[Commlist] CFP : Embodied DIY: Feminist and Queer Zines in a Transglobal World

please find a call for papers for a special issue of ZINES Journal entitled:
Embodied DIY: Feminist and Queer Zines in a Transglobal World
Guest editors : Paula Guerra and Laura Lopez

This special issue of ZINES proposes to gather works of several 
researchers and zine-makers that analyse and produce zines that focus on 
gender and sexual dissidence around the world. In the last decades, we 
have witnessed the increase of the number of zines with the 
representation of the feminist and queer issues in a range of different 
countries, just like studies that have been aware of that (Harris, 2004; 
Kearney, 2006; Licona, 2012; Piepmeier, 2009; Poletti, 2008). Focus on 
these zines and publications in a special issue of this journal, will 
give us a better understanding of this phenomenon and the different 
state of the art among the five continents. We want to pay special 
attention to emerging scenes and populations oppressed by the colonial, 
patriarchal, and capitalist system. The importance of looking at not 
hegemonic spaces and bodies bring to the zines their original spirit as 
holders of counter- narratives.

Although the production of fanzines precedes the emergence of punk, the 
truth is that it was with it that fanzines became relevant as spaces for 
freedom of thought and creation, as well as an alternative to 
conventional media. Since the 1970s, the universe of fanzines has 
expanded not only thematically and stylistically, but also has extended 
its territorial coverage and the communication media used in its 
production and dissemination have expanded. In this special issue, we 
propose an approach that aims to look at fanzines as 'communities' 
founded around a cultural object, in the production of texts, photos and 
other materials about feminist and queer scenes around the world – 
linked or not linked to punk. Fanzines are understood here as an 
alternative medium of late modernity, capable of revealing the DIY ethos 
associated with it. Fanzines are material forms of symbolic 
representation. They are objects constructed voluntarily that allow 
individuals who participate in the process (of editing and distribution) 
to affirm their social existence, to integrate (sub)cultures, 
musical/artistic scenes or tribes, social movements, and to culturally 
participate in them; simultaneously, fanzines materialized in a local 
movement markedly youthful, stimulating an underground scene, and 
facilitating the dissemination of an anti-hegemonic culture of usually 
hidden stories. They are a fundamental element in the realization of 
tastes, affinities, social, political, ideological, and cultural 
memberships, lifestyles and musical styles.

Feminist and queer fanzines have contributed to ‘oppositional 
technologies’, that is, the use of DIY techniques, which the riot grrrl 
movement used plenty, from music production, zines, jewelry, clothes, 
etc. They have allowed the contestation of the dominant representations 
of women, which, in turn, has allowed them, in addition to the 
construction of new concepts of femininity, to also explore issues of 
sexuality, gender, identity, race, sexual orientation and class, 
especially through manifestos, visual representations, drawings and 
photographs.

The importance of using fanzines as intervention tools, and their 
consequent relevance for young generations, does not primarily reside in 
their impact for potential social change, but in the ability to 
construct these narratives in subcultural spaces, which might not only 
be important for the participants in terms of providing a means of 
self-representation, but more importantly, as a means to pedagogically 
work on their ability to teach and learn about differences. In this 
sense, we can assert that today’s feminist and queer zines not only are 
a collective media, in which their authors construct identities, 
communities, and narratives that shape their cultural moments, but are 
also instruments of feminist and gender education, transnational 
networking and pillars of the political and underground movement. A 
review of the escalation of the distribution of these zines in recent 
times, and the fundamental role that the internet has played, over and 
above the analogical zines and e-zine dichotomy, will provide us a 
closer view of the state of the art.

We welcome proposals by academics, students and independent researchers 
from any discipline or scholarly field, as well as by zine librarians, 
and non-academic zinesters who want to share their personal experiences 
or react to published papers. As ZINES Journal, this Special Issue 
Embodied DIY: Feminist and Queer Zines in a Transglobal World, also 
encourages papers submitted in unconventional format (e.g. collages, 
paste-up or other innovative editing, zines, photo essays, etc.).

Proposals might address, but need not be limited to, the following subjects:
• The role of subaltern identities in zines of underground urban 
cultures and their contribute as forms of anti-austerity and 
anti-neo-liberalism resistance and resilience.
• Challenging (and reconstruction of) the representations of female, 
male and non-binary identities in zines around the world.
• Transnational networking of feminist and queer movements through zines 
and the sedimentation of organic dynamics of active citizenship.
• Expression of the DIY culture made by non-binary, female or LGTBQ 
authors (podcasts, e-zines, tumblr, etc.).
• Zines as a platform for the distribution of different narratives of 
the Global South and LGTBQ+ diasporas.
• Feminist and queer zines as a space of resistance against the 
patriarchal, colonialist and capitalist system.
• Zines as political, cultural and artistic agents in marginal spaces 
made by feminist or queer authors.
• Representations of non-normative corporeality in zines.
• Visibility of anti-hegemonic artistic practices by feminist and queer 
zines in a transglobal world.
• Zines as objects and means of expressing cultural scenes, social 
movements and spheres of contestation in the North and the Global South.
• Zines as objects and means of alternative, libertarian, controversial 
and critical pedagogies.
• Reviews of zines or books which approach the topics listed above.
• In-depth interviews with zinesters of feminist and queer zines.

Publishing in ZINES is totally free of charge, except full colour 
printing if requested by authors.
Published papers are copyleft and remain the property of authors.

Deadline for abstract proposal: 15 October 2020
Notification of acceptance: 1st November 2020
Deadline for full paper submission: 15 January 2021
Deadline for revised paper submission: 1st May 2021
Publication date of ZINES vol.2-1 : July 2021

Author instructions: www.strandflat.fr/zines 
<http://www.strandflat.fr/zines>
email: (zinesjournal /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(zinesjournal /at/ gmail.com)>


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