[Air-L] #AoIR2026 Regeneration Call for Proposals!

[AoIR Association Coordinator]

The Association of Internet Researchers invites submissions for our *27th
annual conference*, #AoIR2026 Regenerations <http://aoir.org/aoir2026>
(Mexico City/CDMX, México, 14 October -17 October, 2026), which will take
place at the Hyatt Regency Mexico City.
<https://www.hyatt.com/hyatt-regency/en-US/mexhr-hyatt-regency-mexico-city>
*The
deadline for submissions is 1 March 2025 at 11:59 PM in your local time
zone*. Please find the full call for papers below:

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Regeneration(s): Association of Internet Researchers 2026 Conference

Proposals Due: 1 March 2026

Overview

Regeneration(s) opens us up to exploring deeper processes of technological,
cultural, political, artistic, and infrastructural renewal. Online cultures
are born, mature, decay, and are reborn in slightly different forms;
generations of internet researchers train and mentor each other; new ideas
and approaches emerge. Regeneration here is not simply understood as
technological repair or sustainability, but as a relational and ethical
process grounded in ongoing responsibilities to land, peoples, data, and
communities; Regeneration is cyclical and inseparable from complex
histories of resistance as a counterweight to the logics of optimization
and maximization that characterize the tech industry.

Generation and generativity as productive capacities are also contested
processes and capacities as AI companies try to frame generativity as
automation, reproduction, and passivity at scale. The challenge then is to
generate technical, political, and communal imagination and maps that allow
us to articulate embodied, alternative, and active generative futures
around collective technological use. This also offers an opportunity to
think seriously about how our scholarly networks themselves are generated,
regenerated, and maintained.

This year’s conference is co-hosted by scholars and institutions in both
Mexico City/CDMX, MX, and Los Angeles, CA, two cities with complex and
entangled histories. Although they are often thought of as distinct worlds
- one, the historic capital of México, and the other, a paradigmatic U.S.
metropolis molded by migration, sprawl, and imagination. Both historically
and now, they are inextricably tied; from colonial and imperial trade
routes to cross-border familial legacies, to twentieth century labor
markets and migration. Turning colonial historical narratives on their
heads, Chicano activists of the 1960s and 70s reminded the world with an
insistent rallying cry, “the border crossed us.”

In recent years, both have seen unprecedented investment from tech
companies expanding infrastructure and the transformation of core
industries and craft by the increasing encroachment of AI, even as both
cities struggle with severe drought and other environmental and economic
consequences hastened by legacies of resource extraction. Mexico City/CDMX
has also experienced challenges posed by a significant influx of so-called
“digital nomads,” particularly from the North. Worsening gentrification and
an ever-growing population of non-Spanish speakers have sparked a backlash,
pushing back against displacement and economic stratification. Los Angeles,
too, has been subject to the crisis of housing affordability and
gentrification, a perennial issue exacerbated by the tech hubs like Silicon
Beach. It is against these backdrops and complex, intertwined but distinct
histories and cultures that we invite the AoIR global community of internet
scholars to participate in this conference.

Call for Participation

AoIR 2026 solicits work exploring the theme of regeneration(s) in all of
its manifold usages.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

   -

   Regenerative technologies: Regeneration and Indigenous feminist theories
   of relationality and care; Technologies that add to rather than extract,
   lab cultures, autonomous infrastructure.
   -

   Platform genealogies: The evolution and reconfiguration of social media,
   online communities, and digital economies.
   -

   Generative media and AI: Challenging and deepening engagement with the
   realities and rhetorics of “generativity.”
   -

   Activism and continuity: Intergenerational organizing and learning in
   digital social movements, creation and care.
   -

   Reflection: Legacies of scholarship, reflecting on generations of AoIR
   and Internet Studies scholarship, mentorship, and intergenerational
   collaboration.
   -

   Multispecies ethics: Biological, ecological, digital systems.
   -

   Identity and community: Engagements with the theme through dimensions of
   identity, including race, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, language,
   citizenship, and culture.
   -

   Digital age and life course: Generational identities online;
   intergenerational communication and conflict; youth, aging, and digital
   inclusion.
   -

   Technological generations: Successive waves of internet platforms,
   infrastructures, and protocols; how technologies inherit, disrupt, or
   forget previous generations.
   -

   Cultural memory and legacy: Internet nostalgia, digital preservation,
   and the archiving of online histories.
   -

   Digital caretaking: Skill shares and makerspaces, familial tech
   maintenance, community pedagogy.
   -

   Technoptimism/pessimism: Imaginaries of regeneration, resilience, and
   refusal.

We also welcome submissions on topics that address social, cultural,
political, legal, aesthetic, economic, and/or philosophical aspects of the
internet beyond the conference theme.

The committee extends a special invitation to students, researchers, and
practitioners who have previously not participated in an AoIR event to
submit proposals, and to scholars from the Global South, Black, Indigenous,
and People of Color globally, LGBTQIA+ peoples, scholars living with
disabilities, and people outside or adjacent to the academy. With this in
mind, AoIR renews its commitment to travel scholarships, as well as other
initiatives, to support conference participants. We will also follow the
lead of last year’s committee and continue to experiment with forms of
multi/bilingualism to further our mission of diversity and inclusivity
within internet research. The conference committee will accept
applications, in English,  for participation in Spanish at the conference.
Please make these selections within ConfTool.

This year’s conference will offer opportunities for hybrid participation
for keynote and plenary viewing only in order to focus on multilingual
access at the conference itself.

Location and Venue

We could not be more delighted to be coming together in Mexico City/CDMX,
an ideal host city and venue for our community of researchers. The
conference will be held at the Hyatt Regency in the Polanco neighborhood.
<https://www.hyatt.com/hyatt-regency/en-US/mexhr-hyatt-regency-mexico-city>
A block of rooms has been reserved at a conference rate for participants.
The reservations for the Hyatt block will be made available at a later
date; please watch the AoIR Listserv for announcements. The Hyatt has been
newly renovated and offers accessible rooms, air conditioning, a gym,
onsite dining, an indoor pool, and spectacular views of Chapultepec Park.
Those wishing to make alternative lodging should feel free to do so at
their leisure. Mexico City/CDMX has a great network of public
transportation and affordable private transport options (e.g., taxis).

Polanco is known for its historical architecture, public green spaces, and
several of the city’s most visited museums and collections, including the
Soumaya and Jumex Museums, in addition to the National Museum of
Anthropology. The neighborhood is walkable and proximate to public
transportation to connect to the rest of the city. Mexico City/CDMX is one
of the great culinary and cultural capitals while also standing as a focal
point for contemporary research and activism around the digital, including
labor organizing among app-based and gig-economy workers, public campaigns
over the environmental and social impacts of data centers, and national
debates over data protection, platform governance, and digital sovereignty.

Hosts

The 2026 Conference Host Committee is an international, cross-border
collective made up of scholars and colleagues from the University of
California, Los Angeles, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Pomona College, and the Platform Observatory.

To Apply

We will once again use the ConfTool submissions management software system
to manage the CFP process. To submit, please use this link
<https://www.conftool.org/aoir2026>. Please note: all applicants will need
to recreate a ConfTool account for the 2026 instance, even if you have
submitted in the past.

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For more information on how to submission guidelines, please visit our
website. <http://aoir.org/aoir2026>

Sincerely,
AoIR2026 Program Chair

---AoIR2026: Regenerations <http://aoir.org/aoir2026>