Call for Papers: State of Power 2017

TNI’s annual State of Power reports have, since their launch in 2012, become a must-see reference point for citizens, activists and academics concerned with understanding the nature of power in our globalised world in order to inform struggles for justice. With a mixture of compelling infographics and insightful essays, State of Power has examined dimensions of power (economic, political, social), exposed the key players who control power, and highlighted movements of counter-power seeking to transform our world.

Power and Culture

There is growing public awareness of the concentration of economic power in the world, and TNI has in previous reports exposed the legal, political and international processes that have facilitated this power grab. However, power only becomes hegemonic when it is reinforced continuously through cultural processes that make the exercise of power seem ‘natural’ and irreversible. This is the process that has converted neoliberalism into an accepted fact of everyday life, rather than an ideology that has been designed to benefit certain interests. Cultural hegemony has also sustained powerful structures from the military through to the banking sector.

At the same time, culture is a key arena for struggles and has provided dynamism and force to the most effective social movements; and one could argue is the most important area for work if we are to really embed and sustain transformative practices in our communities and states over the long-term.  Most of all, at a time when the world seem beset by multiple crises and the disturbing rise of reactionary forces, it seems apt to remember what Antonio Gramsci once wrote: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new is yet to be born. And in the interregnum, a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” How ultimately can social movements assert their own power through cultural forms to reject the dangerous symptoms of morbidity and bring the new into being?

Here are a number of important and diverse questions that we would like to interrogate:

• What are the cultural roots that have bolstered neoliberalism or more generally capitalism?

• What have been the main cultural mechanisms for embedding and reinforcing power structures in politics, institutions and everyday life?

• How do cultural norms reinforce unjust power relations in different spheres of life – schools/universities, parliaments, governments, corporations, the military? What shape is this likely to take in the future?

• What role does the media play in reinforcing structural power and cultural hegemony? How has growing concentration and consolidation of the media industry played a role? What examples are there where media has played an important role in confronting entrenched power? What can we learn from this?

• What role have thinktanks, policy experts, academia and civil society played in reinforcing political and economic concentrations of power? Conversely what role have some institutes and researchers played in confronting unjust power structures?

• What role has the technology industry played in reinforcing power or confronting power? How has the concentrated power in the ‘Silicon Valleys’ of the world used cultural exchange and shaped culture to further increase their power – and the power of other elites?

• What examples are there where cultural norms that bolster entrenched power have been successfully challenged?

• How have cultural memes been used successfully to build counter-power or to embed new transformative practices?

• How have corporations used culture and the arts to bolster their power? And how have activists successfully countered this power through cultural expression?

• What cultural shifts do we need to imagine and construct just alternatives? How we build a culture that reinforces values of the commons, solidarity, and harmony with nature?

This is not an exclusive list. We welcome a wide range of perspectives and analysis on the broad theme, however TNI does appreciate essays that relate to areas we most closely work on such as corporate impunity, trade and investment policies, land and agrarian issues, resource grabbing, public services, security and civil liberties, social movements and counter-power (see https://www.tni.org/en/projects)

To encourage submissions from activists on low-incomes and people from the Global South , we also have a small number of grants of 600 euros for selected essays from individuals that fit this category. Please indicate in your submissions whether you would like to apply for this grant. The money will only be distributed if your essay is chosen for the main report.

For an idea of the kind of essays we are interested in, please read the essays featured in State of Power 2016: http://www.tni.org/stateofpower2016

Not just essays

While essays are the main focus of the report, TNI is also open to proposals for artistic explorations that examine the same themes that could accompany and complement the essays. The process will be different for these, so please just email stateofpower AT tni.org with any proposals or suggestions.

Style

TNI is a research and advocacy organisation but not an academic institution, and seeks to provide accessible analysis that can be read and used by a broad range of activists and social movements. We are therefore looking for analysis that is not over-theoretical and written in a style that is accessible.

We are interested in new and insightful analysis, and also encourage the use of:

• stories

• concrete examples

• metaphors

• journalistic techniques

We discourage the overuse of academic jargon literature analysis and academic debates that mean little to the public. In our experience the more accessible the material, the more widely it is used and shared.

Process

The final report will be made up of a mixture of essays from this open call and a number of pre-commissioned essays. We have designed a process to feature what we consider the best essays in the main report. The decision on which papers are featured will be decided by an Editorial Panel made up of the Director, the editor of the report and the Communications Manager. The selection process will follow three stages:

1. In the first stage, researchers will be asked to provide abstracts, a short bio and some links to previous work. It will help your application if your previous work is not just limited to academic texts but includes some more accessible journalistic pieces. Abstracts can be based on existing papers or be provisional ideas of what you hope to explore. If you would like to apply for the grant – available to low-income participants – please indicate this at this stage.

2. Those whose abstracts are chosen will be asked to submit an essay. The top four or five essays will be selected for the report by the Editorial Panel.

3. The selected essays will go through a final round of revisions based on feedback by the Editorial Panel, and subject to final copyedit. We hope to feature one essay as an infographic.

4. Essays that do not make the top eight – and are considered good essays by the Editorial Panel - will be available as downloadable PDFs linked from the main report. Remuneration unfortunately won’t be available though for these essays that don’t appear in the main report.

Instructions for submission

Abstracts must be emailed to stateofpower@tni.org by 16 September 2016. Final essays will be due on 4 November 2016.

• Abstracts/essays must address the issue of power from a critical perspective, seeking to provide useful knowledge and analysis for movements engaged in the struggle for social and environmental justice

• Abstracts/essays can be based on reworked versions of existing or previously published essays/papers but must be made accessible to a non-academic audience

• TNI particularly welcomes submissions by young scholars and people based in the Global South.

• Abstracts and essays can be written in English or Spanish.

• Abstracts must be a maximum of 1000 words. They do not need to be of continuous prose but must capture the main arguments of the essay and can be expanded outlines. Bios should be 200 words.

• Essay length: 5000 words. Shorter essays are acceptable, but not longer than 5000 words.

• Style: TNI has five basic criteria for its research and publications that will also be used to assess the abstracts and essays:

  • Credible: Well researched and evidence-based

  • Accessible: Readable by a broad non-specialist audience (in other words please avoid too much academic jargon) and try to use stories, examples

  • Additional: Adds depth, new insights or detail to existing knowledge/research

  • Radical: Tackles the structural roots of critical issues

  • Propositional: Does not just critique, but also where relevant puts forward just alternatives

• Please include an abstract at the top of the paper (maximum 500 words) and add a short bio (150 words)

• Do not include references in brackets within the text. Instead provide a bibliography at end of essay and/or provide endnotes for references, preferably in Chicago style. Please do not overdo it on the endnotes (no more than 40 for each essay)– use it mainly for referring to facts/evidence that may be surprising, questioned or challenged.

• Please send as .doc file or .docx file

• The decision of the Editorial Panel is final. If your abstract or essay is chosen for the book, please be ready to respond to peer reviews and copyediting comments based on the timeline below.

Timeline

June Call for abstracts/papers

16 September Deadline for submission of abstracts

22 September Notification of chosen abstracts for final essays

4 November Submission of essays

11 November Notification of chosen essays and suggested comments for final draft

25 November Final version submitted by author

9 December Copyedits sent to author for final check/revision

19 January Launch