Deadline: November 10, 2019

Editors

• Berrin Yanıkkaya (Arkın University of Creative Arts and Design)
• Angelique Nairn (Auckland University of Technology)

Introduction

Women’s agency and its lack in the political realm has been a central theme of feminist scholarship. The interplay between economic, political, social and cultural forces on the one hand, and women’s individual and collective struggles on the other, centers upon the problem of agency.

The construction of agency necessarily requires the articulation of voice. For women involved in long standing social justice struggles, speaking in their own voices is a primary political objective. In this context, voice has a wider thematic scope than is the case in daily language. Exercising a voice entails the advancements of autonomy and freedom through political action.

Having and exercising a voice is also closely tied to the idea of visibility and therefore representation. Male domination restricts voice and restricts visibility. Essentially, women were conceptualized as the other, and the experiences of women framed from a masculine lens. Therefore, further research and scholarly discussion is needed to explore voice and its accompanying visibility in and across both public and private spheres. This means in politics, media, the arts, health, education, private realms and so on. In examining women being able to voice their perspectives in today’s societies, the following questions still seem relevant:

• How is it possible for women to have their own voice?
• Are there any differences between individual and collective voices?
• How are women’s voices interpreted within politics, culture, economics and media in today’s societies?
• What are the impacts of changing social dynamics on a new way of owning one’s own voice?
• Can the new digital mediascape offer women new platforms to raise their voice and become more visible?
• Is it enough just to have a voice if no one is hearing your voice?
• What are the strategies women can deploy to overcome what Couldry (2010) calls ‘the contemporary crisis of voice in neoliberal times’?
• How do women from different classes, ethnicities, races and ages respond to the challenges of being silenced in different geographies where there are uneven opportunities to access the channels to raise their voices and make patriarchal-capitalist societies listen?
• How do women resist the dominant neoliberal discourse that structurally ‘ignores’ their voices?
• What are the entrenched conditions that prevent women from claiming their own voice?
• What language do women need speak to be able to be heard?
• Is it possible for women to have agency when it is detached from the voice?

The intention of this volume is to consider, reflect on, advance and ultimately give voice to the field of women’s studies. To bring together scholars from across the globe to offer a plethora of voices on issues impacting women and their agency within society.

Objective

The purpose of this book is to examine the concept of ‘voice’ in its relation to the construction of agency for women. This publication shall include both theoretical debates over the relationship between voice and agency, and practical examples from around the world that explore how women own their own ‘voice’ in politics, culture, media and the economy.

Although new and emerging technologies are leading to new ways of becoming visible and heard by larger groups of people across the world, the access to such tools continues to be problematic. Therefore such a text becomes a means of ensuring that important matters related with ‘voice’ continue to take place, particularly to the benefit of women’s empowerment. To this end, showcasing individual and collective approaches by women in claiming and reclaiming their own voices is crucial to understanding the concept of agency. Chapters proposed for this edited volume need to provide theoretical insights into the study of women’s agency as much as real-life examples and experiences of women owning their voices throughout history, especially in neoliberal times and the digital age.

Target Audience

The target audience of this book will consist of undergrad and postgrad students, scholars, women’s rights advocates, non-profit organizations for women, policy makers, higher education institutions, political and economic decision making bodies.

Recommended Topics

Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Voice as a constituent element of agency
• Voice as a marker of self-worth and identity
• Voice in public and private domains
• Women’s agency in politics
• Silencing practices and the ways to overcome them
• New opportunities for voicing women’s issues in the digital age
• Individual and collectives voices
• Social change and speaking up to power
• Voice’s impact on visibility
• Different experiences of women owning their voice across the world
• Class, race, ethnicity, age, geography in relation to voice
• Diversity, equity and inclusion in academia
• Women’s voices in culture and art
• Women’s voices and/in media
• Conversation, gender and uneven distribution of power
• Voice as an economic instrument
• Voices of activists
• Public speech, private conversation

Submission Procedure

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before November 10, 2019, a chapter proposal of 1,000 to 2,000 words clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors will be notified by November 24, 2019about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by January 23, 2020, and all interested authors must consult the guidelines for manuscript submissions at http://www.igi-global.com/publish/contributor-resources/before-you-write/prior to submission. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this project.

Note: There are no submission or acceptance fees for manuscripts submitted to this book publication, Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Women, Voice, and Agency. All manuscripts are accepted based on a double-blind peer review editorial process.

All proposals should be submitted through the eEditorial Discovery®TM online submission manager.

Publisher

This book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), publisher of the "Information Science Reference" (formerly Idea Group Reference), "Medical Information Science Reference," "Business Science Reference," and "Engineering Science Reference" imprints. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit www.igi-global.com. This publication is anticipated to be released in 2021.

Important Dates

• 1st proposal submission deadline: November 10, 2019
• Notification of Acceptance: November 24, 2019
• Full chapter submission: January 23, 2020
• Review results due to editor: February 22, 2020
• Review results due to authors: March 7, 2020
• Revisions due from authors: April 4, 2020
• Final acceptance/rejection notification due to authors: April 18, 2020
• All final accepted materials due from authors: May 2, 2020

Inquiries

berrinandangelique@gmail.com

berrin.yanikkaya@gmail.com

angelique.nairn@gmail.com

Classifications

Business and Management; Computer Science and Information Technology; Education; Environmental, Agricultural, and Physical Sciences; Library and Information Science; Medical, Healthcare, and Life Sciences; Media and Communications; Security and Forensics; Government and Law; Social Sciences and Humanities; Science and Engineering

Berrin Yanıkkaya, PhD, Professor of Communication Studies, Faculty of Communication, Arkın University of Creative Arts and Design (ARUCAD), Kyrenia, North Cyprus

Angelique Nairn, PhD. Senior Lecturer , School of Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology (AUT). Auckland, New Zealand