CFP: South – North: Identity, Development, Borders

Working Papers. Journal of Political Studies is a new scientific journal of political studies that publishes essays and contributions in Italian and in English, adopting the blind peer-review process. The Journal is published by Palermo University Press. The direction of the new editorial project, on the occasion of the release of its first issue, announces a Call for papers on the theme “South – North: Identity, Development, Borders”. All contributions will be peer-reviewed for acceptance. The first Issue of the Journal will be published in June 2018. All contributions should be written in English or in Italian. 

 The journal welcomes contributions in any of the disciplines that pertain to the field of political studies, broadly conceived (including multidisciplinary approaches and methods).

 [Italian Version of the Call as an attachment.]

Introduction to the Theme of the First Issue

The dichotomy South-North of the World, South-North of a country, is, historically, a crucial hermeneutical key for understanding the emerging dynamics that affect different aspects of the social reality (e.g. cultural changes, changes in the economy, new ways of interpreting Politics, etc.). In particular, among such dynamics we wish to emphasise:

   The predominance of economic power over policy-making decisions and over the global juridical order;

2.    The radical drop of collective welfare with the consequent radicalisation of material inequalities across different sectors of the population;

3.    The new dramatic humanitarian crises that challenge the justification of state power;

4.    The destructuralization of traditional societies and the request of new rights;

5.    The re-emergence of racism and extremism in advanced liberal democracies;

6.  The concept of border-wall to be erected for political securitarian reasons, as well as the new demands of flexible borders (both physical, political, cultural, etc.);

7.    The fluidity of values between cosmopolitan demands and identitarian resistances.

Research Guidelines

The Call for Papers intends to develop the following research themes:

a)    Identity: The concept of identity understood as what defines an entity in virtue of its qualities and features that demarcate differences or alterity with other entities; as well as what defines the membership of a subject in a social group (the nation, ethnicity, gender, etc.). If, on the one hand, there are those who claim the affirmation of identity by proposing a type of closed society, on the other hand, there are those who decline identity in terms of plural and inclusive society, open to multiculturalism. The heterogeneous nature of identity is evident from the divisions within the same social group; in fact, depending on the geographic areas considered, the differences that occur in the same State can be profound. The historical causes of political and spatial dishomogeneity could be detected and analysed within the South-North demarcation? Can similarities and differences be found in the different manifestations of identity, in its modalities of perception and affirmation, making them converge into the South-North conceptual scheme? What are the (economic, social, anthropological, historical) factors that influence, at a geographical and territorial level, the definition of one type of identity rather than another? This section intends to stimulate theoretical speculations concerning the concept of identity in the philosophical, political and historical-political fields in order to achieve an updated reconstruction of the debate around the concept.

Keywords: Identity, gender, nationalism, social conflict, multiculturalism.

b)    Development: The idea of development is often associated to the idea of progress, which is in turn connected to the idea of people’s welfare and to the improvement of people’s conditions. In a sense, progress is ‘without borders’, in that the evolution of human civilization has always consisted in the crossing of (technological, scientific, social, etc.) frontiers into unknown territories. The modern idea of progress is still today object of study, especially in virtue of the ethical implications of contemporary technological advancements. Nonetheless, there are many different possible ways of understanding ‘progress’, and different geographical areas of the world understand this idea differently: for example, which type of model of development should we adopt? Should individual countries bear the cost of their choices with respect to the quality and the speed at which they achieve technological, scientific, institutional, etc., progress? Are the Countries of the ‘South of the World’ disadvantaged in achieving progress? And, if so, which feasible remedies can be put in place to rectify such disadvantages? These are the main themes that this research topic aims to put into focus.

Keywords: Development; progress; technology; poverty; economic inequality.

c)     Borders: The system-world in which we live is defined by that phenomenon which today conditions every practice and aspect of our daily life and which we know with the name of globalization. In the past decades the globalization has invested the entire planet: we have seen an intensification of interdependencies between States and areas of the world, which has generated a decomposition and recomposition of social and juridical situations that need to be reinterpreted and reconfigured. Consider, for example, the concept of border. The dynamism of the frontiers following the globalization of the capitalist market, the unfolding of a continuous displacement of differences, the multiplication of migratory flows and a constant remodeling of subjective instances, clearly show a paradigm shift in the conceptualization of boundaries, beyond the traditional image of a geographical and geopolitical dividing line between states. The focus of investigation will therefore be centered on how territorial and supra-territorial boundaries within the global world undergo processes of reproduction and regeneration, remodeling and re-proposing themselves in different forms andin various fields of investigation. The investigation also aims to investigate, in a polysemic sense, the idea of borders from an ethical, historical, philosophical and political point of view, as a limit to state power, and as a key concept of theories of political obligation.

Keywords: Borders, citizenship, sovereignty, human rights, cosmopolitanism.

 Deadline and editorial guidelines

The article (of maximum 5.000 words, including abstract and the 5 keywords) must be accompanied by abstracts (Ita / Eng), placed at the beginning of the article, title centered, of maximum 150 words spaces included, with the title of contribution indicated and the 5 keywords inherent to the content of the work. The abstract should also include the University affiliation of the author and the author’s email address.  

The deadline for sending the abstracts is the 14th of  March 2018.

Acceptance of the essays will be communicated to the authors by the 28th of March 2018, while the deadline for the delivery of the final articles is scheduled on the 5th of May 2018. The contributions, that pass the blind review process, will be published on the first working Monday of June 2018.

These deadlines are undelayable, in the penalty of exclusion.

Essays can be written in both English and Italian.

The font used for the essays and the abstract should be Bookman Old Style, size 10.

The essays should be sent at the following email address: [email protected]

Editors in chief

Luana Maria Alagna, Claudia Atzeni, Pietro Intropi

Editorial board

Pierdavide Accendere, Carmen Corda, Silvia D’Agata, Fabio Elemento, Fabiana Fraulini, Alessia Girgenti, Giorgio La Neve, Alice Marras, Martina Marras, Lucia Martines, Giuseppe Andrea Rapisarda, Andrea Serra, Massimiliano Spiga, Laura Sugamele, Serena Vantin

Scientific board

Alessandro Bellavista, Francesco Benigno, Lea Campos Boralevi, Gianfranco Borrelli, Massimo Campanini, Thomas Casadei, Alessandro Colombo, Giovanni Fiandaca, Orsetta Giolo, Claudia Giurintano, Daniela Irrera, Emilio Santoro, Giorgio Scichilone, Luca Scuccimarra