CAll For IMAGES The Art of Migrant Lives

[MAGadmin]

Charles Lewton-Brain forwarded this to the MAGlist and I am forwarding to all!
Sara

Hi all,

while the bent on this seems writing, there is room for artwork and images that
speak to the issues.

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS AND SUBMISSIONS


THE ARTS IN RESEARCHING MIGRANT LIVES: BIOGRAPHICAL REPRESENTATIONS TO MOVE
AUDIENCES AND TRANSFORM COMMUNITIES
Edited by J. Gary Knowles and Valerie Damasco


Focus and Contributions
We invite contributions situated at the intersection of the arts and the
exploration of emigrant / immigrant / migrant lives (including persons of
non-status such as refugees or temporary workers). The underlying motivation for
the edited volume is to show how researchers use biographical research methods
complemented or infused with and by the arts to illuminate the complexity and
challenges of migrant lives and so induce social change for the benefit of
individuals, communities, and societies.

The chapters are to be accessible to a wide readership. They are directed
towards scholars and practitioners as well as others interested in the portrayal
of migrant lives including English-speaking migrants themselves.

There are two kinds of contributions. The first provides examples of how various
art forms (and media) are used to depict the lives and challenges of migrants.
These are relatively short but illustrative examples of the work of artists of
various kinds and, together, are clustered in a section entitled Inspired by
Artists. The second are accounts grounded in more formal, methods-based,
research projects of various kinds (often university-supported) and are gathered
in a section entitled The Art of Migrant Lives. Both kinds of manuscript are
elaborated below:

Inspired by Artists
Chapters in this section highlight the work of an artist (or artists) in her or
his (or their) depictions of migrant lives. Film, video, new media, performances
of all kinds (including dance and stage plays / drama), two dimensional artwork
(including community murals), literary fiction (the novel) and creative non
fiction, and poetry are examples of possible art forms (see also below). The
purpose of the section is to show the range of media forms used to explore lives
and experiences, conditions and challenges, and to illustrate or emphasize the
possibilities of inspiration for academic and arts-informed research work /
scholarship. (Contributions are about 10 pages, double spaced, and 12-point font.)

The Art of Migrant Lives
Chapters in this section evidence the exploration of emigrant / immigrant lives
from a variety of conceptual, theoretical, and procedural perspectives and for
diverse purposes. The underlying and linking element is how the arts influences
work that aims to induce social and political transformations. With the
exception of some key chapters (which serve as kind of primers and section
introductions) each account demonstrates the inspiration and purposes for making
the arts an integral part of the researching work. How the arts influence
decisions about audiences (and visa versa) for the work / scholarship and, then,
how researchers go about representing elements of the work to identified
audiences is foregrounded. As such, each contribution possess three qualities:

• a focus on the creative, theoretical, procedural / methodological ways that
art influences researching into the human condition. In particular the
contributions evidence creative means of conceptualizing the research as well as
innovative, boundary-pushing information gathering processes. Particular
attention is also given to ways of communicating the arts-inspired and –informed
work to diverse audiences through representations which embrace the arts such as
spoken word and radio productions (including story), published texts (such as
literary poetic and even photographic forms), theatre (drama readers theatre and
comedy for example) and other performative arts (such as dance and mime) three
dimensional installations and sculpture, two dimensional visual art (including
painting, drawing, and photography) exhibits and murals, film and new media
(including video, web-based), and others such as the craft of quilting,
graffiti, cartoons.

• an underlying orientation on the biographical study of lives (as opposed to
cultures or institutions) so that life history, personal history / oral history,
life narrative, life story, autobiography, autoethnography are the key
orientations central to the perspectives of researching lives.

• attention to the emigrant / immigrant / migrant experience is essential but
with the research account centred on the possibilities and challenges of
illuminating lives lived through creative researching practices and arts-related
forms of representation.

In all chapters within the section The Art of Migrant Lives the roles of the
arts are foregrounded in the researching endeavours but the section (as a whole)
is tied together by the biographical and the attention to matters of the
individual experience of migration. Contributions are limited to 20,
double-spaced, 12-point font manuscript pages including images (although all
authors should first consult with the editors on the kinds and number of images
proposed).

Interested authors should either send a proposal or inquire further of the
editors as to the suitability of their work for the book before making a
submission. Manuscript guidelines will then be provided. Proposals should be
made no later than September 30, 2009 with final drafts received by January 15,
2010. Preproduction of the book will be completed by late Spring 2010 with a
publishing date of 2010.


Valerie Damasco
Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of The University of Toronto
E-mail: [e-mail]

J. Gary Knowles
Co-director, Centre for Arts-informed Research
Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of The University of Toronto
252 Bloor Street West
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1V6
E-Mail: [e-mail]