Call for Papers for a special issue of Frontiers in Sociology

Digital technologies offer tremendous possibilities for collectives such as feminist, anti-racist and LGBTI+ groups to protest against injustices and connect across geographical distances. Recent examples of such appearances are varied and diverse. They can circulate globally and spread from place to place, like the #MeToo campaign, the #BLM movement and the #LasTesis flashmob, or they can be situated locally, as the grassroots initiative #NiUnaMenos in Argentina, the #czarnyprotest in Poland or the #auratmarch in Pakistan. Yet, while the sudden turn to digital spaces has significantly influenced feminist, anti-racist and LGBTI+ activisms in global and local contexts, we still know little about the impact of these transformations on struggles for equality and rights, transnationally as well as locally.

This special issue brings together papers that draw variously on ethnographic, empirical and theoretical approaches with the aim to scrutinize the implications of the digital shift for feminist, anti-racist and LGBTI+ activisms in various contexts across the globe. We invite contributions that critically engage with the emergent possibilities and risks for feminist, antiracist and LGBTI+ subjects and struggles in digital times, that examine the diverse effects on digital activism and activists of the blurred boundaries between the private and public, explore ambivalences, tensions, and new alliances in feminist, LGBTI+ and anti-racist struggles, and investigate into the performative power of social justice activisms at the digital, within as well as beyond pandemic times in local and transnational contexts.

By attending not only to the impact of digital technologies on social justice activisms but also to the influence of activisms on digital technologies, platforms, and affordances, this collection of articles takes a non-digital-centric approach to critically scrutinize the shifts and continuities that characterize our turbulent present, including but not limited to themes such as:

· Feminist, LGBTI+ and anti-racist activism on social media platforms
· Emergent communities and online belongings in feminist, LGBTI+ and anti-racist activism
· Feminist, LGBTI+ and anti-racist activism during pandemic times
· Ambivalences, tensions and new alliances in feminist, anti-racist and LGBTI+ struggles
· Digital tactics in feminist, LGBTI+ and anti-racist activism
· Algorithmic connections and disconnections in feminist, LGBTI+ and anti-racist activism
· Blurring private-public boundaries and/or spatial transformations in digital activism
· The power of performativity and/or performance in feminist, LGBTI+ and anti-racist activism
· Online-offline entanglements in feminist, LGBTI+ and anti-racist activism
· Collective sensemaking in hashtag activism
· Networked (counter) publics and other reconfigurations of the public sphere in digital times

We invite abstracts of 150-200 words. Abstracts should be uploaded to the submission portal of Frontiers in Sociology:

Deadline for abstracts: 31/8 2021

Deadline for articles: 30/11 2021

Original Research articles are peer-reviewed, have a maximum word count of 12,000. Frontiers in Sociology is an Open Access Journal. Please note that authors are required to pay a fee (A-type article) to publish an Original Research article (US$ 950). For more detailed instructions, see the journal webpage: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sociology#article-types

Welcome with your submission!

Contact details for special issue editors:

Marta Cuesta, Professor in Sociology, E-mail: marta.cuesta[at]hh.se

Academy for health and welfare, Halmstad University

Mia Liinason, Professor in Gender Studies, E-mail: mia.liinason[at]gu.se

Dept. of Cultural Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Sweden