[Air-L] cfp: Conviviality for the Day After “Normal”

[Jeremy Hunsinger]

A SPECIAL ISSUE of *The International Journal of Illich Studies*

Conviviality for the Day After “Normal”

Guest Editors, Jeremy Hunsinger and Gustavo Esteva, join co-editors Dana L.
Stuchul and Madhu Suri Prakash in issuing this CFM. The *International
Journal of Illich Studies* seeks original articles that address the
following call.

The end of an era of “normal”—given a confluence of crises—has arrived. For
many millions, the tragic dismantling of their material and social
conditions exacerbates the yearning for something—“solutions,” “a return to
normal,” “law and order,” “different priorities.” The Covid-19 pandemic
(and the prospect of the next pandemic), the legacies of racism/racist
policies, climate collapse, gender-related inequities, rising
authoritarianism, environmental destruction, epistemic issues, social
isolation and polarization--the interconnections of these issues touch
every living being, threatening the continued existence of all.

Each of these situations developed within specific contexts and the
contexts have themselves become normal. When faced with these problems
within capitalism, then capitalism and its neoliberal markets are assumed
to provide solutions. Akin to providing oxygen keeping a dying beast alive,
such “normality” serves to extend hegemonic control. What’s more, the
counterproductivity of institutions beyond a certain intensification—a
warning offered by Ivan Illich over 50 years ago—is now laid bare. To
address the crises, the time to look beyond the genesis of the problems is
now.

Many seek a return to “normality.” But “normality” was the problem. The
time has come to leave it behind.

It is in the spirit of Ivan Illich that the *International Journal of
Illich Studies* proposes this special issue. We invite papers engaging with
our new/old challenges. The papers should engage with Illich's ideas or
build upon them to contribute to an understanding of the current situation
and to explore alternative paths. We are not specifically seeking
“solutions,” but a deeper understanding of the current collapse. Are we
before the postextual world Ivan tried to resist? How to escape from the
society of control and vigilance in the digital era? We seek ideas and
real, enfleshed examples of how to deal with our current predicament in a
convivial way. How does Illich’s “conviviality” clarify the “normality” to
be avoided and ways of living through today’s crises?

Topics may include but are not limited to issues of:

   - Alternative institutions and modes of living (austerity, the notion of
   sufficiency, the sense of proportion)
   - Climate Crisis (global warming, climate change) or climate collapse.
   - Conviviality - consideration of a modern society of responsibly
   limited tools, including a new politics
   - Industrial mode of production and violence
   - Regeneration of the commons, the new commons
   - Commodification of needs and desires
   - Counterproductivity
   - Environment/ecology
   - Education and schooling or learning in freedom; universities, academic
   cultures
   - De-patriarchalization
   - Experts/expertise/knowledge cultures/disabling
   professions/de-professionalization
   - Identities/intersectionality/intercultural dialogue/radical pluralism
   - Institutions/institutionalization/de-institutionalization
   - Labor, work, shadow work, un-laboring (abolition of work)
   - Networked communication - internet-based issues; “vigilance
   capitalism”/society of control, people’s digitalization
   - Pandemics and sociality
   - Use value and social re-structuring
   - From tools to systems

Authors interested in submitting manuscripts for review should follow the
instructions included here:
https://journals.psu.edu/illichstudies/about/submissions

Additionally, authors are encouraged to register themselves within the
*IJIS*.

Submit manuscripts (for review) by: September 1, 2020

Notification of acceptance/rejection/accept with revisions by: October 15,
2020

Issue publication: December 2020

Questions? Contact Dana Stuchul, dls268 at psu.edu
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to
do it.
-Pablo Picasso