Contributors are invited to submit manuscripts on the above topic from the point of view either of researchers or activists. Abstracts and contributions must be written in English and in a style accessible to a wide audience. Please submit abstracts to (Leverne Gething) leverne@eject.co.zaoradmin@agenda.org.za.
No later than 11th August 2021
GUEST EDITORS:
Dr. Benita Moolman
Global Citizenship Programme Manager/Senior Lecturer
Faculty: Center for Higher Education Development
University of Cape Town
Dr. Angeline Stephens
Student Support Services
College of Humanities – University of KwaZulu-Natal
Dr. Catherine Ndinda
Human and Social Capabilities
Human Science Research Council
Cape Town
Tamara Braam
Independent Consultant, Strategic Management, Organisational Development and Research
Gender Specialisation
Conceptual Rationale:
Emerging research and media reports suggest that COVID-19 is worsening gender inequality within the social, economic and political domains at community, national and international levels. Examples of such gendered disparities may be seen in the increase in child marriages, unwanted and unplanned teenage pregnancies, the increasing homelessness of poor women, migrants and transwomen, evictions due to lack of rent and the heightened killing of LGBTIQ+ persons. This means that the progress towards achieving the SDGs, particularly towards realising SDG5, that our governments have been reporting on in the past few years, has been greatly affected. Government and institutional responses seem to be paralysed by what Julia Smith (2019) refers to as the ‘tyranny of the urgent’, characterized by the priorisation of the medical and economic imperatives over other structural dynamics of the pandemic. In particular, the emerging research and debates have been largely devoid of an intersectional gendered or feminist analysis; leaving the gendered impacts of the pandemic invisible and unaddressed. As a Save the Children (2020) report warns, unless we understand and address the violence that shapes and silences intersectional, gendered experiences of COVID-19 and its’ particular impacton girls and womxn, a whole generation faces a bleak future. Although various state and non-state actors have attempted to outline their COVID-19 interventions, gaps abound with regard to how the interventions influenced the way women, transgender persons, LGBTIQ+ persons, and girls navigate their lives through the epidemic. Whose voices have been amplified or silenced due to the COVID-19 pandemic? Who has been expected to ‘carry on’ and expand the responsibility of unpaid care work? It is these and other gender-related questions and concerns that this special edition seeks to engage with.
This special edition seeks to engage with a range of questions: how might we think (differently and critically) about the unique contextual realities facing the girl and womxn in the Southern African context in the time of COVID-19 such that we advance gender equity? What forms of research, activism and practice are needed, possible or desirable if we are to address the intersectional gendered impacts of the pandemic and other emergencies in our region? What would an intentional gendered response to the issues look like?
We welcome submissions, related to the following themes:
Structural violence, poverty and gender
- Masculinist and patriarchal states and nations
- Place, homelessness, evictions and (in)securities
- Lockdowns and silences: Everyday violence against LGBTIQ+ persons, girls and women
- Science and the social
- Public Health: A remedy for gender inequalities (or not)
- Online learning: Gender and education
- The urgency of shifting the care work debate
- Racism: the pandemic that lasts a lifetime
- Invisible migrants, refugees and asylum seekers
Submission Guidelines for Agenda Journal
The following guidelines are intended to assist authors in preparing their contributions.
General
Agenda invites contributions from feminist and gender scholars, activists, researchers, policy makers, professionals, educators, community workers, students and members of womxn’s organizations and organizations interested in and concerned with gender issues.
Submissions should contribute to developing new thinking and fresh debate on women’s rights and gender equality in Africa and other developing countries.
Writers need to:
- Write in an accessible and understandable style;
- Inform, educate or raise debate;
- Try to pin down reasons for contradictions and point out differences of opinion;
- Provide an analysis and an argument;
- Be logical;
- Be sensitive to but not uncritical of how gender, class and race affect the reporting of an event;
- Ensure the introduction encapsulates the contents of the piece and that it attracts the reader’s attention by either making a controversial statement, providing a thought-provoking or new insight into the subject;
- Utilize a gender or feminist lens.
We publish articles in various formats, which range from 6,000 words for more theorized articles, which form the main reference pieces in an issue, to shorter pieces with a minimum of 1,500 words.
Formats of Contributions
- Article (6 000 words max) should be based on new research and contain analysis and argument.
- Briefing is an adaptable format for writers to write on a wide range of subjects (2 500 – 4 000 words)
- Focus examines an aspect of a chosen theme in detail (4 500 words max)
- Profile looks in detail at an organisation, project or legislation, or a person (2 500 – 3 500 words)
- Report-back covers reports on meetings, conferences workshops etc
- (1 500 – 4 000 words)
- Review typically reviews books or films (1 500 – 3 000 words)
- Interview can record a conversation among a group of people or a one-on-one interview in which the writer asks the interviewee/s questions on a subject (1 500 – 3 000 words)
- Open Forum is a vehicle for debate and argument, or pieces which deal with argument and difference of opinion on a subject/issue (2 500 – 4 000 words)
- Perspective is an adaptable format in which writers are able to use a more personal reflective, narrative style (1 500 – 3 000 words)
Contributions should be submitted in the following format:
File type: Microsoft Word
Font: Arial
Size: 10 pt
Line spacing: single
Justification: left
Referencing: Harvard style
All submissions should have the following:
Abstract: 200 – 300 words
Keywords: approx 5 keywords
Bio: 100 – word author biography, including email address
Bio picture: head-and-shoulders photo in 300 dpi jpeg format
Contributors are encouraged to provide photos and/or graphics to illustrate their submission
Selection and Editing Process
All submissions are peer reviewed. Articles, briefing and focus pieces go through a double blind peer review process, while all other contributions are reviewed by at least one member of Agenda’s Editorial Advisory Group.
Reviewers comment on the suitability of a text for publication in the Agenda journal, as well as provide comments to help develop the piece further for publication if required. Contributors will be asked to rework the paper accordingly.
On resubmission, the piece will be assessed by the Agenda editor and a final decision made regarding its publication in the journal.
Please note that Agenda reserves the right to edit contributions with regard to length and accessibility or reject contributions that are not suitable or of poor standard.
Agenda also invites the submission of poems on the topic of women’s rights and gender.
Please note, as per Agenda’s policy, writers who have published in the journal within the last two years
WILL NOT BE ALLOWED to publish – to allow new writers to publish in Agenda.
