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Since 2021, the journal is no longer operational. 

International Review of Social Research, a scholarly peer-reviewed journal, welcomes articles from all areas of sociology and social anthropology. All topics, methodological strategies and geographical locations are considered valuable, as long as articles are both theoretically and empirically grounded. Comparative, ethnographic, critical and space-sensitive approaches are welcomed.

The journal publishes only original (unpublished anywhere else) work, grounded in all areas of sociology, social/cultural anthropology and cognate disciplines such as cultural studies, social policy and industrial relations. We also encourage the submission of research articles that cover emergent, borderland and unexplored topics in both sociology and anthropology.

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CALL FOR PAPERS 

International Review of Social Research

Special Issue on Methodologies of Global South Youth Studies

International Review of Social Research (https://irsrjournal.unibuc.ro) seeks articles for a special issue titled “Methodologies of Global South Youth Studies” to be published in November 2021.

Guest editors:

Dr. Viviane Riegel – Researcher from São Paulo, Brazil. Main research areas: Consumption, globalization, mobilities, youth.

Dr. Joana Pellerano – Researcher from São Paulo, Brazil. Main research areas: Consumption, food, cultural practices, youth.

Call for Papers:

Ninety percent of the world’s youth live in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Despite this, the field of Youth Studies, like many other academic domains, is dominated by the knowledge of the global North (mainly Europe and North America), with its associated theories and research groups. While Northern Youth Studies’ theories and research provide insights into the lives of Southern youth, it contains assumptions and generalizations that are contextually incongruent with Southern youth’s lives. To address these geo-political imbalances, there are methodological challenges that Southern researchers have to face to develop their own evidences and argumentation within the Youth Studies field of knowledge.

            These methodological challenges can on one hand be connected to local research, based on specific issues, facing a context that demands different perspectives and forms of developing projects. On the other hand, methodological issues are also connected to the adaptation and translation of comparative research, contextualizing the reality of Global South’s youth. The scope of these studies demands a dialogue with writers from different nationalities, theoretical and methodological affiliations, whose interests converge to collaborate in the comparison of different contexts. Specifically, the main discussion when comparing different contexts with the Global South is whether to discover an underlying grammar to social life, which is applicable globally, or to pay attention to the detail of local differences. Since Youth Studies’ methodologies aim to access populations of young respondents and to capture a snapshot of their actual practices, research methodologies for the field need to incorporate innovative tools and perspective, such as mediated communication practices and participation, mainly in digital realms, as well as visual methods, as important ways of reaching these populations’ realities. Furthermore, methodological challenges are a reality for social research, and we should shift our views, since social research should not suppress contrary or inconvenient evidence.

        For a special issue of the International Review of Social Research focused on this discussion, we welcome scholars who look at the Global South’s youth – and the way they see the world and themselves. That being said, an interdisciplinary perspective would be important to understand different aspects of Global South’s youth complex life realities, so disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, communication studies and economy, to name a few, could bring valuable contributions.

            To present an overview of the research carried out in this field and the different challenges encountered during its realization, our special issue intends to bring together theoretical discussions and empirical works involving different methodologies, quantitative and/or qualitative research, and methods such as surveys, interviews, ethnography and others.

The editors are interested in an extended spectrum of research topics, including:

  • Global South youth, their similarities and differences to Global North youth
  • Emancipatory methodologies and methods from the South
  • Creative methodologies and methods for studying youth
  • Adaptation, translation and context orientation in studies on the Global South youth
  • Comparative research challenges in Youth Studies
  • An agenda for Global South Youth Studies

The editors kindly request authors to send an extended abstract of 500 words by May 15th, 2021. The accepted papers will have to be sent until by July 30th, 2021 (6,000 – 8,000 words in length) together with an abstract of no more than 200 words. The submissions need to be sent to the following address: vivianeriegel@gmail.com. Prior to submission, please check author guidelines at https://irsrjournal.unibuc.ro.

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 CALL FOR PAPERS – ISSUE 10.1 / May 2020

International Review of Social Research – University of Bucharest –

Special Issue on SOUTH ASIAN DANCE STUDIES. NRITTA-NRITYA: CHOREOGRAPHY, AESTHETICS, HERITAGE

International Review of Social Research, a journal of the University of Bucharest, Romania, (https://irsrjournal.unibuc.ro) seeks articles for a special issue entitled “South Asian Dance Studies. Nritta-Nritya: Choreography, Aesthetics and Heritage” to be published in May 2020. The editors kindly request authors to send papers (4,000 – 8,000 words in length) together with an abstract of no more than 200 words, to the following address: ksarkar@gmail.com and angeli.marinescu@gmail.com. Prior to submission, please check author guidelines at https://irsrjournal.unibuc.ro/author-guidelines/.

Guest editors:

Kaustavi Sarkar, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Angelica Marinescu, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work

Call for Papers:

This is a call for papers for an edited volume(s) on Indian dance forms across classical, contemporary, commercial, and somatic practice from interdisciplinary perspectives. The contributions may critically focus on particular forms, choreographic works, and canonical repertoire by embedding them within sociopolitical contexts. This project is looking to present the wide scope and appeal for dance in the Indian context. Papers should have a strong theoretical focus from established disciplines, such as religious studies, queer theory, critical cultural theory, performance studies, feminist theory, or practice-as-research. The voice of both artists and theorists will be appreciated in this call for papers.

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CALL FOR PAPERS ISSUE 9.2

State, Development and Marginalization: Adivasis (Tribal) and Identity Politics in India

International Review of Social Research (https://irsrjournal.unibuc.ro/) seeks articles for a special issue titled “State, Development and Marginalization: Adivasis (Tribal) and Identity Politics in India” to be published in December 2019. The editors kindly request authors to send papers (4,000 – 8,000 words in length) together with an abstract of no more than 200 words, to the following address: angeli.marinescu@gmail.com by August 15th 2019. Prior to submission, please check author guidelines at https://irsrjournal.unibuc.ro/

Guest editors:

Prasanna Kumar Nayak, Former Professor of Anthropology, Utkal University, Odisha, India.

Rajakishor Mahana, Assistant Professor, Khallikote Autonomous College, Khallikote University, Berhampur, Odisha, India.

Angelica Marinescu, I.C.C.R. scholar, Associated Researcher, Romanian Academy, Institute of Sociology, Romania.

Call for Papers:

The ‘indigenous people’, popularly known as ‘adivasis’ in India (Beteille 1998; Kuper 2003; Radhakrishna 2016) have a long history of marginalization, though considered the first inhabitants and enjoying ‘kingly citizenship” (Nayak 2011, 2012). These communities, for centuries, have been subjected to the painful predicament of disparate and inimical historical process which have led to their destitution and marginalization. Indigenous communities, through the ages, have not only been considered as the problem but also represented as almost lesser-humans, starting with the very arrival of the Indo-Aryan in northern India (Thapar 1971). Colonial anthropology, ignoring the historically built differences between tribal communities, resulted in stigmatizing the tribals of India as aboriginal, primitive, savage, indigenous, uncivilised, illiterate, banbasi (forest dwellers), autochthonous and, certainly, “exotic” (Mahana 2019: 10). In the late nineteenth century, the colonial British administration arbitrarily classified the Indian population, into ‘caste’ and ‘tribes’. By 1950, the Constitution of India deliberately denied these communities their “indigenous” status for their disputed origins (Shah 2010) and designated them as Scheduled Tribes (STs), which became a sought-after title today to ensure their political and economic entitlements. Constituting of 8.6 percentage of total population, there are 705 ST communities (which increased from 212 in 1950) in India today.

In the post-independence decades, due to the intervention of electoral politics, the traditional political structure underwent transformation and indigenous/tribal citizenship came to be affected by the ferment of change. Waves of ‘development’ interventions have been implemented (both by the state and civil societies) in the name of ‘progress’, ‘development’ and ‘civilization’, which, in turn, have simultaneously dispossessed the indigenous/tribal of their resources, language, culture and identity (Nayak, 2001, 2004). As evident from the “process of dispossession” (Harvey 2014), the coming of market and multinational companies to tribal areas, for instance, have reduced the tribal landowners to a marginalized status. Such populations were now termed as ‘encroachers’ and dubbed ‘illegal’. The need is to understand the process through which they were marginalized.

Starting with mid 1970’s, a number of indigenous groups have emerged, seeking to become instrumental for political mobilization and representation, contributing at a new political consciousness and awareness, referred in terms of  ‘identity consciousness’ or ‘identity politics’. In the context of the increasing marginalization and alienation of the indigenous populations, the question of identity (“who we are?”) becomes of utmost importance. While the concept of ‘identity politics’ is linked with marginalization, it can be used to describe phenomena such as multiculturalism, women’s movements, Dalit, Adivasi movements, civil rights, lesbian and gay movements, separatist movements and violent ethnic and nationalist conflicts in different parts of the world. The new theories of ‘identity- politics’ have shifted explanations from ‘interests’ and ‘norms’ to identities and solidarities, from the notion of the universal social agent to particularistic categories of concrete persons (Bernstein 2005: 47-74, Brosio 2000: 245-301). There is also a growing consensus to record their claims for identity recognition as a means to counteract inequality and oppression. However, the politics of recognition potentially “diverts attention from the struggle for economic inequality and social justice”, leaving the prevailing social order intact (Parekh 2004: 202; also, Fraser 1997).

In order to record the distinctive cultural practices of the Adivasis, analyse state-subject making process of the tribes, deconstruct/reconstruct their identities, honor their claims for recognition and to ensure economic equality and social justice – there has been a growing impetus for tribal/indigenous studies in India in various academic disciplines starting from anthropology, sociology, history, development studies, rural management to environmental studies. This special issue of the International Review of Social Research seeks to engage with the historical, social and political process which go into making of Indian tribes and explore various critical issues and challenges confronting this extremely vulnerable section of Indian society today. Therefore, academic research papers are cordially invited on various aspects of tribal/indigenous people of India. The editors are interested in an extended spectrum of research topics, including tribal ethnicity, identity and citizenship; tribal culture; ecology and tribal economy; tribal development and governance; public policy and social justice; displacement; migration; education; health; climate change and adaptation, etc.  

References

Bernstein, Mary, 2005. “Identity Politics”, Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 47-74.

Beteille, Andre, 1998. “The idea of indigenous people”, Current Anthropology, 39(2): 187-91.

Brosio, Richard A.  (2000). “The Politics of Identity: The Struggle for Human Dignity Is Expanded”, Counterpoints, Philosophical Scaffolding for the Construction of Critical Democratic Education, Vol. 75, pp. 245-301.

Harvey, David. 2014. “The new imperialism: Accumulation by dispossession”, Socialist Register, 40: 63-87.

Fraser, N., 1997. Justice Interruptus. London: Routledge.

Kuper, Adam, 2003. “The return of the native”, Current Anthropology, 44(3): 389-402.

Mahana, Rajakishor, 2019. Negotiating Marginality: Conflicts over Tribal Development in India. New Delhi: Social Science Press and London: Routledge.

Nayak, P. K. 2001. “Revisiting Tribes and Reconsidering Tribal Development”, Adivasi Vol. 40, SCSTRTI, Bhubaneswar.

Nayak, P. K. 2004. “Tribal Development: Challenges and Responses” in Adivasi, Vol. 41, SCSTRTI, Bhubaneswar.

Nayak, P. K. 2011. “‘They are different, but not primitive’: Tribes in the ‘Jungle Kingdoms’ of Orissa”, Seminal Papers, DSA Publications, Dept. of Anthropology, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar.

Nayak, P.K. 2012. Inheritance of Kingly Citizenship: Tribals at Cross-roads in th modern State of Orissa”, in Citizenship and the Flow of Ideas in the Era of Globalization: Structure, Agency, and Power, (ed) by Subrata K.Mitra, Samskriti, Nw Delhi

Parekh, B., 2004. Redistribution or recognition?, in: S. May, T. Modood & J. Squires (Eds) Ethnicity, Nationalism and Minority Rights, pp. 199–213. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Radhakrishna, Meena (ed), 2016. First Citizens: Studies on Adivasis, Tribals, and Indigenous Peoples in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Shah, A. 2010. In the shadows of the state: Indigenous politics, environmentalism and insurgency in Jharkhand, India. Durham: Duke University Press.

Sylvain, Renee, 2014. “Essentialism and the indigenous politics of recognition in southern Africa”, American Anthropologist, 116(2): 251-264.

Thapar, Romila, 1971. “The Image of the barbarian in early India”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 13(4): 408-436.

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Call for papers: ‘Buddhism and Buddhist Studies: From History to Contemporaneity’, special issue of International Review of Social Research, Volume 9, issue 1, May 2019

Guest editors:

Dr. Sunil K. Patnaik, Buddhist Archaeology, Odishan Institute of Maritime and South East Asian Studies

Angelica Marinescu, Romanian Academy, Institute of Sociology

The International Review of Social Research (https://irsrjournal.unibuc.ro) seeks for articles for a special issue on food and culture to be published in May 2016.

Call for Papers:

Although the story and history of Buddhism, followed nowadays by more than five hundred million persons all over the world, starts about 2500 years ago, Buddhist Studies are considered still a young academic discipline, seen rather as a heterogenous field of study, drawing on classically accepted disciplines, such as philology, history, archeology, philosophy, etc. It is thus multidisciplinary, due first of all to its object of study and to the international composition of the scholars engaged in this field of research (Ruegg, 1959, Cabezon, 1995, Foulk, 2007).

Acknowledging the interdisciplinary and international nature, inherent to the contemporary Buddhist studies, we intend to facilitate the exchanges of ideas between different disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, social and cultural anthropology, ethnology, history, archeology, art history, religious studies, literary, textual and philological studies etc. The journal welcomes works from a full range of methodological positions, both quantitative and qualitative, as well as micro- and macro-level research. Specific methods such as interviews, surveys, questionnaires, ethnographies, documentary sources, textual and literary analyses, participant and non-participant observation will be welcome.

This special issue of the International Review of Social Research addresses scholars from a wide range of disciplines connected to Buddhist academic research and Buddhism, with no discrimination between different schools and approaches. The volume’s guest editors are interested in enhancing the advances and research results in the field of Buddhist studies and Buddhism, worldwide.

The editors are interested in an extended spectrum of research topics, including:

  • History and histories of Buddhism,
  • Buddhism in India, Tibet and Asia,
  • Buddhist schools and traditions,
  • Buddhism in the “West”,
  • Buddhism, art and architecture,
  • Buddhism and archeology,
  • Buddhist cosmologies, rituals and practices,
  • Buddhism cultural origins and cultural transformations,
  • Buddhism, identity and social change,
  • Buddhist heritage,
  • Buddhism, economics and politics,
  • Contemporary Buddhist movements,
  • Buddhist sites and tourism
  • Neo-Buddhism.

Articles may focus on any region or historical period. We welcome articles on classical textual or inter-textual analysis, Buddhist art, rituals, doctrine, archeology, as well as analyzing contemporary Buddhist communities, Buddhism cultural changes in the context of global mobility, migration, diasporas, new diasporas, mass media, new media challenges, and so on. IRSR welcomes articles from a sociological and social/cultural anthropology perspective.

         The editors kindly request authors to send papers (4,000 – 8,000 words in length) together with an abstract of no more than 200 words, to the following address: angeli.marinescu@gmail.com by February 29th 2019. Prior to submission, please check author guidelines at https://irsrjournal.unibuc.ro/author-guidelines/

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