Everyone knows deindustrialization as an economic process: the loss of factory jobs as production facilities shift location, and leave behind shuttered buildings and localities having to reinvent themselves or face economic ruin. It is not a new process, but is intrinsic to capitalism’s “spatial fix”, the need to maintain profit in the face of increased competition. But how does deindustrialization feel, what does it sound like, and how does it continue to hold meaning in its absent presence, long after the factory has closed? What are its affective remnants, vibrations, sights, smells, and how do they assert an affectual presence?

This call seeks essays that explore the affective entanglement of haunted spaces of deindustrialization and the lived experiences of social haunting across the globe, and we are particularly interested in work that connects to emergent social, cultural, and political formations and makes visible new contestations, solidarities and collectivities. Believing that a classed, placed and historically situated “politics of affect” is indispensable for any account of contemporary domestic phenomena such as the rise of Trump or the UK Brexit vote, we are keen to develop a theoretical and methodological vocabulary around ‘classed affect’ as an approach to understanding class after de-industrialization. Consequently, we are especially interested in research that identifies affectual registers of deindustrialization in haunted spaces as relevant to class re-composition, shifting political alliances, and the rise of ‘new populisms’ across the globe.

In line with the approach of the journal, the editors seek submissions from across the disciplinary fields, from beyond the academy, and in a variety of forms. We strongly encourage papers that deal with non-western processes of deindustrialization as well as those that consider the ‘gendering’ of classed affect. While there is no period limitation, and papers dealing with the longer history of deindustrialization are welcome, we will give preference to work on the contemporary scene.

Keywords: class, affect, social haunting, deindustrialization

Submission: please submit an abstract of no more than 500 words and a brief CV to [email protected] by February 1, 2019.

Full papers of accepted abstracts will be due by April 1, 2019.