Call for Papers — Gender in the global south: disturbing international boundaries

Carolina Moulin, Co-Editor-in-Chief, Contexto Internacional/IRI PUC Rio, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

Recent waves of theorization on gender have become more cognizant of the differences and intersectionalities that affect sexed bodies in multiple ways so as to produce alternative possibilities for thinking and acting politically. This transformation has been deeply tied to a more general problematization of the Eurocentric basis through which knowledge production has been pursued, in a movement that led to the growing appreciation of the “Global South” as a legitimate locus of enunciation. The impact of such a transformation of the usual loci of enunciation and knowledge production has been central for feminist, gender and queer studies, which have been trying to account for the ineradicable multiplicity of places, histories, bodies, and subjectivities.

In international relations, Cynthia Enloe’s popularization of the idea that the personal is in

ternational and that the international is personal has contributed to the appreciation of the intertwining among categories of gender, class, ethnicity, and allowed for questioning the universalizing categories that risk homogenizing people’s experiences and trajectories. By doing so, Enloe has allowed an interrogation into the ways through which personal lives are infused with power as well as into how the politicization of people’s private lives offers the pillars that sustain international politics.

Appreciating the dislocation of universalist narratives, this Special Issue invites reflection on the state of gender studies – conceptually, politically, epistemologically – from a Global South perspective. Particularly, it encourages submissions that account for the ways categories of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, class among others are particularly intertwined in the lived experiences of people who inhabit the actual and symbolic Global South, so as to generate approaches to how power and resistance operate and are negotiated in different ways by people inhabiting multiple geographical, political and normative spaces. The Editorial Team of the Special Issue of Contexto Internacional, “Gender in the Global South: disturbing international boundaries” invites contributions that reflect upon:

• How does the mainstream political and discursive affirmation of the binary oppositional divide between North and South, West and East, First World and Third World affect intersectional gender analysis?
• What is the role of gender analysis in power relations to dislocate the political as well as the epistemological boundaries of international relations?
• How do sex and gender influence the formation of subjectivities in various settings of power relations in the Global South?
• How do these subjectivities help to account for alternative resources for disturbing the temporal logic of political modernity inscribed in the Eurocentric grid of intelligibility?
• How do alternative epistemological approaches to gender help to navigate the multiple experiences of people who inhabit – physically or intellectually – the Global South?
• How do the multiple intersectionalities of sex, gender, race, ethnicity and class affect the everyday experiences of people in the Global South, and how do these experiences shape international politics in the 21st century?

The evaluation process will proceed in three stages. Abstracts of up to 300 words can be submitted by November 30th 2017. Full papers of pre-selected proposals are due on January 30th 2018. Approved papers will be submitted to a rigorous double-blind peer review process. Publication of all manuscripts is conditional to reviewers’ and editorial’s approval. All submissions must include a cover letter clearly indicating that the proposal is for the Special Issue on ‘Gender in the Global South’, and informing author(s)’s title/institution and affiliation. All submissions must be done through Contexto Internacional’s ScholarOne Manuscripts website at https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/cint-scielo.

Manuscripts should be original and unpublished, and should follow the general instructions available at: http://www.scielo.br/revistas/cint/iinstruc.htm. Authors should hold a PhD, be enrolled in a PhD program, and/or have a strong professional/academic background in International Relations, Political Science or related field at the time of submission. In co-authored manuscripts, at least one of the authors should meet that criteria fully. Submissions from authors at early career stages are welcome.

Questions should be sent by email to contextointernacional@puc-rio.br (subject: Special Issue on Gender in the Global South).

Important dates:

Abstract Submission: November 30th, 2017

First round acceptance by December 13th, 2017

Paper submission: January 30th, 2018

Estimated time of publication: December 2018

External link

Contexto Internacional – CINT: www.scielo.br/cint