[ATTW-L] #CFP: Edited Collection on Positionality in Writing Studies

[Erica Stone]

Submit your chapter proposal for our new edited collection on positionality
 in writing studies!

SUMMARY
We are seeking proposals for chapters about your experience with
positionality in research, work, and/or teaching. Chapters should be
2,000-3,000 words long, written in a first-person narrative style, and
based on lived experience. We are developing this collection in preparation
for the WAC Clearinghouse Practices & Possibilities book series, with an
audience of graduate students in mind. The collection will be an
accessible, real take on how we deal with positionality in our
work—including both mess and success.

Submit your proposal (up to 500 words, not including citations) to the
following email: positionality.stories at gmail.com.

WORKING TITLE

Storied Practices: Positionality in Writing Studies

EDITORS

Kristine Acosta, Michelle Cowan, Rebecca Rickly, Sierra Sinor, Nancy Small,
Erica M. Stone


LINK TO FULL CFP

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NfLdEmx8diFnVIEC9KjXpcwXXv5qgjtJ00P4U8-8htE/edit?usp=sharing

MOTIVATION AND RATIONALE
Graduate programs in Writing Studies and in Communication Studies value
research: almost every program requires at least one course on methods and
methodologies for knowledge making. Research capabilities empower us.
However, if we aren’t careful, research can  dehumanize and colonize
(Agboka, 2014; Tuhiwai Smith, 2012; Walton, 2016). At all stages of the
process, one aspect of better ethical practice is asking ourselves to
address positionality, the embodied and contextualized forms influencing
(and possibly biasing) what we hear/see/do when conducting, analyzing, and
publishing our projects (Rowe, 2014). Despite growing awareness of these
risks and opportunities, however, positionality-as-a-practice is less
directly discussed in our graduate programs, let alone in the research
publications themselves.

We want to continue shifting the research paradigm toward engaging
positionality-as-practice. Although writing and communication fields have
been attending to critical consideration of these issues (e.g., Lockett,
Ruiz, Sanchez, & Carter, 2021), analysis tends to revisit the work of
others rather than inviting authors to speak to their own projects. As a
result, teachers and learners lack insider-narrated models for how
positionality operates in research. We need what Kirsch and Ritchie (2008)
call a "rigorously reflexive examination of ourselves" (p. 143). To best
address that gap, we turn to story as a reflective vehicle for this
collection. Storytelling creates spaces outside the strict procedural lines
of production and allows us to reveal our situated ponderings as
individuals engaged in complicated activities. Contemporary scholarship
continues to amplify the value of storywork as experts elucidate theories
and practices for it as a methodology (see, for example, Archibald,
Lee-Morgan, & De Santolo, 2019; Martinez, 2020; Wilson, 2008; Windchief &
San Pedro, 2019). For this edited collection, we invite you to join in
shifting the paradigm and to share your story as a means of relating and
reflecting over your positionality in research-related roles and
experiences.

PROJECT VISION AND GOALS

We envision this book as a conversation surrounding positionality and the
lived experiences of researchers and their participants. Using narrative as
a vehicle, we hope to promote stories that do not shy away from the
complexities of research. We want to know how others interrogate themselves
while completing research and the impacts this has on both product and
person. It is our goal for future readers of this book to be able to refer
to authentic examples of what the research process looks like and what the
connection to the researcher looks like within that process. We welcome
stories that discuss different kinds of positioning, failure, and how
people find themselves in relation to their work. Reflection on past
experiences and examples of using positionality in research will be
especially important within this collection. While the proposal has been
accepted by WAC Clearinghouse, publication will be contingent upon external
reviewer feedback. Accepted authors will be expected to revise according to
reviewer comments.


CHAPTER CONTENT

We are seeking proposals for chapters written in a first-person narrative
and/or reflexive style, planned to be 2,000-3,000 words long. The focus
should be on lived experience and positionalities rather than on literature
reviews and/or theory-building. The following topics and questions are
offered to indicate the kinds of storied practices we hope to cultivate.


Their Stories/Our Stories:

   -

   When conducting research focused on other people’s stories, how do we
   (as researchers, participants, community members) successfully interweave
   or make space for our own stories?
   -

   What are the ethical, political, professional, and personal implications
   of the decision to bring ourselves into conversation with the ostensible
   topics and/or communities of the research project?


Tensions of Objectivity:

   -

   If all research (regardless of method/ology) is a story in which we are
   participants, what happens when researchers are trained to distance
   ourselves from the story and take a “disembodied view from nowhere” (Bordo,
   1993)?
   -

   What do we, as researchers, do with the tension between the desire for
   objectivity and the need for our embodied presence?


Teaching Positionality:

   -

   How do we teach positionality?
   -

   How do issues of positionality show up in publication, dissertation,
   conferences, and other academic sharing/gathering spaces?


Troubling Positionality:

   -

   How might we extend, question, and otherwise trouble positionality as a
   central concept?
   -

   How do we go beyond surface-level acknowledgements of positionality,
   privilege, and power (Walton, Moore, & Jones, 2016; García & Kirsch, 2022)?


Positionality as Action:

   -

   How do we put positionality theory into practice?
   -

   Can we break down existing infrastructures and subvert the status quo in
   ways that honor the value of diverse research approaches?


SOLICITATION AND REVIEW PROCESSES

We encourage contributions from diverse authors, including
multiply-marginalized scholars, graduate students, contingent faculty,
community organizers, and scholars who have chosen to leave academia for
industry. Our process engages anti-racist reviewing practices as
recommended by Cagle, et. al. (2021) and in the 2022 special issue of Writers:
Craft & Context.
<https://journals.shareok.org/writersccjournal/issue/view/4/12>

TIMELINE

   -

   October 2, 2023: Proposal deadline
   -

   November 6, 2023: Responses sent to all proposers
   -

   March 15, 2024: Completed chapters due
   -

   May 6, 2024: Preliminary review complete, chapters returned for revision
   -

   July 8, 2024: Revised chapters due, manuscript proofread and compiled
   -

   September 2, 2024: Final manuscript submitted to WAC for external review


SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FOR CHAPTERS

Please submit your proposal (up to 500 words, not including citations) to
the following email: positionality.stories at gmail.com.

Include the following information:

   -

   Name and contact email
   -

   Title of the proposed piece
   -

   A summary of the chapter’s proposed content (up to 500 words)
   -

   Specific answers to these two questions: 1) What led you to suggest this
   chapter for consideration? 2) How does your own positionality play into
   your choice to propose this chapter?


Feel free to contact positionality.stories at gmail.com with any questions.
*—*
*Erica M. Stone, PhD*
*Email: *erica.m.stone at gmail.com
*Cell: *205-567-9847
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