Call for Special Issue: Partnering for Social Change? Rethinking Intercultural Partnerships in Nonprofit Contexts, for Journal of International and Intercultural Communication
Special Issue Guest Editors: Yea-Wen Chen, Ohio University; Brandi Lawless, University of San Francisco; and Alberto González, Bowling Green State University
Communication scholars have recently directed attention to cultural discourses and nonprofit and voluntary organizations. At the same time, much more needs to be understood about how nonprofit and voluntary organizations constitute (inter)cultural sites, how they work with diverse memberships, stakeholders, publics, and partners, and how they organize for social change. We have chosen the broad term nonprofit organization to encompass not only registered tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations but also voluntary, community-based, non-governmental, civil society, and people’s organizations.
Nonprofit organizations are rich contexts for examining issues of identity, structure, institution, relationship, discourse, and power, which are of great interest to intercultural communication scholars. However, scholars have just begun to explore the intersection between intercultural communication and nonprofit relationship building (e.g., partnership, alliance, coalition building, etc.). This special issue serves as a critical space to rethink the challenges and limitations and opportunities of intercultural nonprofit partnership and also re-imagine new possibilities of relating across difference to promote social change.
This special issue invites research that is directed by three central questions: a) How are intercultural partnerships constituted, formed, maintained, negotiated, and practiced in the work of nonprofit organizations?; b) How do nonprofits navigate, negotiate, and mediate the competing dynamics of social structures, identity politics, and power relations as sites of intercultural practices?; c) How do nonprofit partners (e.g., practitioners, communities, funders, scholar, policy-makers, etc.) negotiate their intersecting cultural identities in ways that sustain, reproduce, or resist existing power relations?
All research methodologies are welcome. Papers that emphasize applied case studies, relationships between scholars and practitioners, theorization of culture within nonprofit organizations, social justice issues and examinations of power disparities are preferred. Joint submissions co-authored by nonprofit practitioners and scholars are especially welcome.
Submitting your manuscript: Please submit electronically an extended proposal between 500-600 words (excluding references) by March 15, 2014. Authors should submit proposals using the journal’s website (www.tandf.co.uk/rjii) and follow instructions for online submission. Please select ‘special forum paper’ to describe the type of submission. JIIC now follows APA 6th edition guidelines. Proposals will undergo a blind review process, and a selection will be shortlisted for development into approximately 3000-word essays. Shortlisted authors must commit to a timeline for revision, resubmission and publication, with full manuscripts to be submitted by August 15, 2014. Final acceptance is contingent upon satisfactory revisions. Questions should be directed to Dr. Yea-Wen Chen.
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 