Call for Papers 



Ethnoscapes: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Race and Ethnicity in the Global Context



Issue One, Fall 2007

“Race and Coalition” 





The editorial staff of the new peer-reviewed journal Ethnoscapes: An Interdisciplinary Journal on 

Race and Ethnicity in the Global Context invites submissions for its inaugural issue on the subject 

of “Race and Coalition.” Ethnoscapes maps the development of important themes in the field of 

race and ethnic studies by using a “classic” piece as a point of departure for a reconsideration of 

critical issues within the contemporary economic, political, and cultural terrain. 



While the classic piece establishes the thematic parameters of each issue, authors are under no 

obligation to actively engage the arguments posed by that work. 



Issue one explores the subject of “Race and Coalition” with consideration of Stokely Carmichael 

(Kwame Ture) and Charles V. Hamilton’s “The Myths of Coalition” from the 1967 text Black Power: 

The Politics of Liberation.  In this seminal essay, the authors question the viability of coalitions 

that do not seek radical changes in racial hierarchy, include partners with disparate amounts of 

economic and political power, and rely on sentimentality and goodwill to build and maintain 

cohesiveness.



The authors argue instead that viable and productive coalitions must do the following:



1) 	recognize the self-interests of the groups involved in the relationship;

2) 	have the capacity for realizing the self-interests of each group;

3) 	articulate their own “independent base of power”;

4) 	have specific goals. 



Proceeding from this articulation of coalition politics, Ethnoscapes seeks manuscripts that 

investigate the dynamics of “Race and Coalition” with particular attention to one or more of the 

following themes:



A)	Theoretical Foundations of Coalition. If organizing is no longer forged on the basis of shared 

identity or “unity,” what serves as the “foundation” for political mobilization? What new forms of 

coalition, alliance, or issue-based organizing have emerged in the current political, economic, and 

cultural context? Can these convergences operate only temporarily or can they be more sustained? 

How can/must/do coalitions negotiate differences along the lines of gender, sexuality, nationality, 

religion, and class in articulating a shared platform? What productive alliances have been or can be 

forged between different marginalized groups? What makes these coalitions cohere? How do these 

projects (re)shape experiences of race and ethnicity?



B)	The Multicultural Terrain of Organizing in the United States. With the rise of Asian/Pacific 

American and Latino/a social movements, how is the concept of “coalition” being rearticulated 

today? Does the “people of color” construct, expressing the common bonds of non-white groups, 

still make sense? What new challenges to coalition-building emerge in the context of the variable 

power relations of nations, economic operations, and discourse that characterize the 

contemporary multiracial terrain of US organizing? What strategies can be mobilized to negotiate 

these differences? What roles are available to whites in multiracial coalitions and in coalitions for 

racial justice? 



C) The Global Context. What challenges and possibilities do new communications and other 

technologies linking people across the globe offer for multiracial coalitions? How do the ties of 

nation, state, and culture complicate efforts to organize pan-ethnically? How can models of 

organizing around race throughout the world, or on behalf of racially identified groups and 

concerns, usefully inform organizing strategies in the US context, or vice versa? What is at stake 

and where are we headed?  



The deadline for manuscript submission is February 16, 2007. Please send submissions to 

[log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask]  See http://

www.kirwaninstitute.org/ethnoscapes/styleguide.html to prepare your document in accordance 

with the style guidelines of Ethnoscapes. 



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