Western thought demands that we classify ourselves via categories like race, (dis)ability, gender, sexuality, origin, class, and so on. Each of these categories must have a clear set of qualifying characteristics that define you to inhabit them. But what happens when you do not quite fit anywhere?
This special issue of Knowledge Cultures seeks contributions from those ‘wrestling with (not) belonging.’ We invite contributors to respond to one or more of these questions:
- What are the limits and complexities of (not) belonging?
- Can (not) belonging exist beyond Western thought?
- What tools do we have to engage with (not) belonging?
- How might we trouble the parameters of belonging (dis)qualification?
- How might (not) belonging be empowering?
Examples might include:
- Indigeneity, colonial notions of blood quantum, and what ‘qualifies’ (not) belonging to indigeneity
- Invisible disabilities and (not) belonging to disable or able-bodied communities
- Colonialities of gender, binary trans normativities, and (not) being ‘trans enough’
- Migration, ‘state(lessness)’ and (not) belonging anywhere.
We welcome theoretical, empirical, arts-based, post-qualitative, post-human, Indigenous and other non-Western thinking from scholars at all stages in their academic careers and/or practitioners.
Deadline for submission of abstracts (c.200-250 words) to Elba Ramirez (elba.ramirez@aut.ac.nz): 16 April 2023
Important dates:
- 16 April 2023: abstracts submitted to the editors
- 23 April 2023: contributors invited to submit a full paper
- 3 September 2023: manuscripts submitted to the editors for peer review
- 11 September–11 October 2023: peer review of manuscripts and submission of written feedback to editors
- 18 October 2023: comments from editors to peer reviewers
- 19–26 October 2023: provision of feedback to contributors
- 14 January 2024: submission of revised manuscript
- 3 March 2024: special issue published
The full call for papers: KC Call for papers – Wrestling with (not) belonging – 2023
Elba Ramirez, And Pasley, Sean Sturm