Hi
The editors for the following call (my colleague Shona Hunter) are keen
to attract potential abstracts in the area of disability (as well as
other areas).
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 [log in to unmask] and Elaine Swan at 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
Best wishes
Mark
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