Gender, differences, identities and DIY cultures We are pleased to announce the fourth KISMIF International Conference ‘Keep It Simple, Make It Fast! Gender, differences, identities and DIY cultures’ (KISMIF Conference 2018) which will take place in Porto, Portugal, between 3 July and 7 July 2018. The submission of abstracts for this conference is open to academic researchers working in all areas of sociology, anthropology, history, cultural economics, geography, urban planning, media and cultural studies and cognate disciplines, such as design, illustration, popular music, cinema, visual and performing arts. This initiative follows the great success of the three past editions of the KISMIF Conference (held in 2014, 2015 and 2016) and brings together an international community of researchers focusing on underground music scenes and do-it-yourself culture. The KISMIF Conference offers a unique forum where participants can discuss and share information about underground cultures and DIY practices. KISMIF focuses on cultural practices that are often pitched against more mainstream, mass-produced and commodified forms of cultural production. Aligned with this is an anti-hegemonic ideology focused around aesthetic and lifestyle politics. KISMIF is the first and so far, only conference to examine the theory and practice of underground DIY cultures as an increasingly significant form of cultural practice in a global context. The conference has a multidisciplinary approach, welcoming contributions from the global community of scholars and activists working on all aspects of underground scenes and DIY cultures, and based on various methodologies — quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods analysis. The goal is to discuss not only music but also other artistic fields such as film and video, graffiti and street art, theatre and the performing arts, literature and poetry, radio, programming and editing, graphic design, illustration, cartoon and comic fiction.
