Open Call: Black Feminism in the Nordics/The journal Astra: The guest editor for this special issue is Jasmine Kelekay, CEMFOR.
2020-11-26
Special Issue 1/2021: Black Feminism in the Nordics
In the midst of a global pandemic, a worsening global economic crisis, and an increasingly far-right political climate, the Black Lives Matter movement has mobilized more people in the United States than ever before and millions more around the world. This past summer, the movement spread to all corners of the world, including the Nordic countries. Black activists in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland mobilized and organized protests not only to show solidarity with Black Americans but also to highlight anti-Black state violence and structural racism in the Nordics. This has brought anti-Black racism into mainstream debates and served as a reminder of the relevance of the Black Lives Matter-movement for the Nordic countries. Behind much of this work – just as with the Black Lives Matter-movement in the U.S. – are Black (queer) women. Yet at the same time, the violence against Black women and trans* people, as well as Black women’s leadership in antiracist and feminist movements, continue to be overlooked.
This special issue on Black feminism in the Nordics aims to amplify Black women and non-binary people’s voices, experiences, and analyses from a Nordic perspective. We are looking for contributions engaging everything from social criticism to art, from poetry to empirical research, and from theory to praxis. Potential themes include Black feminist movements in the Nordics, anti-Black racism and afrophobia, Black Lives Matter, migration, Black feminist praxis, Black feminism from an LBTQ-perspective, Black feminism and Pan-Africanism, and Black feminism and intersectionality.
We also welcome contributions that take different forms, such as research reports, essays, op-eds, or interviews, but also poetry, literary analyses, reviews, and so forth.
We are primarily looking for contributions from people with relevant lived experiences, but also welcome contributions from people conducting research on the topic. We are especially looking for contributions that make use of Black feminist history, theory, literature, and praxis.
We welcome contributions in all languages, and will be publishing texts in both Swedish and English. If your preferred language is different from these and you would like to have your contribution translated, contact us and we will try to arrange it!
Submit a proposal for your text (around 500 words) or illustration to astra@astra.fi by December 4th, 2020. Do not forget to attach a draft of your text, sketch, portfolio, etc. in the email. All contributing writers and illustrators will be paid. The guest editor for this special issue is Jasmine Kelekay, CEMFOR.