Lova Journal #47 will be published at the end of 2026. Next to the regular section a special section is scheduled. We invite authors to contribute.
Regular section
In this part we publish research articles, essays, columns, interviews, book reviews, and multimodal material, such as illustrations, photographs, videos, drawings, maps, info-graphics – all of which can be experiential and experimental. In order to foster innovative thinking, inclusive research, and intergenerational solidarity within the academic world, Lova Journal particularly encourages everyone within and outside of academia to submit, including Master and PhD students.
Special Section on Transformations in Feminist Ethnography
What counts as feminist ethnography? How have the COVID-19 pandemic and other worldly events impacted anthropological research? Anthropological fieldwork has always been a delicate subject for anthropologists; it is sometimes described as a “rite of passage” and is still associated with a masculine figure “heroically roughing it in a faraway ‘field’ site in which he must test his own physical limits in a challenging environment” (Guasco 2022, 469). Feminist (Jokinen, Caretta 2016; Faria, Mollett 2016) and disability scholars (Bhakta 2020; Parent 2016) have questioned this perception, and the ethics of “access” and of “going there” more broadly, as they also theorized on the violence that fieldwork often entails. Other scholars have also focused on the training received by fieldworkers, and the response usually provided by universities that blames scholars when issues arise, instead of larger institutional culture (Bijleveld 2023).
With this in mind, for this issue, we invite anthropologists who are engaging with literature related to feminist ethnography, and whose work questions the “default fieldworker” as historically situated, classed, gendered, and racialized. Writers are invited to consider the movement for patchwork ethnography (Günel, Watanabe 2023), and other publications as examples. This movement highlights how “ethnography is a result of less-than-ideal labor conditions;” it is “a call for being honest about how the personal and the professional, the ‘domestic’ and the academic, intersect and inform each other in all knowledge production” (Günel, Watanabe 2023). As well as with the special issue Trial by Fire, edited by Douglas-Jones, Mathur, Trundle, and Vaeau in Commoning Ethnography (2020), which addresses, among other important topics, the issue of access to fieldwork, especially by describing the ease the figure of the heroic fieldworker has to the field, especially if compared with racialized and disabled bodies, the authors propose “techniques of decentering” this figure of the individual researcher. Scholars are also invited to think about the figure of the “antihero” in anthropology (Yates-Doerr 2020), which signals “a refusal of the heroism that still drives some kinds of anthropological writing and analysis,” and considers the blurry lines between fieldwork and care work.
For Lova Journal #47, we are looking for pieces that contribute to the expansion and questioning of what counts as research, and data, and in this way, promotes discussions that can revitalize the future of our discipline, and fieldwork itself.
We invite reflections on – but not limited to – the following:
- What does ethnographic fieldwork entail in a time of digital technologies and digital data collection?
- Fieldwork and international travel. Who can conduct ethnographic research in the current political landscape?
- Challenges in the funding for ethnographic fieldwork and anthropological research.
- Ethnographic fieldwork and disabilities.
- Impossibility of fieldwork.
Submission of contributions
Submissions, both pertaining to our regular section as well as our themed section, will be selected based upon their (ethnographic) quality, originality, and methodological and/or theoretical novelty. Research articles are peer-reviewed by experts in the field. Lova Journal invites authors who wish to publish to submit an abstract of no more than 200 words to journal@lovanetwork.org before 31 March 2026. Please clarify in the submission what kind of format your contribution will be (article (6,000 words), essay (2,000 words), column (500 words), multimodal, etc.) and provide a short author bio of max. 50 words. Once your abstract has been accepted, the deadline for submitting the completed version is 31 May 2026. Final acceptance is subject to peer review.
References
Bhakta, Amita. 2020. “‘Which door should I go through?’ (In) visible intersections of race and disability in the academy.” Area vol. 52(4): 687-694.
Bijleveld, Kiki. 2023. “Blog – Safety in the Field: The Unexpected Critical Shift.” Available from: https://lovanetwork.org/safety-in-the-field-the-unexpected-critical-shift/. Accessed on 26 January 2026.
Faria, Caroline, and Sharlene Mollett. 2016. “Critical feminist reflexivity and the politics of whiteness in the ‘field’.” Gender, Place & Culture 23(1): 79-93.
Guasco, Anna. 2023. “On an ethic of not going there.” The Geographical Journal 188, no. 3, 468-475.
Jokinen, Johanna Carolina, and Martina Angela Caretta. 2016. “When bodies do not fit: an analysis of postgraduate fieldwork.” Gender, Place & Culture 23(12): 1665-1676.
Parent, Laurence. 2016. “The wheeling interview: mobile methods and disability.” Mobilities 11(4): 521-532.
Tao, Han, Hailing Zhao, and Rachel Douglas-Jones. 2023. “‘Opening the Blind Box’: A multimodal account of access to the restricted field China during COVID-19.” Commoning Ethnography, 5(1), 7-37.
Watanabe, Chika, and Gökçe Günel. 2023. “Patchwork Ethnography.” American Ethnologist 51(1): 131-139.
Yates‐Doerr, Emily. 2020. “Antihero care: On fieldwork and anthropology.” Anthropology and Humanism 45(2): 233-244.