Call for Papers
Special Issue of CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY:
SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION IN THE MIDDLE
EAST
Beginning in 1969,
Critical Sociology has examined
social structures, social change, and social problems through the lenses of the
critical imagination. Critical Sociology
publishes scholarly work on transnational and global sociology, and as a result
of its initiatives, Latin American, and African Sociology is now represented in
the journal. Recently, the journal has appointed a Middle East and North Africa
Editor to attract work from scholars in the region, and to coordinate a special
issue, Sociological Imagination in the Middle East.
As a social
science, sociology has European origins; as a result, scholarship on the Middle
East has long been either ignored or enamored with a European worldview.
Conversely, social analysts and critics from the Middle East have often
rejected certain aspects of European sociology due to its role in promoting
“modernization,” colonialism,” or secularism. The emergence of sociology in
Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria in the mid-twentieth
century, however, produced research that warrant broader engagement and
dialogue. Although some scholars found an audience in academic circles outside
their countries, for example, Ali Shariati (Iran) and Niyazi Berkes (Turkey),
much of this foundational scholarship unfortunately remains overlooked. Late
nineteenth/early twentieth century critical scholarship from Prince Sabahaddin
(Turkey), Ziya Gokalp (Turkey), Cemil Meric (Turkey), Amir-Hossein Aryanpour (Iran), Hassan Hanafi (Egypt), Ehsan Naraghi
(Iran), and others is unknown outside the author’s respective country of
origin.
As it stands, four
perspectives tend to dominate the sociology of the Middle East: secular liberalism, whose authors tend
to reproduce moderate variations of modernization theory; state-centered conservatism, whose authors do the same but in the
interests and/or service of conserving state legitimacy; left-critical, whose authors tend to reproduce variations of
Marxist, world systems, or dependency theory; and Islamic-oriented conservative nationalism. Since the end of the
Cold War, Islamic-oriented, conservative nationalist scholarship has increased,
and left-critical scholarship has shifted toward a more liberal, market
orientation. This shift is directly linked with the current social, political
and economic transformations in the region, and warrants closer scrutiny. Also,
revolution, technological advancement, and globalized education in the region
have opened new spaces and new opportunities for Middle East and North African Sociology.
For this special issue of Critical Sociology, we invite
scholarship by researchers and analysts who incorporate diverse intellectual
perspectives that include, rather than marginalize, intellectual engagement
with scholarship from the North Africa and the Middle East. We welcome
submissions by sociologists working on, but not limited to, the following
subjects:
·
Middle
East and North African Sociology as a field of inquiry
·
Commodification
of Middle East and North African Studies in Europe and the USA
·
Neoliberal
transformations and structural adjustment in the Middle East and North Africa
·
Urban
– rural demographic change and urbanization
·
Durability,
success, and failure of leftist/Marxist movements
·
Ethnic/religious
movement, tension, or conciliation
·
Workers,
unions, labor Rights
·
Capital
accumulation
·
Western
Feminism versus Third World Feminism
·
Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual identities and movements
·
Human
rights - challenges in discourse and
practice
The deadline for
submitting abstracts is May 30, 2014. Abstracts should be approximately 300
words and include the author’s name and contact information. Please send all
abstract or other queries to Tugrul Keskin, Middle East and North Africa Editor, at: (tugrulkeskin (at) pdx.edu).
For more
information on CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY, including instructions for authors, see: http://crs.sagepub.com
Authors will be
notified by July 15, 2014 if their abstracts are selected, with a full draft of
the article due by December 31, 2014.
All manuscripts are subject to the standard peer-review process at Critical Sociology. Prospective authors should feel free to
communicate with the Middle East and North Africa Editor about the
appropriateness of their proposed papers.
Special Issue Editors:
