Canadian Women's Studies

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Canadian Woman Studies

September 4, 2008

Canadian Woman Studies/les cahiers de la femme
Call for Papers cws/cf
Women and Canadian Multiculturalism
(Vol. 27, Nos. 2,3)

CWS/cf’s Fall/Winter 2008 is committed to an exploration of women and Canadian multiculturalism. Twenty years after the Canadian Multicultural Act was passed in 1988, this journal issue aims to provide a space to reflect critically on the issues related to Canadian multiculturalism for the last two decades in specifically feminist terms. Given the xenophobic, nationalist, and protectionist oppositions to multiculturalism currently proliferating in Canada and in Québec, what might it mean, in this context, to critique multiculturalism from an antiracist feminist perspective? While multiculturalism is often touted as reason to celebrate Canadian identity, our approach is premised on the understanding that multiculturalism is in fact a contentious concept. As a policy, multiculturalism is embedded within gendered-racialized discourses of national identity, that variously urge tolerance or assimilation in response to deep anxieties about the “loss” of national identity. The goal of this special issue is to open up dialogue in ways that move beyond these dominant discourses.

To this end, we aim to provide a space for potential contributions from across the country. We are particularly interested in contributions that make connections across time and space, synthesizing different historical moments in the construction of Canadian multiculturalism, and/or flash-points and crises in different parts of Canada.

We invite artists, poets, researchers, scholars and activists to contribute submissions in French or in English. We believe that this theme issue will serve as an important resource for community organizations and classrooms seeking to critically address the effects Canadian multiculturalism and to subvert the unequal relations of power to which it gives rise.

Possible topics include:

•muticulturalism and sexual diversity
•multiculturalism, colonial discourses and decolonization
•Indigenous peoples, self-determination, and official multiculturalism
•discourses surrounding immigration and their relationship to lived experiences and material realities (e.g., labour and employment, racism, state violence, etc.)
•immigration policy and patriarchalization of immigrant communities/families
•first generation, second generation, and 1.5-generation experiences of cultural and social “integration”
•State feminist responses to multiculturalism and to issues of race, religion, and cultural difference
•Québec versus federal policies (interculturalism versus multiculturalism)
•conversations around the “reasonable accommodation” consultation commission in Quebec
•constructions of national identity, “home,” and “threat”
•new policies and laws concerning immigration, e.g., Bill C-50
•cultural difference and the law, e.g., the debates surrounding Shari’a Law in Ontario
•official state-based discourses of multiculturalism versus everyday multiculturalism from below
•artistic and cultural interventions into multicultural discourses
•multiculturalism and education

Your ideas for additional topics are welcome. Invited are essays, research reports, true stories, poetry, drawings, and other art works that illuminate these issues.

DEADLINE: September 30th, 2008

Articles should be typed, double-spaced, and a maximum of 12 pages long (3000 words). A short (50-word) abstract of the article and a brief biographical note must accompany each submission. 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.

Write or call as soon as possible indicating your intention to submit your work.
Canadian Woman Studies/les cahiers de la femme
212 Founders, York University, 4700 Keele St. Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Telephone: (416) 736-5356 Fax: (416) 736-5765 E-mail: cwscf@yorku.ca