Island Dynamics Blue Humanities Conference 2027: Oceanic Urbanism
Helsingborg, Sweden & Helsingør, Denmark, 11-14 January 2027
As a multidisciplinary scholarly movement within the environmental humanities, the Blue Humanities explores the role of water spaces in forming, maintaining, and transforming human cultures and societies as well as takes humanities and social science approaches to the non-human aquatic world. The Blue Humanities encompasses research from such fields and disciplines as history, anthropology, cultural studies, maritime studies, human geography, literature studies, ecology, gender studies, Indigenous studies, im/migration studies, art history, and tourism studies.
This workshop welcomes contributions on any topic within the Blue Humanities (past, present, or future). However, presenters are especially encouraged to address the special conference theme of oceanic urbanism: the ways in which human cities, settlements, technologies, and infrastructures interact with water systems and spaces (oceans, seas, rivers, lakes, bays, estuaries, glaciers, fog, etc.).
Throughout history, coastal cities, towns, and villages have been spaces of intensive interaction between humanity and the aquatic realm. Urban experiences with waters have shaped ways in which people perceive themselves, their culture, the city, nature, and the world as a whole. Human-water entanglements have inspired a myriad of artistic and cultural creations on the part of humans as well as urban adaptations on the part of non-human actors such as plants and animals. It is in urban spaces that the hard infrastructure of ports; harbours; and waterside residential, leisure, and commercial zones meets the ever-changing liquid environment. It is here that marine and riverine forces challenge the illusion of human control over nature and the hubris of imagining that any anthropogenic structure can ever be permanent or complete. Yet it is also here that people undertake both productive and extractive engagements with aquatic spaces in ways that profoundly influence human life, hydrological systems, and the ecosystems that depend upon them. Oceanic urbanism extends beyond coastal cities as discrete, primarily terrestrial units, encompassing offshore rigs, aquaculture facilities, dams, ships, undersea cables and pipelines, and other spaces that can be studied from an urban perspective.
Contributions can include pre-recorded video presentations and especially draft academic papers designed for submission to the peer reviewed, non-fee charging open access journal Blue Humanities. Contributions may reference particular water bodies, sites, cities, infrastructures, or they may discuss the conference theme in general terms that are nevertheless situated within particular cultural frameworks and worldviews. The workshop is open to all theoretical approaches. In line with Island Dynamics’ wider philosophy, we take a pluriversal perspective that insists upon epistemic diversity and distinct ways of knowing and acting within the world.
Min Zhou (Professor at Hangzhou Normal University’s Center for Caribbean Studies & co-Editor-in-Chief of Blue Humanities) and Søren Frank (Professor at University of Copenhagen’s Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics) will serve as keynote speakers.
Abstract submission
If you wish to participate in the workshop as an author, please submit your abstract proposal here: https://islanddynamics.org/abstractsubmission/. After submission, your proposal will be reviewed, and the organisers will respond with a decision as soon as possible. The earlier you submit your proposal, the earlier you will receive the decision. The final deadline for abstract submission is 15 October 2026. Those delegates whose abstracts have been accepted for the workshop will be asked to submit written draft articles by 15 December 2026 at the latest. Although publication in the journal Blue Humanities is subject to peer review, the workshop will establish the basis for a special section of the journal on the workshop theme, to which delegates will be invited to submit papers.
Conference location
The main workshop location is Helsingborg, a small Swedish city on the Öresund, facing the Danish town of Helsingør across the strait. As both a border city and a port city, Helsingborg’s millennium-long history has been inseparable from the sea. Today, Helsingborg is striving to become a testbed for smart and sustainable urbanism—a laudable goal that nevertheless raises questions about the wider proliferation of role models of eco-urbanism and their complicated role in global systems of financial, racial, gender, epistemic, and other inequalities. The conference will begin with two days of local site visits. On 11 January, delegates will explore the Helsingborg’s terrestrial and marine cityscapes, from the medieval centre to the state-of-the-art harbour and port. On 12 January, delegates will visit the museum at Dunkers Culture House and engage in discussions about their research and draft journal articles. On 13 January, delegates will take a ferry across the Öresund to Helsingør in Denmark, visiting the M/S Maritime Museum of Denmark, walking the grounds of the imposing Kronborg Castle, and experiencing the wider historic city. On 14 January, we will hold further discussions concerning our writing and the trajectory of Blue Humanities research as well as visit the vibrant nearby city of Malmö.
Publication opportunity & free registration
This workshop is organised in association with the peer reviewed, non-fee charging open access journal Blue Humanities. Delegates are strongly encouraged to submit draft articles to the organisers prior to the workshop (deadline 15 December 2026), which can be shared and discussed during the workshop. The ultimate aim is for delegates to arrive at fully formed papers for submission to Blue Humanities following the instructions here.
Registration
Registration for the workshop is 500 Singapore dollars. Registration includes lunches, site admission, and transport during the workshop from the morning of 11 January through to the evening of 14 January. Registration does not include accommodation or dinners. To register, fill out the registration form here before the deadline of 30 October. You will subsequently be sent an invoice, for which payment will be due within due within 15 days.
Delegates are recommended but not required to stay at the conference hotel in Helsingborg, Elite Hotel Marina Plaza. The early deadline for registration was 31 July 2026. The final deadline for filling out the registration form is 15 October 2026.
Organisation
Co-Convenors
Adam Grydehøj (South China University of Technology, China)
Ping Su (South China University of Technology, China)
Organisers
Island Dynamics
Research Center for Indian Ocean Island Countries & School of Foreign Languages, South China University of Technology