MATTER: Journal of New Materialist Research (Web)

Proposals by: 31.08.2023

MATTER is looking for contributions with a focus on the theories and practices of solidarity in global feminist and anti-oppressive struggles.
Resistance to the violent crackdown on women and girls’ rights after the Taliban takeover of power in 2021 in Afghanistan, and the revolutionary protests against the patriarchal violence launched in the wake of the brutal killing of Mahsa ‘Jina’ Amini in Iran in 2022 seem to be the defining, history-making events for todays’ global struggles against oppression. Around the world, the gains of the feminist movement are under assault by the strident nationalist and ultra-conservative movements growing, militaristic and securitising narratives, and the rollback on the rights. Meanwhile, the demands of queer and trans rights activists, racial justice movements, refugee rights advocates, anticapitalist and environmental justice fighters, disability justice movements and many more remain unmet.
Despite these challenges and setbacks, the oppressed, the invisibilised, women and girls, LGBTQ+ people, racialised and Indigenous communities, the poor, ethnic minorities, activists, feminists, community leaders, and all those made undesirable and threatened by the anthropocentric, capitalist, cis-heteronormative, white, ableist patriarchy continue to fight back against such multi-axes system of oppression. They refuse to become invisible, to pass, or to be assimilated, to be labeled and dismissed as irrelevant, untimely, or the source of the problem. These individuals, communities, and allies practice the arts of resistance and re-articulation. They invent new and creative forms of protest, imagine paths forward, build strategies and networks of mutual aid, practice care and solidarity, and assemble and sustain vital coalitions. For example, in the last few years, women have spearheaded anti-authoritarian protests in multiple countries – from Belarus, Sudan, and Lebanon to Iran and India.
The editors invite journal articles, essays, panel discussions, interviews, and experimental formats to conceptualise and reflect on the practices of resistance, resilience, care, common survival (as well as everyday unheroic and “ordinary” ways of surviving), and solidarity in feminist/women-led/anti-patriarchal, anti-racist and antiauthoritarian struggles. Read more and source … (Web).