Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

Affinities is a web-based journal that focuses on groups, movements, and communities that set out to construct sustainable alternatives to the racist, hetero-sexist, system of liberal-capitalist nation-states. We are interested in questions such as: What kind of experiments are out there, beyond the state and corporate forms? How are they working, what obstacles are they encountering? What are people doing to emulate their successes and avoid their failures? How do these experiments relate to various histories of radical struggle? How do we build lasting culture(s) of resistance and (re-)construction?

There is much work to be done to adequately understand the new forms that radical politics are taking today. What are the common paths shared by groups, movements, communities, and peoples that seek to construct sustainable alternatives to the existing order? What are the inequalities, prejudices, and forms of oppression (race, gender, sexuality, class, ability) that divide these formations, both internally and from each other? For it is only through changes in practice that can result from such a discussion that we can work out ways in which solidarity across these divisions can be strengthened.

Affinities will publish work that comes from perspectives including, but not limited to, anarchism, anti-racism, autonomist marxism, disability studies, ecology, feminism, indigenous politics, poststructuralism, postcolonial studies, and queer theory. We do not seek to synthesize or prioritize any of these traditions; rather, we are interested in the ways in which they intersect, in how they can inform and critique one another while retaining their own particular approaches and questions.

Two Editorial Streams

One of the goals of Affinities is to acknowledge and strengthen the links that exist between academic, activist, and artistic communities, and to aid in the creation of new links wherever possible. We are therefore committed to publishing both academic and activist writing, as well as other forms of radical cultural production.

The journal maintains an editorial board that includes activists, journalists, artists, and university-based researchers. Contributors who want to have their submissions peer-reviewed will have this option, while those who do not want or need this process need not go through it. We are, of course, also interested in work that would be difficult to classify as belonging solely in either of these streams.

Each issue of Affinities will be oriented to a particular theme that is in keeping with the larger mandate of the journal. In order to ensure a minimum of coherence for each issue, please ensure that your article engages the specific theme of particular issue you are submitting for. While Affinities is committed to promoting excellent writing, please do your best to avoid over-citation, obfuscation, and academic jargon. The goal of the journal, both in its composition and its imagined audience, is to be both broad and inclusive.

 

Section Policies

Articles

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Peer Reviewed Articles

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Editorials/Introductions

Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed
 

Peer Review Process

Articles submitted to the peer-reviewed stream of the journal will be evaluated (double blind) by two scholars working in the appropriate field(s), using the following criteria:

1. Since each issue of the journal is dedicated to a particular theme, we ask the reviewers to tell us whether the article engages successfully with at least some of the questions or issues outlined in the Call For Papers for the issue in question.

2. We ask for comments on the appropriateness and internal consistency of the theoretical and methodological framing of the article.

3. We ask whether the article makes a significant contribution to current political/theoretical debates.

4. Authors and reviewers should be aware that our publishing criteria are guided by principles of anti-oppression, in terms of both form and content of expression.

5. The editors of the journal may request comments on specific aspects of the piece that are relevant to a particular issue.

We encourage our reviewers to offer kind, supportive, and non-disciplinarian assessments of people’s work. While the review ought to be rigorous, at the same time its purpose is to genuinely help the writer improve his or her work.

We ask our reviewers to respond to us within 8-10 weeks, and will strive to add no more than 4-6 weeks of overhead to do our own work. This means that in most cases, we will have a reply to submissions within 12-16 weeks.

 

Publication Frequency

Issues of Affinities will always be thematically driven, and will appear irregularly.

 

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

 

Editorial Board Members

Alston, Ashanti (Estaccion Libre APOC)
Angus, Ian (Simon Fraser University)
Balagoon, Kazembe (Estaccion Libre APOC)
Brophy, Enda (Queen's University)
Cohn, Jesse (Purdue University)
Coulthard, Glen (Yellowknives Dene / University of Victoria)
Day, Richard (Queen's University)
de Peuter, Greig (Simon Fraser University)
Delhi, Kari (OISE)
Graeber, David (Yale)
Grindon, Gavin (University of Manchester)
Grubacic, Andrej (SUNY Binghamton)
Haberle, Sean (Queen's University)
Hearn, Matt (Crank Magazine/Purple Thistle)
Heckert, Jamie (Anarchist Studies Network)
Hewitt-White, Caitlan (Guelph University)
Khorasanee, Dina (MTD Solano--Argentina)
Lakoff, Aaron (Solidarity Across Borders)
Mark, Lance (Georgetown University)
May, Todd (Clemson University)
Mookerjea, Sourayan (University of Alberta)
O'Connor, Alan (Trent University Cultural Studies)
Paris, Jeffrey (University of San Francisco)
Srivastava, Sarita (Queen's University)
Sieradski, Dan (Orthodox Anarchist)
Szeman, Imre (McMaster University)



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