We are seeking chapter proposals for an edited volume analyzing the intersections of youth and the legal and political spheres. The volume is to be published as part of The West Virginia University Press’ Gender, Feminism, and Geography series. Our contract with The West Virginia University Press lists a completed manuscript date of Dec. 31, 2019. Please find a general overview of the book below, as well as details for submitting material. Please contact us at gjhowert@uga.edu and leannekp@uga.edu with any questions.
Book overview
This edited volume will present a collection of work from scholars and activists exploring the intersections of youth with politics and law in the United States. The need for a collection of critical analyses of youth is evident in current events. We argue that the categories circumscribing young people represent an underutilized tool for examining the ways in which legal and political systems function and develop. We are especially interested in who is represented (or targeted, or excluded) in these systems, how they push back, and how lawmakers will respond to the empowerment of youth.
This book seeks to answer a rich set of questions that we believe are timely and important: How are youth framed legally and politically in the U.S.? What ideas about different youth categorizations are propagated to support or undermine policy and legislation? What are the very real consequences, lived-realities, and experiences that we can understand as we examine these categorizations? Feminist geographers urge us toward research that continuously interrogates and tears apart the categorizations that are taken for granted in the legal system, and to foreground the bodies of those “at the sharp end” of the legal and social processes (Dixon and Marston, 2011; 44; Hyndman, 2004). We argue that the understudied category of “youth” wields enormous social power and merits a collection of scholarship dedicated to the ways “youth” is categorized and understood in the context of legal and political landscapes of the U.S. The book will break down into three sections: 1) The constructions and categorizations of youth through law in policy; 2) The mobilization of narratives about young people to advance politicalagendas; and 3) Youth resistance.
If you are interested in contributing, please take note of the following:
- An abstract of roughly 300 words should be submitted to the editors by email (gjhowert@uga.edu and leannekp@uga.edu ) preferably by November 15, 2018. Abstracts should feature the working title of the proposed chapter, the author or authors responsible for it, along with institutional affiliations.
- We encourage chapters written specifically for the volume. However, it is also possible to draw on already published work adapted to the book’s themes. Copyright clearance for work that has already been published is entirely the responsibility of the contributing authors.
- Prospective authors will be informed of our editorial decision by December 15, 2018.
- The first draft of the chapter is to reach the editors by March 31, 2019.
- Chapters will fall within the range of 3,000 to 5,000 words, and may include black and white images. The style sheet for references and bibliography will be forwarded to all authors whose abstract has been selected for the volume.
We hope to hear from you soon. If you have any further questions concerning the volume, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Gloria Howerton and Leanne Purdum
University of Georgia
October 2018
Leanne Purdum is a PhD Candidate who utilizes critical approaches to human rights, humanitarianism, and law to think through U.S. immigration policies and the violence of detention and deportation. Her dissertation work focuses on a detention center in South Texas that hold mothers and children. http://geography.uga.edu/
Gloria Howerton is a PhD Candidate at the University of Georgia. Her current work centers on the interplays between race and national identity, and how ideas about both are (re)produced and challenged through the public school system and education policy.