Call for Papers: Muslim Community Experiences in Canada
The concept of community identity within the social sciences and humanities has been understood in a variety of ways. While some authors argue that there are no clear means of measuring a sense of community identity, especially for comparative analysis (Puddifoot 1995), and others have proposed foundations for the development of community identity, especially through shared discursive construction (Colombo & Senatore 2004), still others prefer to examine how social identities function.(Stets and Burke 2000) They do this with particular attention to the enhancement of individual and group well-being through social support and both collective efficacy and action. (McNamara et al 2013)
Within traditional Islamic discourses, there is not necessarily a term for group identity as it would be understood in a western sense today; rather, Islamic concepts of collective identity can be understood in (but not limited to) the terms of Ummah (or the global community of Muslims connected by belief, law and practice) and fard kifayah, or community responsibility and duty. (Wahb 2021). In fact, it could be argued that the entire normative Islamic worldview and ethos is one of holistic communality in a way that it is challenging for more individualized ideologies and societies to conceptualize. The spirit of community in many Muslim locales and globally, however, has been shaken and even fragmented by forces of colonialism, neo-liberalism and others such that a sense of community identity and experience is, at best, muted and, at worst, absent. This process, of course, is neither consistent, nor linear and can fluctuate while being dependent on a range of factors including time, place, relationships, and so forth.
It is within these discussions, as well as the practical experiences of Muslim communities in Canada that the Religious and Socio-Political Studies Journal (RSSJ) - a double-blind, peer-reviewed, open access interdisciplinary journal from the Institute for Religious and Socio-Political Studies (I-RSS) - is calling for article contributions for our 3rd issue. We aim to provide an interdisciplinary forum for current thinking about community for Muslims in Canada.
We invite submissions for this collection dedicated to local, regional, national, and global community identity, experiences and discussions, as well as examinations of how group and individual identity interact. We also invite community organizations to share submissions with us pertaining to their areas of service. Insights from a broad spectrum of areas are welcomed, including: traditional Islamic sciences, philosophy, digital humanities & media studies, history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and literature.
Submissions will be welcomed until 30th June, 2023. All submissions should be no longer than 8000 words (excluding the abstract) and should use 17th edition Chicago manual style footnotes (no endnotes) and bibliographic references. Submissions should be made using Microsoft Word, single-spaced with 1 inch margins, 12 point Times New Roman font. Footnotes should be 10 point font and also single-spaced. Bibliographies must be alphabetized. All submissions must include a works cited page, a title and an abstract (not exceeding 200 words). Author names should not appear anywhere on submission documents, in titles or file names. Any submission failing to comply with these formatting guidelines will not be accepted. Submissions must be made through the RSS Journal website: rssjournal.ca
For questions or concerns, please contact Editor-in-Chief for RSSJ and Research Director for I-RSS, Nakita Valerio. (nakita@i-rss.org)
