Call for proposals: On Decolonization

Performance Research Journal

Current open calls for submissions
Volume 30, Issue 5 - On Decolonization
Deadline: 11 November 2024

Issue Editors: Rashna Darius Nicholson and Lisa Skwirblies

In recent times, the popular connotation of the word ‘decolonization’ has slipped – from a term denoting radical socio-political movements against diverse forms of systemic oppression to a buzzword for the development and marketization of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) initiatives in institutions that have historically appropriated and undermined the concept’s radical revolutionary potential. In recent months, the concept has been interpreted in vastly diverse ways by different factions across the political spectrum for different ends: far-right ethnonationalist Hindu scholars and anti-LGBTQ African governments using the concept ‘decolonization’ to promote their authoritarian ideas (Mehta 2023; Paulsen 2023); right-wing diatribes rejecting the term as part of a war against ‘wokeism’ and cancel culture (Montefiore 2023); and activists critiquing the empty use of decolonization as a theoretical framework, especially in the face of the catastrophic outcomes of the genocide in Gaza. Actors in both top-down mass media as well as bottom-up social media have begun to express the feeling that the term ‘decolonization’ has reached a socio-political impasse, been heavily co-opted or misused, and, as a consequence, rendered meaningless.


Read the full call at: https://www.performance-research.org/editorial-callsforsubmissions.php

Contributions to this issue may include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • The links between performance and decolonization
  • Core theoretical concepts at the intersection of performance research and decolonization, such as materiality, the phenomenological distinction between appearance and reality, and performativity
  • Performance as a lens to better understand controversial topics such as decolonization as anti-Semitism
  • The relationship between memory culture, concepts of humanism and the limits of speech
  • Questions such as: Is performance studies imperialist?
  • Scholarly (un)responsiveness to political movements
  • EDI initiatives in universities and professional organizations
  • Complexities around decolonizing curricula and decentring Europe in theatre and performance studies journals and international conferences
  • Dilemmas in the decolonization of performance practices
  • Ideas of scholarly ‘impact’ marked by measurable ‘outcomes’ among disadvantaged groups
  • Institutional precarity marked by corporatized research conditions for revenue generation; insecure academic labour characterized by low pay, fixed contracts and poor employment prospects; and higher student fees and lower enrolment rates among disadvantaged groups.
  • Issues of representation, agency and power in universities
  • Caste and race
  • Class and labour
  • Geographic, epistemic centre-periphery binaries
  • Academic cannibalism, hypercitability and the ethics of scholarly language

We invite 300- to 400-word abstracts (with a 100-word author bio) for articles and critical essays and provocations, including artist pages, interviews, practice-research essays, provocations and other contributions that attend to (but are not limited to) any aspect of the above.

Schedule:

Proposals: November 2024
First drafts: February 2025
Final drafts: June 2025
Publication: August 2025

All proposals, submissions and general enquiries should be sent direct to the PR office: info@performance-research.org

Issue-related enquiries should be directed to the issue editors: Rashna Darius Nicholson (Rashna.Nicholson@warwick.ac.uk); Lisa Skwirblies (l.s.skwirblies@uva.nl)

 

 

Submitted by admin on 10 October 2024.