Radhika Gajjala wrote on the Divisions: Global Communication and Social Change wall: CFP: Special Issue on "Queering Affective and Social Reproductive Labor in Post-Pandemic Life" for Women's Studies in Communication (WSIC) Radhika Gajjala: radhik@bgsu.edu Debipreeta Rahut: drahut@bgsu.edu Co-editors: Radhika Gajjala and Debipreeta Rahut For this special issue, we invite submissions that examine how social reproductive labor is being negotiated and contested in “post-pandemic” everyday life with a focus on gender and gender roles in the Global South, that go beyond the binary of male and female and also encompass various other social identities that were further marginalized amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. As noted by Niharika Banerjea et al. (2022), COVID-19 policies of “social distancing” and “stay-at-home” mandates, had little impact on densely populated regions such as South Asia and instead exacerbated social hierarchies of caste, class, religion, gender, and sexuality. Thus, our special issue moves the focus away from the US and Western contexts to focus on marginalized individuals in the Global South to understand how they are queering social reproductive work individually or with their families. What is the significance of this “new normal” in gendered everyday life in the Global South? How does the distribution of power shape the gendered relational dynamics of everyday life within the home? What does “householding” entail as we navigate the technologically interconnected transition from remote work to a work-life centered on and around the home? Niharika Banerjea and Sumita Beethi (2022) in their autoethnographic account shared how the COVID-19 lockdowns globally normalized the idea of “home” as a safe haven centering around a heteronormative family that embodies a very heteropatriarchal structure of domestic spaces. Alan Sears (2017) has noted how heteronormativity has been accepted as a dominant structure not only in normalizing heterosexuality but also in heterosexual orientation toward everyday practices and householding. And it is these heteronormative householding and practices that we want to question via this special issue. In so doing, we want to understand how individuals are queering the heteronormative household structures and how individuals who identify as queer are embodying a queer householding in their post-pandemic everydayness. Mike Douglass (2007) refers to “household” as a “social institution within which interpersonal relations are linked and revolve around” (p. 158). Thus, according to Douglass (2007), “householding” is an ongoing social process involved in creating a household that not only centers around the family and home but extends beyond them at the societal level, functioning as a means of social reproduction and transactions of interpersonal and family dynamics. Further, Radhika Gajjala and Smita Vanniyar (2019) have had a conversation about how the digital is queered and how cyberspace gives a space to “play with gender roles, gender identities, sexuality, and sexual preferences, none of which are static” (p. 153) in understanding “how domestic space and digital publics reveal nuances of ‘ghar’ and ‘bahir’...” (Banerjea et al., 2018, p. 35). Thus, in this special issue, we express the need to study domestic activities, particularly householding, during the COVID-19 pandemic and our “new normal”, challenging the traditional perception of such responsibilities as solely “women’s work” (Kylie Jarrett, 2013) amidst the “digital turn” as ensued by the COVID-19 crises. We advocate for moving beyond gender binarization and seek to comprehend how individuals navigated the home space, negotiating gendered dimensions and physical structures while engaging in unpaid labor associated with the “social reproduction of labor” (Jarrett, 2013). This special issue aims to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the intricate dynamics of householding during the pandemic and encompassing into the “new normal”, acknowledging the unrecognized value of this form of affective/immaterial labor and its queering. Hence, in this special issue, we invite submissions from people who engage with overarching research questions such as but are not limited to - what does social reproductive labor look like, in the interpersonal and family space in the new normal? In doing so, we seek to understand how the “pandemicization” (Rachel Antonia Dunsmore, 2021) of everyday life altered, extended, or challenged our usual understanding of social reproductive labor in everyday life. Additionally, we want to explore the affective mediations surrounding this “new normal” in our everyday life and how it is been queered. This special issue explores the implications and consequences of the “new normal” by understanding its significance, challenges, and transformations in people’s lives. Specifically, it explores how individuals negotiate social reproduction and have queered its performance or have built queer homes in post-pandemic everydayness. In examining the pervasive impact of the pandemic on everyday life, this special issue delves into how individuals, whether within the nationalistic framework of their home country or in the diaspora, have redefined and/or queered their everyday experiences. Their negotiations and challenges reflect the queering of hetero-patriarchal and heteronormative societal structures and emphasize the re-formation of their identities within the intricacies of social hierarchies. The editors invite articles for this special issue, each ranging between 8000-11000 words, to contribute to the comprehensive theorization of queering of affect and social reproductive labor centered around post-pandemic everyday life. By doing so, this special issue brings together four intersecting realms of scholarship that need more exploration - post-pandemic everyday life, affective labor, queer theory, and social reproductive labor - in conversation with the technologically mediated lives of individuals. This endeavor engages with feminist media studies, transnational feminist theory, labor and affect theory, and queer theory to explore intersections involving gender and race, nationality, ability, sexuality, class, power, and gendered performances. Furthermore, it pushes against the binarization of the private and the public, the ghar and the bahir, by delving into the lived experiences and narratives of people’s everydayness in a post-pandemic world. ** If you are interested in submitting for the special issue please send us a brief abstract with a note of your interest as soon as possible. Completed first drafts due: January 8, 2025 Reviewer comments returned: March 31, 2025 Revised papers due: May 1, 2025 Final Manuscripts and Editors' Intro Submitted: August 2025 Abstracts can be submitted directly to the special issue editors at radhik@bgsu.edu and drahut@bgsu.edu. Please send to both with the heading “WSIC_SI_COVIDHOME”
Posted Sunday, November 10, 2024

Dechun Zhang wrote on the Divisions: Global Communication and Social Change wall: Dear colleagues, Apologies for the cross-posting! The Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia (JCEA) is pleased to introduce the CfP for our new special issue, "Digital Transformations in Asian Politics: Opportunities, Challenges, and Implications for Democracy." We are seeking contributions on various topics related to digital politics in Asia. For more details, please see the CfP: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RHP8c-nvszAgAiKTxEVw9KOBBa8UjYkK/view. If you're interested, feel free to contact the guest editors, Dechun Zhang (d.zhang@hum.leidenuniv.nl) and Justin Chun-ting Ho (j.c.ho@uva.nl), and please help spread the word. Best wishes Dechun
Posted Thursday, June 13, 2024

Joy E. Hayes wrote on the Divisions: Global Communication and Social Change wall: If you will be Sydney Tues. June 18th please consider attending the ICA Preconference: Going Global before Satellite and Internet Electronic Media Production, Distribution, and Consumption, 1920s-1980s. Registration is only $20 USD and lunch is provided. Look for the full program after April 9th at: https://www.icahdq.org/BlankCustom.asp?page=2024-prepostconferences. For more information contact goingglobal.precon@gmail.com.
Posted Friday, April 5, 2024

Lindsay Palmer wrote on the Divisions: Global Communication and Social Change wall: Hi all! Please consider submitting an abstract for our special issue of Feminist Media Studies, "Global Media Ethics: A Feminist Intervention." The deadline is March 1! Special Issue Editors: Lindsay Palmer, University of Wisconsin-Madison Radhika Gajjala, Bowling Green State University This special issue brings together three strands of scholarship: global media ethics, feminist media ethics, and transnational feminist theory. Some of the most prominent feminist media scholars have long championed a feminist media ethics: an approach to the production and dissemination of media texts, technologies, and communities that thinks critically about gender inequality (Scott 1993; Kitch 1999; Steiner 2009). Yet, these scholars have mostly focused on media in U.S. and British contexts. At the same time, “global” media ethicists have sought to think about the ways in which race, ethnicity, nation, and religion all impact the search for a media ethics that can cross geopolitical borders. Yet, their work has not significantly considered the problem of gender inequality. Our special issue places these two fields into conversation with transnational feminist theory. By bringing these strands of scholarship together, we hope to push global media ethicists to focus more intentionally on gender, drawing on intersectional feminist theories to do so. Additionally, we want to explore how feminist media ethicists would benefit from thinking outside the U.S. and Britain, particularly in a way that considers the intersectionality of identit(ies) that complicate feminist agendas. We therefore seek submissions that draw upon feminist theorizing to study the best practices for producing and consuming media in a globalized world. Link to the full CFP: https://docs.google.com/document/d/122D8AXxA7UaoEvjXkDFHNKjpUK9vd2HBsjVJmTN39Cc/edit?usp=sharing Please send a 250-word abstract to Lindsay Palmer at lindsay.palmer@wisc.edu by the deadline of March 1, 2024.
Posted Monday, February 5, 2024

Ekaete George wrote on the Divisions: Global Communication and Social Change wall: Dear All, Please join us at our fully remote preconference on Going Global: Frameworks for African Students and Early Career. Register to attend here: https://bit.ly/42ASNKi. Also do share the link for others to join us. Thank you
Posted Monday, May 8, 2023