Demeter Press
is seeking submission for an edited collection entitled
Intimate Care: Doulas and the Birthing Body (working title)
Co-Editors: Angela Castañeda and Julie Searcy
DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS: March 1, 2014
Publication Date: 2015
The goal of this edited volume is to add to the literature on birth and mothering through the perspective of doulas. Our research seeks to focus on the body and the multiple ways it is materialized through intimate practices. By focusing on bodies and the knowledge they produce, we seek to illustrate the varied power dynamics surrounding doula work. We define doula work broadly to include birth, postpartum and full spectrum doulas. We want to highlight the voices of doulas and those they work with (care providers, mothers, partners) through creative stories, essays and critical scholarly work. We welcome a cross-cultural approach, which includes both stories and scholarly research that raises critical questions about the social and cultural meanings of attending to women and their partners during the transition to motherhood.
Topics may include (but are not limited to):
Intimate labor and care, mothering the mother, birth teams, the partner and the doula, mother's experiences with doulas, doulas in an institutional setting, hospital-based doula programs, volunteer doula programs, community based doulas, doula training and certification, doulas and commodified intimacy, doulas and professionalization, doulas and spirituality and ritual, doulas and care providers (nurses, doctors, and midwives), the politics of doulas as agents of social change, radical doulas, birth activism and doulas, embodied care and doulas, doulas and the birthing body, perceptions of natural childbirth and homebirth, full spectrum-doulas, doulas and reproductive justice, birth doulas of color, prison doulas, doula identities (race, class, ethnicity), doulas and social media, doulas and birth stories, doula collectives.
Submission Guidelines:
Abstracts: 300 words
Please include a 50-word biography (including citizenship information)
Deadline for Abstracts is March 1, 2014
Please send submissions and inquiries directly to: Angela Castañeda (acastaneda@depauw.edu)
Successful submissions of 3000 to 5000 words are due by September 1, 2014. Contributors are responsible for ensuring that their chapters conform to the Chicago Manual of style. Acceptance is contingent and will depend upon the strength and fit of the final piece.
Disclosure: I am getting a complementary membership to MIRCI and subscription to the journal in return for posting these updates. It is, however, something I would have agreed to do for free because I think their work is so wonderful.