CrimSL 2026 Graduate Student Conference: State Violence and the Governance of (Dis)Order
When and Where
Description
The Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto is pleased to invite graduate students to the 2026 Annual Graduate Student Conference! This year's theme is State Violence and the Governance of (Dis)Order.
This free, one-day conference will take place in person at the Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies, Canadiana Gallery building, University of Toronto, 14 Queens Park Cres. W.
The event will feature more than 30 interdisciplinary presentations from students across Canada and around the world as well as a keynote speech TBC.
The 2026 Graduate Student Conference aims to explore how states produce, justify, and manage violence to achieve security and control. Importantly, the Conference will facilitate the critical examination of political, social, and historical mechanisms through which order is constructed and whose lives, movements, or claims are labelled (dis)orderly.
By bringing together attendees with diverse methods and perspectives, the Conference hopes to foster dialogue, challenge dominant narratives, and generate new insights into the relationships between those with and without power and explore the institutional practices that shape and justify state violence to maintain governance over those who challenge or threaten these systems of power.
Call for submissions (closed)
The Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies accepted paper submissions from students across Canada and the United States for the 2026 Graduate Student Conference on the theme State Violence and the Governance of (Dis)Order. The Conference is an excellent opportunity for PhD and advanced MA students to share research broadly related to this theme and receive feedback from their peers. The Conference Committee welcomed submissions from criminology, sociolegal studies, sociology, law, psychology, history, science and technology studies, anthropology, public policy, geography and related disciplines.
The call for submissions closed December 29, 2025.
Topics include, but are not limited to:
- Theories of order and disorder, and how states define deviance and the legitimacy of state violence.
- Security as a technology of governance.
- Comparative histories of the policing of counterinsurgency across empires and postcolonial states.
- State formation and the institutionalization of violence in colonial and settler-colonial contexts.
- The expansion of carceral logics beyond the prison to control and manage problematic populations.
- Predictive policing of (dis)order and digital forms of surveillance.
- Militarization of police forces to control (dis)order.
- Racialized and gendered dimensions of state violence.
- State responses to protest, civil disobedience, and grassroots organizing.
- Citizenship stripping, deportability, and the governance of mobile populations.
- Discourses around immigration that produce (dis)orderly subjects.
Timeline
Submission deadline: December 29, 2025, 11:59 pm
Notification of selection: January 12, 2026
Conference date: March 26, 2026
Register to attend
Notice of photography and videography
Please note that this event may be photographed or video recorded. By reserving your spot for this event, you consent to be captured in photos and videos. By providing your consent, you also agree that the Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies retains the right to share these on its website and other media platforms. Should you have any questions or concerns, please contact crimsl.communications@utoronto.ca.
Accessibility
The Canadiana Gallery main entrance is served by a ramp and the entrance door features an automatic no-touch wave switch for door opening. The all-gender washroom on the main floor is accessible. The CrimSL Library is accessible by vertical lift.
If you have any access needs, or if there are any ways we can support your participation in this event, please email gradconf.crimsl@utoronto.ca and we will be glad to work with you to make the appropriate arrangements.
About the annual CrimSL Graduate Student Conference
Learn more about previous CrimSL Graduate Student Conferences.
Questions?
Please contact the 2025-2026 CrimSL Graduate Student Conference Committee at gradconf.crimsl@utoronto.ca with any questions.