__________________________________________________
Call for Publications Theme: White Man's Burden 'After Race' Publication: Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Date: Special Issue (2015) Deadline: 2.9.2013 __________________________________________________ This proposed special issue seeks to critically address the way in which the marketing practices of humanitarian and development agencies, NGO policy documents, development and relief practices, humanitarian narratives (e.g. documentary film, memoirs, etc), as well as the significant scholarship on humanitarianism and development, addresses race. While the notion of “the white man’s burden” continues to be invoked as a means of criticizing forms of humanitarianism, the specifically racial and gendered formulation of the idea, as articulated in Rudyard Kipling’s poem, is often displaced in current uses of the phrase, which use it simply to reflect the paternalism or self-interest of humanitarianism as an imperial politics. As Uma Khotari (2006) and Sarah White (2002) note, the field of development studies has largely failed to engage with the influence of racial thought and racism. In part, this lack of critical engagement with race may be attributed to the way “Culture Talk” (Mamdani 2005) has replaced the rhetoric of race in contemporary constructions of global politics and the way in which neoliberal cosmopolitan theory posits a “post-racial” order, an assumption that has been critiqued in different ways by Goldberg (2009) and Gilroy (2005) as reflecting a “racism without race.” To what extent does race continue to be a meaningful signifier in conceptualizing – and critiquing – humanitarian and development discourses? To what extent is humanitarianism conceived as “post-racial”, or the fulfilment of the ideal of universal human dignity, eliding race entirely or relegating race and racism to the status of a legacy? To what extent does humanitarian discourse affirm a racial order? Proposals of 350-500 words are sought for articles that can contribute to this special issue, which aims to include a range of (inter)disciplinary approaches and engage with the diverse ways in which humanitarian discourse is articulated and enacted. Specific areas to address may include, but are not limited to, the following: - The association of humanitarianism with whiteness - The figure of the racialized (as not white) person as humanitarian - The racial and gender politics of humanitarian marketing and development initiatives that focus upon the figure of the Ogirl in need’ - The association of global citizenship (i.e. global citizenship education) and/or cosmopolitanism with humanitarian practices - The notion of race in relation to other forms of identity, status, or location - Humanitarianism and the ideal of “colour-blindness” - Representations of humanitarianism/humanitarians in literature, film, philosophy, history, etc., produced outside of Europe and North America Deadline: Proposals should be submitted by email to [email protected] by 2 September 2013. Selected authors will be notified by 15 September 2013 and completed articles must be submitted by 15 January 2014. Invited articles will be subject to double-blind peer review, so the invitation to submit an article is not a guarantee of publication in the special issue. Critical Race and Whiteness Studies is an open-access peer-reviewed online journal that typically publishes articles of 4000-8000 words. Information on the journal, including submission guidelines can be found at: http://www.acrawsa.org.au/ejournal/ Contact: David Jefferess University of British Columbia Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.acrawsa.org.au/ejournal/ __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org __________________________________________________
