12th i-Rec conference,
May 3 - 7, 2027, Adana, Türkiye
Conference, workshops, exhibitions, student and photo competitions, and site visits in Adana and Hatay
Conference organized by:
- Adana Alparslan Türkeş Science and Technology University (ATÜ)
- Université de Montréal
About the conference
Disasters leave more than physical destruction. They leave memories of loss, displacement, solidarity, institutional failures, and recovery. These memories are carried by people and communities, but they are also inscribed in buildings, streets, landscapes, rituals, photographs, stories, and public institutions. What is remembered — and what is forgotten — can shape how societies understand a disaster, assign responsibility, rebuild their cities, and prepare for future risks.
Post-disaster reconstruction therefore involves not only rebuilding the built environment, but also negotiating memory. Decisions to preserve, demolish, relocate, rebuild, commemorate, or transform affected places influence how disasters are understood over time. Memorials and museums can make loss visible, while ruins, reconstructed neighbourhoods, cultural practices, artistic interventions, and informal acts of remembrance can sustain other forms of collective memory. These processes can reinforce official narratives, but they can also question them, give visibility to neglected experiences, and become vehicles for demands for recognition, accountability, and social justice.
The 2027 i-Rec conference will explore these relationships under the theme “Constructing Disaster Memory: Social, Political and Cultural Aspects of Post-Disaster Reconstruction.” Adana and the neighbouring province of Hatay provide a particularly significant setting for this discussion. Adana has experienced successive earthquakes, including the 1998 Adana-Ceyhan earthquake and the February 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquakes, which affected a vast region of southern Türkiye and had particularly devastating consequences in Hatay. Four years after the 2023 earthquakes, reconstruction will still be transforming buildings, neighbourhoods, infrastructure, public spaces, and everyday life across the region. The conference therefore offers an opportunity to examine disaster memory not as something that emerges only after reconstruction is complete, but as something that is actively produced, contested, and transformed throughout the recovery process.
The conference will bring together researchers, practitioners, artists, policymakers, students, and local actors to examine disaster memory from interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives. Alongside academic sessions, workshops and exhibitions, visits in Adana and Hatay and exchanges with affected communities, civil society organisations, local authorities, and reconstruction professionals will allow participants to connect these discussions with places where memory, recovery, identity, and reconstruction are being negotiated in practice.
Conference Main Themes and Questions
- Accountability, social justice, and disaster memory.
- Landscapes of commemoration and preservation.
- Cultural practices, art, and storytelling in post-disaster contexts.
- Disaster memory in governance and policy.
- Intergenerational and transnational dimensions of disaster memory.
How does disaster memory shape post-disaster reconstruction and recovery?
What is remembered, what is forgotten, and who decides?
How can memory contribute to accountability, social justice, and the reduction of future disaster risk?
How do decisions to preserve, demolish, relocate, rebuild, or transform places affected by disaster shape collective memory?
What roles do cultural practices, rituals, art, storytelling, and the built environment play in preserving, contesting, or transforming disaster memory?
How can disaster memory inform governance, policy, and future approaches to disaster risk reduction?
How are disaster memories transmitted across generations, communities, and borders?
Conference Schedule
Official Announcement: September 20, 2026
Abstract Submission Deadline: November 1, 2026
Expressions of Interest for Student and Photo Competitions: November 15, 2026
Notification of Abstract Acceptance: December 20, 2026
Registration: January 1 – March 30, 2027
Full Paper or Extended Abstract Submission: March 15, 2027
Student Project and Photo Competition Submissions: March 15, 2027
Conference: May 3–7, 2027
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