Call for Papers: Cultural Studies ←→ Critical Methodologies

Special issue: Ukraine, a Decolonizing Global Response: Call to Action for Coalition Building through Inclusive Inquiry and Practices

Editors: Anna S. CohenMiller (Nazarbayev University) & Nettie Boivin (University of Jyväskylä)

Background to the special call for papers
Within the Ukrainian situation, there is a great need to understand, amplify voice and agency, identify insights and highlight change and coalitions as they are unfolding. This is especially true considering the postcolonial nature of the country. Living (and having lived) in Kazakhstan, the co-editors are feeling the impact of the Russian invasion and the recognition of once being a Soviet country. In addition, one of the
co-editors now lives in Finland which shares a border with Russia. Historical past events (e.g., The Winter War) and the immediacy of the action of forced colonization by Russia is felt throughout academia. Both the editors have continually embarked on co-creation, co-production, participatory action research, arts-based and collaborative arts ethnography to ensure decolonial, inclusive practices and coalition building (e.g., Boivin & CohenMiller, 2018; CohenMiller & Boivin, 2021).
Why a special issue is needed
In just over three months since Russian invaded Ukraine, more than 14 million people have fled their homes (BBC, 2022, May 27). This forced colonial context occurring over a rapidly compressed time and space makes visible the institutional coloniality of power and highlights the necessity for critically conceptualized solutions at basic and broad levels for theory, methodology, and practice. The ongoing war lays bare how grassroots community needs require a research approach of decolonial inquiry, and
inclusive practices (Barreto, 2018; Davis, 2020; Denzin & Lincoln,2005; Maldonado-Torres, 2017; Mignolo, 1995; Smith, 2021) and coalition building (Gawerc, 2021; Gullion & Tilton, 2020; Maldonado et al., 2021; Mertens, 2022).
The intersection of decolonial inquiry, inclusive practices, and coalition building in a forced emergency context needs to be investigated, discussed, and shared. The forced attempt to colonize a democratic nation rips at the veil of civility often cloaking colonial, normative institutional power (academia, business, government, education, cultural media). The urgency of the crisis has flipped the academic script from a
top-down conceptual investigation to a bottom-up coalition building. The gravity of the situation has created immediate issues needing immediate addressing rather than only macro conceptual examination.
This special edition will investigate decolonial inquiry, inclusive practices, and coalition building as intersecting processes in the specific forced colonial context. It will examine how the urgency creates organic shifts not top-down imposed practices in applied, societal, and historical research intersecting with community development. The temporal (sudden and immediate) and spatial (fluid across borders) urgency of this context requires coalition building and due to the nature of the aggressive practices by the invaders also elicits an organic need for collaborative decolonial inquiry and inclusive practices.
What we can do as academics and practitioners
Thus, the special issue examines the present impact of forced colonization through a lens of temporality (temporary and immediate migration) and spatiality (within Ukrainian virtually and across several borders) as research organically implements decolonial inquiry, inclusive practices, and coalition building to enable balance and voice in the responding contexts. The need requires an innovative and critical lens
for methodology and practice that intersects social justice and economic and environmental justice, one for instance that embeds decolonial inquiry and inclusive practices to create sustainable, co-constructed knowledge, capacity, and resources (see CohenMiller & Boivin, 2021). The articles can for instance evidence how a multi-perspectival approach facilitates decolonial inquiry and inclusive practices create sustainable knowledge capacity, resources, and networks as related to
Ukraine, or a similar forced coloniality context (e.g., Yemen). We invite articles that utilize decolonial inquiry with purposeful integration and application during the research process. The special issue is interested not just in the use of a particular method (e.g., co-creation, arts-based methods) but methods within the research process in terms of how the whole research process is created through decolonial
inquiry and inclusive practices of sustainable coalition building, broadly conceptualized. The special issue aims to compare across stakeholder positions (e.g., community members, activists, researchers, government, business, frontline workers) to examine how decolonizing inquiry and inclusive practices are utilized to build and network capacity. Finally, the special issue aims to make visible how in forced
colonized and forced migration research contexts decolonial inquiry, inclusive practices, and coalition building can provide a voice and affect change for different stakeholders. Therefore, to facilitate and amplify the voice of various stakeholder perspectives in the research process along with showcasing coalition building within this specific context, the issue is expected to be divided into three sections:

1. Conceptual from decolonizing inclusive practices in emergency contexts → Articles written focusing on the theories of decolonial inquiry and inclusive practices from a coalition-building context.
2. Case studies of calls to action → Articles are written focusing on the process of coalitions, their voice in the context, and how this positively impacts research creating decolonial and inclusive capacity.
3. Decolonizing global response research progress → Articles are written focusing on what is happening already in the contexts addressing decolonial and inclusive applications occurring during coalition building.

Deadline for submission: August 1, 2022

For more information, review this file.