Call For Papers – Dossier «Confinements and social control. Reflections and embodied experiences«
Gues Editors
• Dra. Chloé Constant | FLACSO-México
• Dra. Berenice Pérez Ramírez | Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
• Dra. (c). Nuria R. Ramírez Solano | Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia
Dates:
• Deadline: October 15, 2021
• Languages: Spanish, English, Portuguese
• Guidelines and article templates: here
• E-mail: publicaciones@religacion.com
This dossier aims to offer an approach from feminist research perspectives and non-punitive approaches to issues of confinement and social control, through critical reflections on the experiences of the research subjects and the researchers themselves.
The spaces of confinement such as hospitals, prisons, shelters for children or women survivors of violence, shelters for migrants, asylums, among others can be considered as locus of control and surveillance, as well as complex spaces for the enclosed subjects, placing them between schemes of subordination, survival, and resistance, with a range of diverse experiences. They constitute recursive discourses, institutions of fear that justify the exercise of dominant pedagogy of good and evil, of good and bad, they are places of social waste. From this perspective, people who are locked up are studied as mere objects and their experiences are silenced, thus reinforcing the structures that justify hierarchies, punishments, and systems of domination.
On the other hand, while these spaces, which were at the center of a social disciplinary model (Foucault 2016, among others), are undergoing broad processes of transformation, outside them, diffuse confinement is increasing within the framework of the diversification of modes of population control, ranging from social terror provoked by the expansion and spectacularization of violence to the application of sophisticated electronic surveillance mechanisms. In this way, both confinement and surveillance and control become more comprehensive and normalized. An example of this is that in the context of the health emergency caused by Covid-19, confinement is exposed as a «normalized» measure to safeguard life in a high-risk environment.
This thematic dossier proposes to share reflections and experiences from the located knowledge, looking to resignify and to rearticulate (Haraway, 1995) the relation between the bodies and the investigation linked to the confinement and the social control. To this end, proposals will be received that focus on works carried out with and about the people in confinement, on the personnel linked to the spaces of confinement and the mechanisms of social control, and on the researchers themselves, the latter with the aim of enabling discussions on reflective ethnography, auto-ethnography and non-hegemonic narrative forms (Anderson, 2006; Ellis, 2000) that break with the androcentric scientific mandates that produce and reproduce multiple epistemic violence.
The journal will appreciate proposals focused on the analysis of the emotions linked to confinement and social control, understanding these as a subjective, as well as political, framework that constitutes cultural practices, social relations, and bodily practices; therefore, we are interested in understanding the emotional policies that are promoted in the spaces of confinement and through mechanisms of social control, considering that «the cultural politics of emotions is closely linked to the generalized histories of imperialism and capitalism» (Ahmed, 2015: 257).
We will highlight, on the one hand, those proposals that bet on new processes of knowledge production that have not been considered valid that emanate especially from people who have experienced confinement and have been subject to social control devices. On the other hand, it seeks to highlight emancipatory strategies based on exercises of intervention, action, and research, so that this dossier can make theoretical and practical contributions to and for an interdisciplinary dialogue. Finally, we are interested in making visible processes of exclusion and oppression generated in capitalism and post-colonial contexts. Postcolonial studies remind us that colonization is a global historical event of great magnitude and with ruptures over time. In that sense, it allows us to understand multiple power relations that do not fit within the historical universals (Hall, 2010). The colonial question involves the dynamics of negotiation, contention, and resistance. In this sense, two essential elements arise to think about the colonial period until today: the articulation of the economic and the legal in the spaces of confinement.
The objective of the dossier is to analyze, from feminist research perspectives and non-punitive approaches, the issues of confinement and social control, through reflections and experiences from situated knowledge, the relationship between bodies and emotions to dismantle the normalization of disciplinary models and suggest new processes of knowledge production and emancipatory strategies. Therefore, the specific objectives of this dossier are:
– Extend the analysis of forms of confinement beyond prisons.
– To highlight the importance of research situated in contexts of social violence.
– To reflect on and discuss the relationship between those who carry out research processes and the subjects who live in confinement and under different forms of control in order to recognize the ethical and political implications of these processes.
– To give space to critical and non-hegemonic narratives, epistemologies, and work methodologies.
Topics of special interest:
– Prison and other spaces of confinement.
– Justice.
– Social control and discipline policies.
– Emotions and bodies.
REFERENCES
Ahmed, S. (2015). La política cultural de las emociones, Programa Universitario de Estudios de Género-UNAM
Anderson, L. (2006). Analytic Autoethnography, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 35(4), 373-395.
Ellis, C. (2000). Creating Criteria: An Ethnographic Short Story. Qualitative Inquiry, 6(2), 273-277.
Foucault, M. (2016). La sociedad punitiva. Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Hall, S. (2010). ¿Cuándo fue lo “postcolonial”? Pensando en el límite. En, Catherine E. Walsh, Eduardo Restrepo, Víctor Vich. (Eds), Sin garantías: Trayectorias y problemáticas en estudios culturales. (pp. 579-600). Instituto de estudios sociales y culturales Pensar/Universidad Javeriana/Instituto de Estudios Peruanos/Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar/Envión Editores.
Haraway, D. (1995). Ciencia, cyborgs y mujeres. La reinvención de la naturaleza. Universitat de València/Instituto de la Mujer.