Call for Papers
Laboratorium. Russian Review of Social Research
Thematic issue: Rethinking the South Caucasus
Laboratorium. Russian Review of Social Research is a new international
peer-reviewed journal for the publication of, and debate on, empirical
social research. (See below for details on the journal and its editorial
board.) The pilot issue is scheduled to appear in late 2007.
In March 2008, Laboratorium will publish a thematic issue entitled
Rethinking the South Caucasus.
The South Caucasus is a region of exceptional interest to empirical social
scientists. In Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, the economic and political
change of the past two decades has resulted in social transformations on a
scale that makes the region stand out among post-socialist states.
Nation-state building, contested borders, changing gender roles, a nascent
civil society, poverty and unemployment, labour migration, the predicament
of refugees and displaced persons, new historical narratives, ethnic
conflicts and the rise of nationalism all require thorough empirical study
as a precondition for in-depth analysis.
Yet serious scholarly studies are still scarce in the international
literature, especially if compared to the torrent of myths about this
region, many of which enjoy the active support of politicised scholars from
the Caucasus, Russia and elsewhere. Political punditry and normative
statements still prevail over detached scholarly analysis in the study of
this region. The moralizing slant of the debate is partly due to the
predominance of journalistic reports over sociological data.
The editors of Laboratorium wish to counter this trend and go beyond the
tradition of folklore-centred ethnography. We propose a new, critical
approach to social research in the South Caucasus. This issue will feature
original articles examining and analysing the social changes that have taken
place in the region over the past decades.
There is now a new generation of talented South Caucasian sociologists,
anthropologists and historians, most of whom are not, however, well
integrated in international scholarly communities. Another important aim of
this issue is therefore to overcome this lack of communication between local
researchers and their colleagues abroad by publishing and discussing work
both from within the region and by outside scholars.
All scholars who have carried out original empirical research in the South
Caucasus are invited to submit articles to this issue. We will only consider
original, previously unpublished papers in either Russian or English.
The issue will be edited by Viktor Voronkov, director of the Centre for
Independent Social Research in Saint Petersburg.
The deadline for submissions to this issue is 10 September 2007. All papers
will be subjected to double-blind peer review, and acceptance of any paper
may be conditional upon revising it in accordance with suggestions by
reviewers and/or the editorial board. Papers should be submitted to Nadia
Nartova, managing editor (nartova (at) indepsocres.spb.ru). Enquiries
concerning this thematic issue should be directed to Viktor Voronkov
(voronkov (at) socres.spb.ru), while general questions on Laboratorium may
be addressed either to Nadia Nartova or to the editor-in-chief, Mischa
Gabowitsch (gabowitsch (at) gmail.com).
Formatting guidelines:
Papers are accepted in either Russian or English, in MS Word or RTF format.
They should not normally exceed 55,000 characters (ca. 8,000 words)
excluding notes. You are free to write in either British or American
English, but please be consistent in your usage.
Please provide information about yourself (full first and last name,
institutional affiliation, departmental address, e-mail and telephone
number) on a separate page.
Please also include a detailed abstract (ca. 3,000 characters, or 400
words). Ideally, though by no means necessarily, this should be in English
if the article submitted is in Russian, and vice-versa.
Use a 12-point font and 1.5 spacing. Notes should be formatted as endnotes
rather than footnotes or alphabetical bibliographies.
LABORATORIUM. Russian Review of Social Research
LABORATORIUM is a new international forum for the publication and discussion
of empirical social research, with a focus on qualitative methods. The
journal wishes to foster interdisciplinary and international debate on the
findings of fieldwork-based research. In particular, LABORATORIUM is
committed to making findings and debates from Russian-language social
research available to an English-speaking audience, and vice-versa. The
journal aims to stimulate debate across the language divide and to open up
cross-national perspectives. The editors firmly believe that in the social
sciences, substantive issues are more relevant than the author’s nationality
or geographic specialisation.
Dialogue and debate between authors from different methodological
backgrounds is particularly encouraged. As in a laboratory, we believe that
improved understanding in the social sciences is achieved through trial and
error as well as informed argument.
Approaches to be featured in the journal include, but are not limited to,
critical sociology, actor-network theory, ethnomethodology, interactionism,
the sociology of critique, feminist studies, the sociology of everyday life,
phenomenological sociology, and historical sociology.
LABORATORIUM is also open to all neighbouring disciplines, including
cultural anthropology, social geography, cultural studies, sociolinguistics
and social history.
Articles may be submitted in either Russian or English, and every article
will be published with a detailed abstract in the other language.
LABORATORIUM only accepts original, previously unpublished work, and will
reject essays or theoretical texts not based on empirical research. In
addition to its regular bilingual issues, LABORATORIUM will regularly
publish special issues featuring Russian translations of seminal articles
originally published in other languages.
LABORATORIUM encourages critical responses to articles published in the
journal and to other important works, irrespectively of their place and
language of publication. Every issue will carry a large selection of reviews
covering the entire range of books and journals in the social sciences, as
well as flashbacks on influential or overlooked Russian books (in English)
or foreign works (in Russian). Research articles should not normally exceed
5,500 words (40,000 characters) plus notes, review articles may be up to
3,500 words (25,000 characters) long, and standard reviews should average
800 words (5,000 characters).
All articles are subjected to double-blind peer review, and authors will
usually be expected to revise the submitted version of their article to
incorporate suggestions by anonymous reviewers and the editorial board.
LABORATORIUM. Russian Review of Social Research. Editorial Board
Alexander Bikbov (Russian State University of the Humanities, Moscow)
Elena Bogdanova (Center for Independent Social Research, Saint Petersburg)
Olga Brednikova (Center for Independent Social Research, Saint Petersburg)
Sofia Chuikina (Center for Independent Social Research, Saint Petersburg)
Marc Elie (Franco-Russian Centre for the Humanities and Social Sciences,
Moscow)
Mischa Gabowitsch (Princeton University, editor-in-chief)
Katerina Gerasimova (Center for Independent Social Research, Saint
Petersburg)
Konstantin Ivanov (Leo Tolstoy State Pedagogical University, Tula)
Oksana Karpenko (Center for Independent Social Research, Saint Petersburg)
Olessia Kirtchik (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris)
Nadya Nartova (Center for Independent Social Research, Saint Petersburg,
managing editor)
Oleg Pachenkov (Center for Independent Social Research, Saint Petersburg)
Mihail Rozhansky (Center for Independent Social Research and Education,
Irkutsk)
Irina Tartakovskaya (Institute for Social and Gender Policy, Moscow)
Anna Temkina (European University at Saint Petersburg)
Sergei Oushakine (Princeton University)
Ilya Utekhin (European University at Saint Petersburg)
Viktor Voronkov (Center for Independent Social Research, Saint Petersburg)
Oxana Zaporozhets (Samara State University)
Elena Zdravomyslova (Center for Independent Social Research, Saint
Petersburg)
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