CALL FOR PAPERS
Special
Issue of Social Justice on Punishment & History
Deadline:
January 15, 2017
Periods of penal transition
often encourage historical reflection, whether to understand the present
situation of crisis and/or change, or to learn from past strategies and
mistakes. As conversations about mass incarceration in the United States increasingly
revolve around change, and societies around the world face distinctive sets of
challenges in the field of punishment and social control, historical
interrogations of punishment may be especially relevant.
This special
issue of Social Justice on the topic
of punishment and history will interrogate the role of history in the study of
punishment, illuminating its utility and limitations for understanding penal
change. In particular, we aim to identify the utility of historical
examinations of punishment for understanding the current constellation of inequalities,
(dis)empowerment, and suffering wrought by contemporary criminal justice policy
and practice. Thus, rather than seeking the historical origins of mass
incarceration, this issue examines how penal history, broadly intended, might provide
lessons for understanding punishment as a social institution and its
consequences for society, especially society’s most vulnerable members.
The issue will
try to answer the following questions: What is the role of history in
interdisciplinary, especially sociological or sociolegal, studies of
punishment? What lessons do historical instances of punishment reveal for the
current penal climate and current penal practices? How do conceptions of what
constitutes punishment, or what punishment should accomplish, change across
time and space? How do our own understandings of punishment shift when we
examine these other conceptions? How does punishment’s impact on inequalities
across class, race, gender, and sexuality change (or persist) in different
temporal-spatial contexts?
This issue will
rely on broad conceptions of punishment and history. Scholars are invited to
examine some element or type of punishment, including policing and
quasi-punishments (such as those imposed upon immigrants, welfare recipients,
and others), whether imposed officially or unofficially, by state or non-state
actors. There is no restriction on the time period examined, provided that some
period before 2000 receives significant attention within the manuscript. Papers
may be fully historical (e.g., examining only a past period with little
relation to current practices) or more genealogical (e.g., discussing the
relevance of past events to the present situation). Additionally, any
methodology (qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods) is welcome. Finally, papers
may examine any geographical setting (e.g., there is no preference for US or
North American settings and no restriction on local, national, or international
units of analysis).
Papers should
be 7,000 to 8,000 words. Please follow the format guidelines available on the Social Justice website (http://www.socialjusticejournal.org/contact-us/submissions/).
Your submission should be emailed to Ashley Rubin at ashley.rubin@utoronto.ca by January 15,
2017.
No comments:
Post a Comment