[Commlist] CfP Special Issue on Exile Journalism - Journalism Studies

Call for Papers – Special Issue on Exile Journalism for Journalism Studies

Reporting from precarious shelter: The practices, values, and 
epistemologies of exile journalism

https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/journalism-exile-studies/ 
<https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/journalism-exile-studies/>

Guest editors:

- Johana Kotišová (Vrije Universiteit Brussel and University of 
Amsterdam) – (Johana.Kotisova /at/ vub.be) <mailto:(Johana.Kotisova /at/ vub.be)>

- Yazan Badran (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) – (Yazan.Badran /at/ vub.be) 
<mailto:(Yazan.Badran /at/ vub.be)>

Deadline for full manuscripts: 1 December 2023

Rationale:

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to a veritable exodus of 
journalists and media outlets from both countries fleeing political 
persecution and/or the war. A decade earlier, the Syrian uprising and 
grinding conflict in the country also led to the growth of a media 
sector based entirely in exile in Turkey and beyond. These are but two 
prominent examples of a growing transnational community of displaced 
journalists and media outlets that have continued to ply their trade—or 
have been established—in the (precarious) shelter of (internal or 
external) exile. Cases from Ukraine and Syria to Burma and Zimbabwe 
highlight the complex and multifaceted roles played by such exile 
journalism in contemporary contexts—as mediators in their own right, but 
also as important nodes in the broader ecosystem of foreign reporting.

The condition of exile—in which the political aspect of displacement is 
accentuated—has long been seen to shape specific imaginaries and 
practices of cultural and knowledge production (whether in academia, 
cinema, or indeed, journalism). Exile’s intersection with journalism, 
despite its ubiquity throughout the history of the profession, has 
attracted only scarce attention in the scholarship. Moreover, much of 
that literature has tended to theorize journalism in exile as an 
extension of activism or partisan practices, and more broadly approached 
exile journalism as the marginalised, exotic Other. But if the cases 
above show us anything, it is that that lens is woefully inadequate in 
understanding the practices, values, and epistemologies of exile 
journalism. Particularly as both the concrete condition of exile and the 
field of journalism have been deeply destabilised by rapid technological 
change, evolving regimes of (im)mobility and the emergence of new forms 
of transnational solidarities and networks.

This special issue seeks to fundamentally shift the boundaries of the 
study of exile journalism and to establish new ways of engaging with 
this complex field, not least because focusing on exile journalism can 
serve as a source of inspiration for journalism and its studies more 
broadly. To produce knowledge with limited first-hand access to their 
sources and contexts they cover, and to reach their audiences at home 
and abroad, exile journalists need to be epistemologically creative. 
Indeed, they often become early adopters of new media technologies and 
quick in integrating them into their (networked) practices, routines, 
and organisational models. We thus aim to bring exile journalism into 
the core of our field as a space of professional – namely, 
epistemological, and technological – innovation and experimentation. 
Moreover, we see exile journalism as an extreme case of the nexus 
between emotions and journalistic practice where journalists cannot 
easily perform the detached and value-less role traditionally expected 
of them, and often have intense ties to other actors, such as emigré 
politicians or activists. This special issue thus seeks to go beyond an 
a priori dismissal of the experience of involvement in what journalists 
write about (a conflict, a political crisis) as a danger to (or failure 
of) journalism, towards a more in-depth understanding of the 
implications and practices arising from such conditions. Studying such 
journalistic practices can bring journalism research closer to what 
Barbie Zelizer has called real existing journalisms in the world: in 
this case, openly value-laden, emotion-driven, corporeal, engaged, and 
legitimately goal-oriented kind of journalism practice characterized by 
porous boundaries with activism/politics.

Towards that aim we seek contributions that specifically interrogate 
contemporary exile journalism and the situated (and varied) practices, 
values, and epistemological frameworks that evolve in that context. We 
invite contributors from a variety of geographical contexts, and we are 
open to different methodological approaches including creative and mixed 
methodologies. We welcome theoretical, conceptual, as well as empirical 
contributions. We also welcome diverse conceptual and theoretical 
approaches, including political-economic perspectives and approaches 
that develop the exile-journalism nexus by integrating knowledge from 
other disciplines, such as postcolonial studies, cultural and political 
geography, refugee studies, sociology of migration, anthropology and 
law, as well as critical perspectives in international relations and 
conflict studies. In particular, we are interested in intersectional 
perspectives on how the variety of identities and subject positions 
(background, host country, ethnicity and race, gender, class, sexuality 
and/or religious believes) shape exile journalists’ professional 
practices and the experience of exile, and what diverse layers of 
precarity exile journalists need to negotiate. Finally, recognising the 
need to strengthen the historical dimension of the study of journalism, 
we also welcome contributions on past episodes of exile journalism that 
seek to historicise these experiences and their role in the development 
of our understanding and theorisation of (exile) journalism.

Novel approaches to exile journalism we expect could potentially 
include, but are not limited to, topics such as:

- Journalistic and knowledge-building practices in exile journalism;

- Values, norms and professional ideology of exile journalists as well 
as the boundary work and boundary deconstruction performed by them;

- Emotional labour and the affective epistemology of exile journalists;

- Political economy of exile journalism focused on how exile journalists 
deal with the precarity and uncertainty related to funding, innovations, 
and sustainability models in exile journalism;

- Exchanges between mainstream journalism in the Global North and exile 
journalism; exile journalism as a site of innovation, hybridity, and 
experimentation.


Submission guidelines:

- Please make sure to choose the correct Special Issue when submitting 
your full manuscripts on the article submission portal of Journalism 
Studies.

- Articles should be between 6000 and 9000 words, inclusive of the 
abstract, tables, references, figure captions, endnotes.

- There are no submission fees, publication fees or page charges for 
this journal.


See full author’s guidelines of Journalism Studies here: 
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rjos20 
<https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rjos20>

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