About New Sociology: Journal of Critical Praxis
New Sociology is a peer-reviewed academic social justice journal conceived by non-white, queer, trans, disabled, femme, and woman identified sociology graduate students from York University, which is now run by liberal art graduate students and community orientated alumni of the same. As an open access platform, New Sociology welcomes publications that make critical and embodied theoretical, creative, and empirical contributions to the field of sociology and related disciplines. In alignment with the ethos of social justice, radical love, and creative vision held by local feminist, queer, and trans racialized and Indigenous community organizers, activist-scholars, and artists, New Sociology aims to provide an avenue for emergent scholars and creatives, particularly those marginalized by the oppressive apparatus of academia, to disseminate their knowledge and creativity to a wide and diverse audience. For this reason, we prioritize submissions from non-white authors, as well as authors who identify as trans, queer, femme, and disabled, and practice active care throughout the review process, providing as much mentorship to our contributors as possible.
New Sociology currently prioritizes the publication of “alternative” or creative academic works, such as textual and visual media, short reflection papers, political commentaries, poems, reflective essays, comics, interviews, short stories, photographic or visual essays, social media posts, or other such creative mediums not listed here. We also publish short book reviews on any book of the author's choosing.
For academic article submissions. All research methodologies are welcomed, but we prefer qualitative methods. We also strongly discourage submissions written from the traditional or "conservative" frameworks of the whitestream. To both alleviate the workload of our editors and reduce engagement time for our readers, New Sociology only publishes a few academic articles per issue, if at all, and preserves these spots for non-white graduate students, with top priority going to Black and Indigenous contributors. We encourage the majority of authors/contributors to submit creative or alternative pieces (listed above) and discourage the submission of reflection pieces that resemble "short" academic articles. For more information, please email our founder and EIC at jade.dacosta@sheridancollege.ca, and/or check out our past publications. We also ask that authors not submit their RRPs or excerpts from either their Undergraduate or Master’s thesis for publication.
Submissions to the journal should demonstrate some degree of commitment to interdisciplinarity, including, but not limited to, the following areas:
- Critical Race Theory
- Black Studies and Anti-Racism
- Critical Asian Studies
- Critical Queer and/or Trans Studies
- Critical Muslim Studies
- Critical Health and Disability Studies
- Gender and Feminist Studies (no TERFS/SWERFS)
- Indigenous Studies and Decolonization
- Literary and Cultural Studies
- Migration and Transnationalism
- Coloniality and Postcoloniality
- Critical Pedagogy and Education
- Work and Labour Studies
Our mandate is to advance sociological knowledge production by emergent scholars, scholar-activists, creatives, and community organizers in tandem with the goals and aspirations of social justice and radical love. New Sociology welcomes contributions from graduate students, independent scholars, activists, community organizers, creatives, and artists, as well as post-docs and academic professionals. We also accept submissions from undergraduate students, but advise them to submit creative or alternative pieces only. We prioritize non-white contributors, in addition to trans, queer, femme, and disabled contributors. We will only accept submissions from contributors with a PhD, if: 1) their PhD is in a STEM or another “non” sociological field, and they belong to at least one of the previously specified groups; 2) they have a graduate student(s) or non-PhD as their coauthor; and/or 3) they are a community organizer and/or artist. The journal’s goal is to foster the interdisciplinary intellectual exchange of conceptual frameworks and methodologies as lived praxis, often blurring the lines between “traditional” knowledge by infusing it with art and life, while also providing a platform for under/graduate students, particularly femme, trans, disabled, and queer non-white folx, to be involved in the publishing and review processes.
Graduate students, creatives, activists, and researchers within both so-called "Canada" and abroad are encouraged to submit their work for consideration. All submissions are peer-reviewed to ensure academic integrity and the development of sociological knowledge through ethical research practices.
Creative pieces that are less than 500 words are reviewed by our senior editors through an open round review process (including poems, visual pieces, etc.), while creative pieces that are 500 words plus are reviewed through the same double-blind peer review process that is applied to academic articles. This is done to alleviate the editorial labour of our senior editors and usually only involves one to two rounds of review. All book reviews are openly reviewed by our Editor-in-Chief.