8/15 Call for 250 Word Abstracts for Special Issue Black Women's Protest in the Diaspora
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Thursday, July 22, 2021 07:48 AM

Call for Essays PALARA 26 (Fall 2022)
Special Issue:  Afro-Diasporic Protest: Black Women's Resistance in Cali and in the Black Pacific

Guest Editors: Sarah Soanirina Ohmer, Aurora Vergara Figueroa, Melissa Gómez Hernández

Deadlines

* Abstracts of 250 words due August 15, 2021
* Invitations for full-length essays will be sent by October 1, 2021
* Essays of 18-25 pages, as per Author Guidelines, due March 1, 2022
* Revisions due June 1, 2022

 

Please send all abstracts to the guest editors at [email protected]

PALARA (Publication of Afro-Latin American Research Association)is a multi-disciplinary journal that publishes research and creativity relevant to diaspora studies in the Americas. The editors of the journal, Dr. Sonja Watson and Dr. Dorothy Mosby, invite you to send your abstracts to this special issue Afro-Diasporic Protest: Black Women's Resistance in Cali and in the Black Pacific, edited by Drs Sarah Ohmer, Melissa Gómez Hernández, and Aurora Vergara Figueroa.

The seventh year since the United Nations’ International Decade for People of African descent, 10 years since the Afro-Diasporic Conspiracy Manifesto (2011), and 44 years since the Combahee Collective Manifesto (1977), 2021 marks one of the most violent years of violence against Afro-Colombians, especially in Cali, against black women and LGBTQ+ people. In Latin America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, a community of scholars has been steadily publishing on State repression, though seldom on the resistance of Black women outside of Brazil and the Caribbean. The militancy of Black women and LGBTQ+ groups deserve further scholarly attention. This call invites submissions from underrepresented artists, activists, and scholars, on protest, grassroots organizations, and community projects. We welcome work on black women’s activism, political actions, political theory, activist scholarship, produced outside of Cuba and Brazil, particularly on the Pacific Coast. Since the 1970s, Afro-Latin American Studies and Black Resistance has grown into a transnational scholarly community of queer, trans, womyn, and women focused on Black feminist/Black decolonial thought and activism for the liberation and rights of black LBGTQ+ girls, trans or cisgendered women, and non-binary individuals. We encourage submissions on their activist theory in relation to Afro-Diasporic Feminisms, Decolonial Anti-Racist Feminist work by people of African descent, Black Queer Thought, and militancy.

From the militancy of Nanny, Akotirene, and Sojourner Truth to the scholarship and activism of Carla Akotirene, Ochy Curiel, Tanya Saunders, Marielle Franco, Francia Márquez, and the Mujeres del Oriente, the references of black women and black queer work are infinite, yet understudied. This issue will complement the Journal of International Women’s Studies and Meridians Special Issues on Latin American and Afro-Latin American Feminisms, the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies Journal KuirLombo Epistemologies issue, and Women’s Studies Quarterly “Solidão” Issue, to contribute a more diverse representation of Afro-Diasporic activist resistance by women and LGBTQ+ people.

We encourage submissions focusing on queer of color and/or Afro-Indigenous activists, critical scholars, and artists, including co-authored essays. We will accept essays in Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English, focused on Black women or Black LGBTQ+ and one or more of the topics below.

  • Resistance to state-mandated violence
  • Afrodiasporic Conspiracies
  • Territorialidad
  • Afrodiasporic and indigenous movements
  • AIDS / SIDA
  • Black women’s marches
  • Street, urban, rural protest or organizing
  • Protest film, art, performance
  • Social media and digital resistance
  • Policy-making, political campaigns by Black women/LGBTQ+
  • Struggle for Rights and Access
  • Disability Studies
  • 21st Century Girlhood Studies
We welcome work on Cali/Southwest Colombia in comparison with other oppressed territories:
  • The Black Pacific in Latin America, Central America, the Caribbean, Mexico, U.S., Canada
  • The Black Pacific, in comparison with the Circum-Caribbean, the Black Atlantic
  • Afro-Latinx Feminisms in the U.S./Canada

Authors that may be subjects of/referenced in essays:Lélia González, Ochy Curiel, Yuderkis Espinoza, Marta Moreno Vega, Oyèronké Oyewúmí, Mara Viveros, Flávia Rios, Sylvia Wynter, Tanya L. Saunders, Gloria Anzaldúa, Women Warriors of the Afro-Latina Diaspora, “Afrodiasporic Feminist Conspiracy: Motivations and Paths forward from the First International Seminar.” Meridians 14-2 (2016) by Aurora Vergara and Katherine Arboleda Hurtado.

References to recent journals may include: Journal of International Women’s Studies and Meridians Special Issues on Latin American and Afro-Latin American Feminisms, the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies Journal KuirLombo Epistemologies issue, and Women’s Studies Quarterly “Solidão” Issue.