Call for Papers: Special issue of JEMIE / Abstract submission deadline extended!

We have extended the deadline for abstract submission for the special issue of JEMIE titled “Minorities, European Security and Securitisation of Group Relations: Approaching Security from a Minor Perspective”.

* * * Deadline for abstracts extended until 15th May 2020 * * * 

The Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe (JEMIE) is a peer-reviewed electronic journal edited under the auspices of the ECMI. The multi-disciplinary journal addresses minority issues across a broad range of studies.

https://www.ecmi.de/publications/jemie

JEMIE Editor – Dr Kyriaki Topidi (ECMI)

Special Issue Editor – Dr Marika Djolai (ECMI) 

Special issue of JEMIE: "Minorities, European Security and Securitisation of Group Relations: Approaching Security from a Minor Perspective”

Sharing spaces in diverse societies and creating fair policies to manage diversity is not always a smooth process. For the communities (groups) that share a society, unfair competition or injustices are likely to be perceived as a security threat. States are often inclined towards perceiving ethnic minorities and indigenous groups as a security threat, which determines attitudes of the majority groups and state policies towards them (Canetti-Nisim at al., 2008) and creates barriers for interactions. As a result, minorities are likely to be exposed to exclusionist political attitudes towards the said groups, discriminatory or xenophobic attacks and other forms of intolerance or violence by a majority group (Pan et al., 2018). This is more likely to happen in places where minorities are numerically larger group and where the long-term, historic grievances between them and majority communities are present (Smith and Holmes, 2014). The way states behave towards minorities, but also migrants and refugees (new minorities) is grounded in shared security concerns in combination with a conflict potential where this groups are present. One way of addressing security issue is expanding rights of minorities (Sasse, 2005: 689), although that doesn’t always guarantee protection (Galbreath, McEvoy, 2012). 

This special issue of JEMIE titled “Minorities, European Security and Securitisation of Group Relations: Approaching Security from a Minor Perspective” aims to contribute to better understanding of the contemporary security challenges that minorities from European countries face, by focusing on empirical research about security agenda.  By taking this approach, we not only want to highlight the problem of securitisation and a range of threats minorities are exposed to across Europe, but also to shed light on how these sensitive issues, particularly in everyday life, might be approached methodologically. The special issue’s intention is motivated by recent work on human security, securitisation and minorities, as well as the concept of security in the vernacular coined in the field of development studies (Luckham, 2015). We are interested in how minorities perceive (in)security and why societies and states perceive minorities as a security threat, and the effects of this securitisation on government policies, formal and informal group relations and new forms of (ethnic) tolerance. 

We welcome papers from a wide range of disciplines (ethnic/ minority studies; sociology, political science, anthropology, human rights and international relations). The following topics are particularly encouraged: 

• Analysis of the key security concerns linked to national minorities in Europe.   

• Embracing local and communal identities as a way of protection in insecure world. 

• Security discourses among minorities in Europe. How minorities speak about their everyday threats.

• Perspectives on the rights and securitisation of religious minorities in the 21st century. 

• Securitisation of group relations and group boundaries between majority and minority communities? 

• Contested self-governance. Ambivalence and conflict around matters of security. 

• Making minorities secure. The role of the local institutions in addressing security challenges and concerns of national minorities? Significance of the local. 

• How far can we go at an aggregate level in agreeing on (a) common research question (s) vis a vis security of minorities? 

• Effects of the refugee crisis on securitisation of minorities and perceived security threats.

500-word abstracts and short CVs (up to 300 words) are due to the special issue editor (djolai@ecmi.de) no later than May 15, 2020. Authors will be notified of the decision by the end of May 2020.

After initial accept/reject decisions are made, full papers of 7,000 -10,000 words (including bibliography) will be expected by September 1, 2020 with a planned publication date of winter 2020. 

Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have. 

JEMIE is an international, peer-reviewed, scholarly journal of the European Centre for Minority issues, committed to publishing interdisciplinary and policy-related social science and humanities research in the fields of minority issues, diversity, migration, multicultural policies, and human rights.