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Dear List members, Please encourage submissions and circulate widely: Call For Papers (short or long) Austerity Parenting: new economies of parent-citizenship Special issue of Studies in the Maternal Guest editors: Tracey Jensen and Imogen Tyler Parents have long been a significant economic category for policymakers, governments, employers, social workers and public health officials, requiring answers to difficult questions around value, labour, care and responsibility. In the current global economic crisis and recession, many governments are implementing radically restructured welfare support systems, reducing public spending on a range of services and condensing public sector workforces. Several budget analyses have already demonstrated that women (and more specifically, mothers) are set to lose out disproportionately as these changes are implemented. At the same time, many government administrations (particularly the current Coalition government in the UK) have expressed their belief that 'good parenting' can compensate for economic disadvantage: in the UK this forms part of a large scale movement to replace significant parts of the Welfare State with forms of volunteerism and private enterprise. Some ministers have even suggested that austerity economics might represent a chance for parents to reconnect with their parenting, with profound future social benefit. In this context, the promotion of 'good parenting' is being newly envisioned as an economic opportunity, through which the current public `squandering` of resources on families can be transformed into an invitation that asks 'parent-citizens' to effect social and economic renewal for themselves. We are interested in interrogating the double-bind of the new economies of parenting, whereby being a parent makes one more vulnerable to the forms of economic austerity, whilst at the same time parents are being held more accountable than ever for the social (im)mobility of themselves and their children. Is there a new landscape of parent-citizen responsibility - and how does this relate to the disbanding and dissolution of various public services? What will be the social and economic impact of these shifts to volunteerism and private enterprise on family life? What 'counts' and is valued in the new economy of parent-citizenship? Should parenting be publicly recognized as 'work'? What are the state's economic obligations to parents? How might policy respond to the gender pay gap, which is principally experienced by mothers? Why are we witnessing an intensification of parent governance, and parent-blame, in neoliberal times? This special issue of Studies in the Maternal invites contributions which explore new directions (and old tensions) in the complex relationships between parenting, citizenship, social policy and cultural and economic value. Studies in the Maternal invites submissions from academic researchers, activists, practitioners, clinicians and artists who work in any field relating to this topic and from any geo-political context or perspective. We welcome the following types of submission: 1. Short critical position statements of up to 3000 words. 2. Longer scholarly articles of up to 8000 words. 3. Submissions from those working in creative and non-written mediums, including visual and audio formats. As this is an online journal, we particularly encourage use of hypertext links and images in submissions. Studies in the Maternal is a peer-reviewed journal, and all submissions will be subject to peer-review. Please send enquires, abstracts for consideration or submissions to: Tracey Jensen [log in to unmask] and Imogen Tyler [log in to unmask] Final deadline for submissions: 1st November 2011 ____________________________________________________________________ About Studies in the Maternal Studies in the Maternal is an international, peer-reviewed, scholarly online journal. It aims to provide a forum for contemporary critical debates on the maternal understood as lived experience, social location, political and scientific practice, economic and ethical challenge, a theoretical question, and a structural dimension in human relations, politics and ethics. Studies in the Maternal provides an interdisciplinary space to extend and develop maternal scholarship, making visible the many diverse strands of work on motherhood, parenting, reproduction, pregnancy, birthing, and childcare across a broad range of disciplinary and practice boundaries. In doing so, it aims to foster dialogue about the maternal and to encourage the exploration of the unique site the maternal occupies at the potent intersection between scientific possibilities, psychosocial practices and cultural representations. We are seeking articles, essays and reviews from academics, writers, artists and clinical and cultural practitioners who engage with the maternal from diverse perspectives. We also very much welcome work that falls outside of the textual tradition, incorporating or encompassing the visual and/or audio. More information and back issues at: http://www.mamsie.bbk.ac.uk <http://www.mamsie.bbk.ac.uk/> ----------------------------------- Deirdre Conlon, Ph.D. [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] 917 536-8054 (cell) 617 824-3992 (office) Research blog at: http://asylum-network.com/ Project news at: http://www.emerson.edu/news-events/emerson-college-today/conlon-receives-grant-supporting-work-immigration Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies Emerson College, 120 Boylston St., Walker 515, Boston, MA 02116