CALL FOR PAPERS “In medias res: Decolonial Interventions”
Journal of International Women’s Studies – Special Issue
Special issue Editors
Dr. Su-Ming Khoo, Lecturer, Department of Political Science and Sociology, National University of Ireland, Galway
Anique Vered, Independent Researcher, Australia
Dr. Sayan Dey, Assistant Professor, Amity Law School, Amity University, India
This Special Issue invites contributions from all disciplines engaged in the project of dismantling coloniality, persistent in thinking and behaving. We call these dismantling discourses decolonial interventions, and use the term coloniality to express the tenacious, ambiguous and contradictory aftermath of colonization and empire. We use decoloniality to speak to a common ground of shared struggles against colonially structured knowledge and power.
For in this midst of socio-cultural, political, economic, gendered, and sexual systems of domination, power and exclusion, an epistemological and ontological shift is emerging, a shift characterized by transnational connections seeking to disrupt nationalistic geopolitics, and divisive categorizations of defined by patriarchal, colonial, neo-colonial, and nativist categories of identity that reify rigid boundaries of self and other. In media res, “in the middle of things” focuses on fluid, trans, and non-conforming ways of thinking and being as part of the struggle against oppression. Spanning the Global North and South, this shift reveals that our diversities are our strengths. This special issue, “In medias res: Decolonial Interventions” seeks to generate a discussion on decoloniality by focusing both on situations that create shared spaces hospitable to dismantling coloniality in all its forms, and to living in an ongoing condition of resistance to oppression.
We offer said themes and questions as prisms to invite decolonial, inter- and transdisciplinary contributions that confront these shifts and challenges and reflect on possibilities for regeneration and transformation. We therefore call for contributions that:
- Situate, name and resist ongoing exclusions
- Excavate, unlearn and repair structures of exclusion and injustice such as racism, sexism, misogyny, homo- and transphobia and impasses of anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-misogyny and the like.
Submissions relating to (but not limited to) queer and post-feminist theory, living queer decoloniality – such as the Hijra/ Kinnar of India, post-feminist psychoanalysis and decolonial gender studies are welcome alongside those exploring transdisciplinary and radical pedagogies, higher education, cognitive justice and epistemic freedom. Works situating themselves in real-world cases concerning social justice, development/ post-development, Indigenous studies, biopolitics, reproductive labour and politics of care – particularly through ethnography and/or collaborative authorship – are also encouraged. Researchers, practitioners, artists, and engaged members of the public are invited to contribute to an emerging multi, inter, or transdisciplinary perspective. We particularly welcome contributions involving novel and experimental formats. The length of the papers is expected to be between 5000-7000 words including footnotes and list of works cited. Please submit your abstract (300-400 words) with keywords (not more than 6) to aniquevered@gmail.com with “In medias res: Decolonial Interventions” in the subject heading by 15 November 2019.
More at JIWS website here.