Anti-racist Perspectives on Sustainabilities

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue aims to highlight the building of sustainabilities from anti-racist perspectives as a form of resilience, particularly from Indigenous, Black, transnational immigrant, refugee, and settler communities in Canada and beyond. Although a great number of academic researchers have introduced anti-racism in their work, they have not explained what it means to think of anti-racism as a source of knowledge and understanding for transnational Indigenous, Black, immigrant and refugee communities. How can the responsibilities of anti-racism bring resilience to the communities? Why should immigrant, Black, and refugee communities practice land-based anti-racist learning for building sustainabilities? What does it mean to understand "anti-racist practice" as a system of reciprocal social relations and ethical practices and as a framework for sustainabilities? How can the Western concept of sustainability from and within cross-cultural perspectives be decolonized? This Special Issue will discuss these transdisciplinary questions that have not only challenged our static science and social science mindsets, but have also acknowledged the responsibilities of anti-racism—including building respectful relationships with Indigenous, Black, or immigrant people, respecting Indigenous Treaties, taking actions decolonizing our ways, learning the role of the colonized education processes, protecting our land and environment, creating food security, fulfilling food nutrition, creating an intercultural space for social interactions, and developing transnational solidarity.

Objectives

Authors will use many engagement methods from their everyday participatory research. For example, when we are working with a community, we do narrative research, we tell a story together, and we equally own that story. The scholarship that comes out of this research also looks very different, and its audience is not only restricted to scholars. The outputs have a social impact on the community, and they are defined in collaboration between researchers and community members. The main goal is to promote learning that leads to social action for anti-racist solidarity as a form of community-led sustainabilities. A good outcome for a project, for example, could a change in social policy.

Target Audience

Contributions will be considered from scholars, researchers, community members, and practitioners. The contributions should primarily examine and consider the recommended topics to ensure adequate consideration. Research into these suggested topics continues to emerge, and attention to current socio-cultural and political attention to this research has evolved into the present century, exploreing the legacy of acculturation and assimilation of land cultures. Doctoral dissertation researchers are also encouraged to submit manuscripts proposals aligned with the recommended topics.

Dr. Ranjan Datta
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as conceptual papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• anti-racist theory and practice
• indigenous environmental sustainability
• building anti-racist communities
• decolonization
• indigenous reconciliation
• community-based research
• cross-cultural community empowerment