CFP [Due – July 15]: Canadian Woman Studies Special Double Issue

Canadian Woman Studies/les cahiers de la femme

Call for Papers: Women’s Human Rights

Fall/Winter 2015

This special double issue of Canadian Woman Studies’ (CWS/cf) will focus on feminist women’s human rights theory and activism as a visionary framework for movement-building and social change, activism and education, considering both the historical trajectory of this movement, current efforts, challenges and debates, as well as possibilities for the future in troubled times. Since a locally-grounded, globally-engaged transnational women’s movement led to the international recognition in the 1990s that women’s rights are human rights, many women from all regions have organized under this shared banner while simultaneously shaping human rights discourse according to their unique and diverse needs, perspectives, and visions for a just world.

By using CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (the UN women’s human rights convention), and other international and regional human rights mechanisms, and also by engaging in their broad social justice work from a women’s human rights perspective, feminists have contributed to transformative understandings and analysis of women’s human rights that reflect the diversity of women’s experiences and take into account intersectional discrimination. Indigenous women activists in particular are expanding the understanding of women’s human rights by linking violence against women with struggles for land, water, self-determination, and against transnational corporations and mining companies.

In the current climate of intense economic and religious fundamentalisms, and an atmosphere in which the human rights of women, Indigenous peoples, workers, peasants and others are under attack, women around the world continue to organize using women’s human rights frameworks and mechanisms that support the creation of local, regional and international networks and movements. We welcome stories of lesser-known events, individuals, groups and debates/issues involved in the political, legal and policy processes leading up to and including the Vienna and Beijing Conferences in the 1990s, as well as reflections on women’s human rights struggles today and into the future.

Possible topics include:

•Feminist understandings of Women’s Human Rights

•Significance, meaning, tensions of WHR framework in legal, policy, activist practice

•History and Development of international WHR movement: Women’s organizing around the 1990s WHR conferences, with an emphasis on women in the Majority World

•Women’s human rights and movement-building;

•CEDAW and civil society movements:  Shadow Reports, Optional Protocol; education and activism

•CEDAW as a living document: WHR theory in action- jurisprudence, general recommendations, reporting process

•UN Mechanisms and Feminist Activism, including Special Rapporteurs, Working Groups, CSW and others

•Beijing +20 and beyond

•Protecting and sustaining WHR framework in neo-conservative global climate

•Intersectional and/or thematic WHR Perspectives and Analyses–including but not limited to:

•Cross/inter-cultural understandings of WHR;

•Women and dis/Ability;

•Indigenous women’s human rights;

•LBT women’s human rights/SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Rights) rights;

•Rural women’s human rights;

•Migrant women’s human rights;

•Trafficking, sex industry, and women’s human rights;

•Race and gender;

•Ageism and WHR;

•Neo/colonialism and WHR;

•Capitalism/ corporations and WHR

•Poverty and women’s human rights;

•Violence and women’s human rights

•Peace and women’s human rights

•Religion / spirituality and WHR;

•Land and water and WHR

•Health, environment and WHR;

•WHR & Food Sovereignty;

•GMOs and WHR

•WHR and the Rights of Mother Earth

•Rights of women’s human rights defenders;

•Fundamentalisms and WHR;

•Reproductive justice and WHR;

•Cultural rights & WHR;

•Self-care and WHR;

•Embodiment and WHR;

•Women’s human rights as a visionary framework;

•“Development” and WHR;

•Post-2015 development agenda;

•WHR education and training;

•WHR, diversity and solidarity.

Your ideas for additional topics are welcome.

Invited are essays, research reports, true stories, alternative forms of narration, poetry, drawings, and other art works that illuminate these issues.

DEADLINE: July 15, 2015

Articles should be typed, double-spaced, and a maximum of 16 pages long (4000 words).  A short (50-word) abstract of the article and a brief biographical note must accompany each submission. Please send a hard copy of your manuscript as well as emailing a copy. We give preference to previously unpublished material. If possible, please submit graphics or photographs to accompany your article. Please note CWS/cf reserves the right to edit manuscripts with respect to length and clarity, and in conformity with our house-style. To encourage use of the material published, CWS/cf has granted electronic rights to Gale Group, Micromedia Proquest and the H. W. Wilson. Any royalties received will be used by CWS/cf to assist the publication in disseminating its message.

This call for papers can also be found online:  http://www.inanna.ca/cwscf/calls.html

Write or call as soon as possible indicating your intention to submit your work:

Canadian Woman Studies/les cahiers de la femme
210 Founders, York University, 4700 Keele St. Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Telephone: (416) 736-5356 Fax: (416) 736-5765 E-mail: cwscf@yorku.ca

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