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CALL FOR PAPERS - Pandemic Social Work: Practice, education and activism in
the time of COVID

Poster · October 2020

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2 authors:

Teresa Macias Sobia Shaheen Shaikh

York University Memorial University of Newfoundland
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 Intersectionalities: A Global Journal of Social Work Analysis,
Research, Polity, and Practice

Call for Papers
Pandemic Social Work:
Practice, education and activism in the time of COVID

Special Issue Editors:

• Teresa Macias, School of Social Work, York University, tmacias@yorku.ca

• Sobia Shaikh, School of Social Work, Memorial University, sshaikh@mun.ca

Intersectionalities invites multidisciplinary contributions to a special issue reflecting on,
and analyzing the effects of, the COVID global pandemic on social work practice, education,
activism, community organizing and social and economic policy. As the numbers of
confirmed cases surpasses 43 million people, with over a million deaths worldwide, the
urgency of responding to the COVID global pandemic is palpable. As social work
practitioners, educators and scholars, we are compelled to come to terms with the impact of
this historical moment, the indelible effects it is having, not only in our personal and
professional lives, but also in the social, economic and political systems within which we live,
play and work. Massive unemployment, economic crisis, the re-structuring of work and
school, and the reconfiguring of social, familiar and intimate relationships suggest that
COVID is not simply a health crisis, but that it has far-reaching potentialities of
transformation of social relations and systems, that until recently seemed to be immutable.
Furthermore, the pandemic has coincided with an upsurge of white supremacy and
neoconservatism, evidenced in acts of racial violence and white hate leading to the state-
sanctioned death of Black and Indigenous peoples. The pandemic has simultaneously seen
increased levels of anticolonial and anti-racist activisms, which are being articulated in new
and creative ways. Social work is at a critical moment in which we must consider the impacts
of the COVID pandemic on political activism, anti-racism work, and the very terrain in which
pandemic social work takes place.

We welcome submissions, emerging not only from social work research and scholarship,
but also from related disciplines that contribute to Canadian and global social work
knowledge. We invite contributions from scholars, educators and practitioners in social
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work and related fields. Finally, we invite contributions from graduate and undergraduate
students to be included in a “Student-Voices” section of the issue (see instructions for student
submission below).

Possible themes might include:

• Impacts of COVID on interlocking relations of power: How is the COVID pandemic
impacting on groups of people historically subalternized, marginalized, colonized
and/or oppressed by relations of racism, sexism, classism, ableism, colonization,
heteronormativity, etc.? How has the COVID pandemic aggravated or alleviated
existing social inequalities? What is the relationship between the effects of the
pandemic and globalization and transnational power relations?
• COVID and social and economic policies: How have state institutions worldwide
responded to the COVID pandemic? What are social policy responses that have
emerged as a result of the pandemic? What are the social and economic impact of
COVID? How has the welfare state been impacted by the pandemic? Is the pandemic
leading to a fundamental transformation of the welfare state, or are changes simply
partial or superficial? How has the pandemic impacted on neoliberal state agendas
and their emphasis on austerity?
• The biopolitical effects of the pandemic: How is the COVID pandemic reorganizing
and reshaping body politics? How is the pandemic redefining, calculating and
reorganizing bodies and populations? How is the pandemic and state/community
responses (re)defining valuable and expendable lives?
• COVID and the politics of care: How is social work practice being reshaped due to
COVID (work from home, virtual social work, case management, counselling, etc.)?
How has COVID affected critical, anti-oppressive, decolonial and emancipatory
practice approaches? How is the pandemic impacting on work with older adults,
children, women, homeless populations, immigrants and refugees, remote
communities, etc.? What has the pandemic taught us about the limits and possibilities
of the future of social work practice?
• The effects of COVID on teaching and learning (distance, virtual, and un-
synchronous education): How is the pandemic impacting in the teaching and learning
of critical social work, Indigenous pedagogies, anti-racism, and other forms of social
justice pedagogies? Has the pandemic led to the emergence, or required the
articulation, of new pedagogies? What is the impact of COVID on field education? How
has COVID made us rethink practicum and its role in the formation of students?
• The impact of COVID on research and academic work: How is the pandemic
impacting and transforming research work, scholarly production, and working
relations and condition in universities and colleges? How has the pandemic impacted
and reshaped research activities? How has the pandemic impacted on the capacity to
conduct ethical research?
• COVID, work and labour: How is the pandemic impacting and reshaping work-home
separations? How has it redefined work and its value through, for instance, the
redefinition of essential labour for social work practitioners and educators?
 3

• COVID, activism and social organizing: How is the COVID pandemic impacting,
reorganizing and reshaping activism, protest, resistance movements, etc.? What are
the impacts of new/old activist configurations on social practice, education and
analysis?


Submission process and deadlines:

1. Submit a 200-word abstract by November 20, 2020: Abstracts need to be submitted
by email to the Special Issue Editors (tmacias@yorku.ca and sshaikh@mun.ca).
a. In addition to the abstract, please indicate the stage in which the research or
paper is at the time of submission, and whether the research/theorizing on
which the paper is based has been completed or is in progress.
b. Indicate if the paper is being submitted to the “Student Voices” section of the
special issue.
2. Once abstracts have been reviewed, the Special Issue Editors will invite authors to
submit complete manuscripts.
a. Deadline for the submission of complete manuscripts is February 28, 2021.
b. Manuscripts submitted by scholars and practitioners should be between
4000 and 7000 words
c. Manuscripts submitted by students should be between 2000 and 4000
words.
d. An abstract (maximum 200 words) and keywords (maximum 5) must be
included at the beginning of all manuscripts.
e. All manuscripts must follow the Journal’s guidelines for submissions
(https://journals.library.mun.ca/ojs/index.php/IJ/about/submissions#onlin
eSubmissions).
3. After being reviewed by the Special Issue Editors, manuscripts are subjected to
anonymous peer-review.
4. All completed manuscripts should be submitted online at
http://journals.library.mun.ca/ojs/index.php/IJ/about/submissions#onlineSubmis
sions

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