Dear all please find (below) the call for a special issue of the journal 
Equal Opportunities International on the 'Politics of Equality'. Any 
expressions of interst to me rather than the list. 

Thanks Shona Hunter. 



Equal Opportunities International Call for Papers for Special Issue: 

The Politics of Equality: Professionals, States and Activists


Equal Opportunities International is pleased to announce a special issue 
focused on the politics of equality. This special issue will examine the 
different types of institutions, strategies, theoretical ideas, activities, 
and people involved in contemporary equality practices.  The equality 
practices of the 1980s took particular forms which have since been analysed 
and debated.  Since then, equality practice has undergone a number of 
significant changes: including the shift from equal opportunities and 
affirmative action towards diversity; increasing professionalisation, 
formalisation and bureaucratisation; and the rise of different versions of 
equality activism. This special issue aims to offer a range of perspectives 
on these and other related shifts; what these shifts mean both for those 
who do equalities work as professionals and as activists, and those who 
experience its effects. 

The special issue poses questions around what is distinctive about current 
changes in equality and diversity work and why they matter. It asks these 
questions partly in response to critiques around the professionalisation, 
formalisation and bureaucratisation of equalities. These critiques suggest 
that this bureaucratisation has effects for the broader politics of 
equality, one of which is that this de-radicalises such work, constraining 
and narrowing its effects and focus. These critiques suggest that such work 
then becomes another means of reproducing the inequalities it purports to 
challenge. 

Papers in this special issue will reflect on these changes. They will not 
necessarily view these shifts as failure. Thus, papers may discuss the 
extent to which these changes means the failure of organisations to embrace 
the ethos of equality or of activists to retain the political purpose of 
their agendas in the sphere of formal organisational practice. We want to 
consider more critically, what the micro-realities of doing such work are. 
What are the effects both on those doing this work and for organisations? 
How do the boundaries between state craft and activism coincide in 
organisational practice for equality and diversity? How do these elements 
get negotiated by equalities professionals? What sort of time, resources 
and effort must be harnessed by individuals and organisations to make 
equalities work count for staff and users? What are the costs and what is 
gained? 

Papers (7,000 words max) are invited from academics and practitioners who 
do work in the area of equality and diversity, including the areas of age, 
disability, ethnicity (‘race’), gender, sexualities and from a range of 
national contexts. Papers could include reflections on:

· Activism and the politics of equality: insiders, outsiders, 
femocrats, social movements, communities, activist organisations, boundary 
work.
· State craft and institutions of equality: governance, 
municipalities, local authorities, equality commissions, third sector/not 
for profit organisations, funding regimes.
· The professionalisation of equality work: credentialisation, 
equality consultancy, the expertise of equality practice, equality 
professionals and competences.
· The bureaucratisation and technologies of equality practice: 
audits, equality measures, monitoring, policy documents, corporate plans, 
targets, equality standards, and diversity training. 
· Equality formations: municipal anti-racism, corporate diversity, 
femocracies, office reform movements, corporate equity cultures, state 
equality practices. activisms.  


Papers will be subject to full peer review, using the journal’s selection 
criteria. Submission will be taken to imply that a paper contains original 
work that has not previously been published and is not under consideration 
for publication elsewhere. Authors should follow the journal’s regular 
guidelines, as published in every issue of the Journal. Papers should be no 
longer than 7000 words long. 

· April 7th 2006 Call for papers issued
· Sept 3rd 2006 Submission of papers
· Early 2007 Anticipated publication of special edition

Prospective contributors can also liaise with the guest editors Shona 
Hunter and Elaine Swan at [log in to unmask] and 
[log in to unmask] before this date to discuss the suitability of their 
work for this publication. All submissions for the special edition will be 
subject to full peer review. 

For further information about the Journal, and link to author guidelines 
and submission, please visit the Journal web pages via: 

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/info/journals/eoi/eoi.jsp