Gender and ethnolinguistic lawfare

Just. Journal of Language Rights and Minorities, Revista de Drets Lingüístics i Minories

Guest editors:

Melissa Wallace & Esther Monzó-Nebot

 

In the wake of rising interest in the role language plays in creating and sustaining social hierarchies, the interrogation of language policies (including regulations, beliefs, and practices; see Spolsky 2004) as they impact women and LGBTQ+ people has focused on those who, as migrants, face new cultures while wielding no political rights as they navigate and experience both social and institutional spaces (Heller 2009; Abji 2016). At the same time, geopolitical trends mark an uptick in violence, exclusion, and inequity which often result in discriminatory lawfare against particular ethnolinguistic communities, broadly writ, and against women and LGBTQ+ people in particular (Vitikainen 2020; Lythgoe 2022). Extreme vulnerability for these communities results from political regimes espousing stances which are anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-queer, anti-minority, and racist. Such lawfare can instantiate itself in the form of discriminatory institutional practices, such as the willful withholding of language access to the vulnerable and the undocumented (Abji 2020; Oliveiro 2021), the advancing of carceral crimmigration agendas (Pakes & Holt 2017; Abji 2020; López-Sala & Barbero 2021), surveillance (Broeders 2007; McDowell and Wonders 2009; Latonero & Kift 2018; Heyman 2022), securitization (Farny 2016; Ghezelbash, Moreno-Lax, Klein & Opeskin 2018; Madoerin 2020; Edmunds 2021), criminalization (Gentile 2014; Olivares 2016; Berti 2021), containment (Ben-Ariyeh & Heins 2021; Piguet 2021), and the externalisation of borders (Carr 2012; Salomon 2017; Ybarra 2019; Aris Escarceno 2022; Yin 2022).

Such practices create increased disadvantages for those who occupy lower steps of the social ladder, particularly women and LGBTQ+ people. Discrimination can also stem from laws which explicitly limit access, rights, and opportunities to women and LGBTQ+ people (Zúñiga-Fajuri 2014; Thomson 2016). It manifests in the current war on gender studies and gender-aware curricula (Goldberg 2021) as well as in increasing proposals to curtail language rights and language planning (Laitin & Reich 2003; Gustafsson, Norström & Åberg 2022); and it includes instances of pervasive resistance to acknowledging the particularly deleterious impact of war, migration, and current immigration policies on women, LGBTQ+ people, and minoritized linguistic communities, including sign language communities. Individuals in these groups are specifically targeted by crimes such as sex trafficking (Cockbain & Sidebottom 2022; Hoff & de Volder 2022), rape (Heartland Alliance International 2014; Reid 2014; Adams 2018; Jaffal 2020), or by the impossibility of accessing safer areas in situations of armed combat (Outright Action International 2014; Hearth 2022). Political reluctance to acknowledge these realities renders (certain) people and abuses invisible while making the dysfunctions of specific political models obvious.

Gendered and ethnolinguistic lawfare privileges monolingualism and heteromasculinity, resulting in systems which are complicit in the creation and sustaining of social spaces in which language and gender have become negative social capital (MADRE et al. 2019; Salazar González 2022). As states continue to fail to meet their obligations to protect minoritized communities as enshrined in international covenants, the rights of people with gender-based identities are sacrificed both within and across borders. How we collectively face our common experience of language barriers (Peled 2020) may hold the key to preserving the fragile international commitment to a new world order that honors the diversity of societies and individuals.

Just. Journal of Language Rights and Minorities, Revista de Drets Lingüístics i Minories is seeking submissions for a special monographic issue dedicated to the confluence of lawfare and gendered ethnolinguistic communities, with particular emphasis on analyses which examine issues of language, the law, and systems and policies that perpetuate or resist oppression to gendered bodies. This collection seeks to explore counter-hegemonic discourses and practices that stand in opposition to policies which exclude, harm, punish, or discriminate against vulnerable gendered ethnolinguistic communities.

Researchers are invited to submit 500- to 700-word abstracts exclusive of references in English, Catalan, or Spanish from a variety of disciplines, including but not limited to legal studies, discourse studies, sociolinguistics, security studies, digital humanities, migration studies, border studies, cultural studies, sociology, gender studies, queer studies, and translation and interpreting studies. We especially encourage articles which examine the following topics, or related topics as seen through other lenses which refract particular vulnerabilities of gendered and linguistically minoritized communities within justice systems and vis-à-vis institutions:

  • State-sponsored sexism and / or violence against gendered, racialized, or linguistically minoritized communities
  • The lawfare of ethnolinguistic discrimination against women and LGBTQ+ people: reaching borders and crossing borders
  • Securitization, criminalization, and crimmigration of migrant women and LGBTQ+ people
  • Lawfare leveraged against gender studies and gender-aware curricula
  • Lawfare targeting women’s reproductive rights and the concomitant effects on particular ethnolinguistic communities
  • Ethnolinguistic enclaves for women and LGBTQ+ people, such as within labor markets, education, and arenas of social engagement
  • Women- and LGBTQ+-led activism in embracing ethnolinguistic diversity
  • Scholars embracing discrimination as their epistemic tradition; framing and allowing the epistemologies of ignorance to continue
  • Lived reality for women and LGBTQ+ people in ethnolinguistic borderlands
  • Justice systems which reinforce social hierarchies and impart injustice upon gender-based and ethnolinguistic communities
  • Invisible crimes against migrant women and LGBTQ+ people
  • Individual and collective harms caused by the social discrimination arising from monolingual bias, including microaggressions against migrant women and LGBTQ+ people based on accentism, audism, and linguicism
  • The relationships between monolingualism and heteronormativity and their impact on people’s perceptions and self-regulated behaviors vis-à-vis language and gender diversity
  • The use of technology to sustain or disrupt gendered and ethnolinguistic communities

Just. Journal of Language Rights & Minorities, Revista de Drets Lingüístics i Minories is a journal dedicated to disseminating scholarship on the protection, enforcement, and promotion of the rights of linguistic minorities as well as related themes arising from the confluence of language, the social dynamics of dominance and oppression, and the law. Interested authors are invited to send 500- to 700-word proposals and inquiries directly to the guest editors: Melissa Wallace (melissa.wallace@utsa.edu) and Esther Monzó-Nebot (monzo@uji.es) by April 1st, 2023. Please include a brief bionote about the authors and their affiliations in a separate file. All abstracts and manuscripts should use the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) for both citation (https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html) and drafting. A summary of the drafting CMS guidelines is available in Just’s author guidelines (https://ojs.uv.es/index.php/JUST/about/submissions). Authors of abstracts that are accepted for consideration will be invited to submit a full manuscript that is between 6000 and 8000 words in length (exclusive of abstract and references but including footnotes). Every manuscript will be submitted to a double-blind peer review that includes at least two referees.

The publication of this special issue will adhere to the following editorial timeline:

Abstracts (500-700 words) due to guest editors

15 April 2023

Decision on abstracts

15 July 2023

Submission of full manuscripts

15 January 2024

Final versions of papers

15 June 2024

Decision to authors

15 July 2024

Publication of special issue

October 2024


References

Abji, Salina. 2016. “‘Because deportation is violence against women’: On the politics of state responsibility and women’s human rights.” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society 23 (4): 483–507. https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxw004.

Abji, Salina. 2020. “Punishing survivors and criminalizing survivorship: A feminist intersectional approach to migrant justice in the crimmigration system. Studies in Social Justice 14: 67–89. https://doi.org/10.26522/ssj.v2020i14.2158.

Adams, Alexandra. 2018. “The legacy of the International criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and their contribution to the crime of rape.” European Journal of International Law 29 (3): 749–769. https://doi.org/10.1093/ejil/chy043.

Aris Escarcena, Juan Pablo. 2022. “Ceuta: The humanitarian and the Fortress EUrope.” Antipode 54 (1): 64–85. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12758.

Ben-Arieh, Galya & Volker M. Heins. 2021. “Criminalisation of kindness: Narratives of legality in the European politics of migration containment.” Third World Quarterly 42 (1): 200–217. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2020.1855074.

Berti, Carlo. 2021. “Right-wing populism and the criminalization of sea-rescue NGOs: The ‘Sea-Watch 3’ case in Italy, and Matteo Salvini’s communication on Facebook.” Media Culture & Society 43 (3): 532–550. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443720957564.

Broeders, Dennis. 2007. “The new digital borders of Europe—EU databases and the surveillance of irregular migrants.” International Sociology 22 (1): 71–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/0268580907070126.

Carr, Matthew. 2012. Fortress Europe: Inside the war against immigration. London: Hurst & Company.

Cockbain, Ella & Aiden Sidebottom. 2022. The war in Ukraine and associated risks of human trafficking and exploitation. Insights from an evidence-gathering roundtable. UCL, Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Economic and Social Research Council. http://www.antislaverycommissioner.co.uk/media/1801/ucl-iasc-2022-roundtable-report-the-war-in-ukraine-human-trafficking-and-exploitation.pdf.

Edmunds, Aneira J. 2021. “Precarious bodies: The securitization of the ‘veiled’ woman in European human rights.” British Journal of Sociology 72 (2): 315–327. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12806.

Farny, Elisabeth. 2016. “Implications of the securitisation of migration.” E-International Relations 29: 1–8.

Ghezelbash, Daniel, Violeta Moreno-Lax, Natalie Klein & Brian Opeskin. 2018. “Securitization of search and rescue at sea: The response to boat migration in the Mediterranean and offshore Australia.” International & Comparative Law Quarterly 67 (2): 315–351. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020589317000562.

Gentile, Paula. 2014. “Interpreting democracy: Interpreters as drivers of democratization.” Demokratia, Demokrati, Democracy, Demokratie VAKKI-symposiumi XXXIV 3: 86–98.

Goldberg, David Theo. May 7, 2021. “The war on critical race theory.” Boston Review. https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-war-on-critical-race-theory/. https://doi.org/10.4324/b23210-37.

Gustafsson, Kristina, Eva Norström & Linnéa Åberg. 2022. “The right to an interpreter - A guarantee of legal certainty and equal access to public services?” In “Language policies for social justice,” edited by Christopher D. Mellinger & Esther Monzó-Nebot. Special issue, Just. Journal of Language Rights & Minorities, Revista de Drets Lingüístics i Minories 1 (1-2): 165-192. https://doi.org/10.7203/Just.1.24781.

Hearth, Katey. 2022. “Deaf Bridge helps Deaf refugees escape Ukraine.” Mission Network News, 2022. https://www.mnnonline.org/news/deaf-bridge-helps-deaf-refugees-escape-ukraine/.

Heller, Pamela. 2009. “Challenges facing LGBT asylum-seekers: The role of social work in correcting oppressive immigration processes.” Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services 21 (2-3): 294–308. https://doi.org/10.1080/10538720902772246.

Heyman, Josiah. 2022. “Who Is watched? Racialization of surveillance technologies and practices in the US-Mexico borderlands.” Information & Culture 57 (2): 123–149. https://doi.org/10.7560/IC57202.

Jaffal, Zeyad. 2020. “Rape as genocide crime in international criminal law—The case of Yazidi women in Iraq.” International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences 15 (2): 230–247. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3841256. https://zenodo.org/record/3841256.

Laitin, David & Rob Reich. 2003. “A liberal democratic approach to language justice.” In Language rights and political theory, edited by Will Kymlicka & Alan Patten, 80–104. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Latonero, Mark & Paula Kift. 2018. “On digital passages and borders: Refugees and the new infrastructure for movement and control.” Social Media + Society 4 (1): 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118764432.

Lythgoe, Gail (Producer). 2022. “Iran protests: A fight for ‘women, life & freedom’?” https://anchor.fm/out-lines/episodes/IRAN-PROTESTS-A-Fight-for-Women--Life--Freedom-e1qtdj4.

López-Sala, Ana & Iker Barbero. 2021. “Solidarity under siege: The crimmigration of activism(s) and protest against border control in Spain.” European Journal of Criminology 18 (5): 678–694. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370819882908.

Madoerin, Anouk. 2020. “‘The view from above’ at Europe’s maritime borders: Racial securitization from visuality to postvisuality.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 23 (5): 698–711. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549419869356.

MADRE, Human Rights and Gender Justice Clinic, Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, and Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. 2019. “Eroded U.S. asylum protections for gender based violence survivors: Published in advance of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s universal periodic review of the United States of America at the UPR Working Group’s 36th session.” https://www.madre.org/press-publications/human-rights-report/eroded-us-asylum-protections-gender-based-violence-survivors.

McDowell, Meghan G. and Wonders, Nancy A. 2009. “Keeping migrants in their place: Technologies of control and racialized public space in Arizona.” Social Justice 36 (2) (116): 54–72.

Olivares, Mariela. 2016. “Intersectionality at the intersection of profiteering and immigration detention.” Nebraska Law Review 94 (4): 963–1027.

Outright Action International. November 19, 2014. Exposing persecution of LGBT individuals in Iraq.www.outrightinternational.org/content/exposing-persecution-lgbt-individuals-iraq.

Pakes, Francis & Katrine Holt. 2017. “Crimmigration and the prison: Comparing trends in prison policy and practice in England & Wales and Norway.” European Journal of Criminology 14 (1): 63–77. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370816636905.

Peled, Yael. 2020. “The idea of language ethics as a field of inquiry.” In Language ethics, edited by Yael Peled & Daniel M. Weinstock, 3–30. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv15d7z03.4.

Piguet, Etienne, ed. 2021. “The ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe: Shortening distances, containment and asymmetry of rights—A tentative interpretation of the 2015–16 events.” Journal of Refugee Studies 34 (2): 1577—1594. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feaa015.

Reid, Graeme. 2014. “The double threat for gay men in Syria.” Washington Post, April 25, 2014.

Salazar González, Carla. (May 13, 2022) “‘It’s unjust what they are doing with us’: Asylum-seeking women living under the guise of a border protection policy and the (un)lawfulness of a US asylum process (disrupted).” Center for the Study of Women. https://csw.ucla.edu/2022/05/13/its-unjust-what-they-are-doing-with-us-asylum-seeking-women-living-under-the-guise-of-a-border-protection-policy-and-the-unlawfulness-of-a-us-asylum-process-disrupted/.

Salamon, Neza Kogovsek. 2017. “Mass migration, crimmigration and defiance. The case of the humanitarian corridor.” Southeastern Europe 41 (3): 251—275. https://doi.org/10.1163/18763332-04103001.

Spolsky, Bernard. 2004. Language policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Thomson, Jennifer. 2016. “Explaining gender equality difference in a devolved system: The case of abortion law in Northern Ireland.” British Politics 11 (3): 371–388. https://doi.org/10.1057/bp.2015.47.

Oliviero, Katie. 2021. “Challenging ‘Americans are dreamers, too’: Undocumented youths’ queer and feminist coalition politics.” Frontiers (Boulder) 42 (2): 49–84. https://doi.org/10.1353/fro.2021.0016.

Vitikainen, Annamari. 2020. “LGBT rights and refugees: A case for prioritizing LGBT status in refugee admissions.” Ethics & Global Politics 13 (1): 64–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/16544951.2020.1735015.

Ybarra, Megan. 2019. “‘We are not ignorant’: Transnational migrants’ experiences of racialized securitization.” Environment and Planning. D: Society & Space 37 (2): 197–215. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775818819006.

Yin, Mark. 2022. “Privatisation and accountability in Australian immigration detention: A case of state-corporate symbiosis.” Punishment & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14624745221135175.

Zúñiga-Fajuri, Alejandra. 2014. “Human rights and the right to abortion in Latin America.” Ciência & Saúde Coletiva19 (3): 841–846. https://doi.org/10.1590/1413-81232014193.11032013.