Call for Papers: Food Sovereignty and Cultural Studies

Posted by on January 12, 2009

CALL FOR PAPERS:

Food Sovereignty and Cultural Studies – a special issue of Politics and Culture

In a moment of acute historical potential, food and sovereignty each name a grave global crisis and a horizon of political hope. Together, they name the rallying cry for increasingly global diversity of social movements (both radical and reformist) prioritizing the “right” of local communities to manage their agriculture against global neoliberalism and neocolonialism.

This issue of Politics and Culture seeks to mobilize scholars invested in cultural studies-related approaches (defined very broadly) to bring together new research both on sovereignty and on food to deepen and enhance our understanding of both terms and to contribute to ongoing academic and activist debates around the concept of food sovereignty.

* How are food and sovereignty connected in theory and practice, in power and resistance?
* How do the demands for food sovereignty, which have characterized social movements around the world, represent, mobilize and/or call forth new forms of politics, democracy, rights, commons and community?
* How is food sovereignty or the tension between food and sovereignty represented or articulated in different cultural milieus and media?
* What can struggles grounded in the base materiality of food teach us about the nature of sovereignty today? How can recent scholarship on sovereignty provide tools for understanding food politics and help us
imagine responses?
* How is food sovereignty a part of or a response to ongoing and transformation of colonialism, racism, patriarchy and capitalism?
* How do the questions provoked by food sovereignty challenge us to retool our theoretical approaches including theories of the body, the subject, biopolitics, gender, capital, rights, (neo)colonialism, neoliberalism, biopolitics, Empire and imperialism, globalization, hegemony, agency and post-coloniality.

The editors anticipate brief (1000-4000 words) submissions from a wide range of disciplinary and critical approaches. Submissions may take a variety of forms including:
* Critical book (fiction or non-fiction) , film or other media reviews of new or established work, mainstream or underground
* Synopses and/or analyses of social movements, current or past
* Brief theoretical interventions
* Historical excurses
* Discursive analyses of non-fictive, fictive or policy texts
* Creative engagements (Politics and Culture is an online journal – please get in touch with regards to technical questions).

Please do not hesitate to contact the editors should you have any questions. Please forward submissions (in RTF or DOC format) along with a brief bio and contact information to both haivenmf@mcmaster. ca and
stonemsr@mcmaster. ca by March 1st, 2009.