal and African cultures.
From within the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, *Sites Queer* will be a space to discuss, foreground and analyze divergent queer histories, narratives and spatial practices. Subsequently, playing off the word 'site' as a physical locale as well a digital space, the conference will problematize the ways the Internet, digital technologies, mobile apps and social networks are informing, changing, shaping or contesting queerness for ethnic minorities at urban and rural levels.
The outcome of the conference will be to create a book proposal acting as a critical, cultural memory; a written and visual record; and a speculative, spatial cartography of queer spaces, drawing them out from their Otherness and situating them within contemporary sociopolitical debates. Potential themes and sub-themes of the conference include but are not limited to: *-Autoethnography, Autobiography and Performance* *-Non-normative Relationship Structures* *-Intimacy and Romance* *-Chem-sex* *-Digital Economies and Transactions* *-Distance and Proximity* *-Postcodes and Addresses* *-Urban Infrastructures* *-Ephemerality, Transcience and Permanence* *-Nighttime Culture and Economies* *-Migration* *-Bias and Marginalization* *-Looking for Others and Being Found* *-Politics of Space* *-Citizenship and Otherness* *-Tourism and Mobility* *-Activism and Resistance* *Sites Queer* is funded by Dr. Regner Ramos’s FIPI research grant at the University of Puerto Rico School of Architecture. We are inviting research papers, performances, workshop sessions, roundtable sessions and pre-constituted panels to participate. Please send 250-word abstracts and a 150-word biography to regner.ramos@upr.edu . In the case of group submissions, please provide biographies for each individual. We accept submissions in Spanish and English. *Submission Deadline: 31 August 2018* For more details: http://elsite.xyz/calendar/sites-queer We are delighted to have Dr. Sharif Mowlabocus as *Sites Queer's* keynote speaker. Dr Mowlabocus is a Senior Lecturer in Media and Digital Media, based within the School of Media, Film and Music at University of Sussex. His research focuses on gay and queer sexualities in media culture, and has authored a variety of articles and books on the subject. Best wishes, Regner Ramos, PhD