Special issues

Special issue information

JEMS Call for Special Issue proposals 2024

The Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (JEMS) is pleased to announce the 2024 call for Special Issue Proposals. This call is open to Special Issues that bring together high-quality, cutting-edge original research. JEMS is an intentionally “broad church”: we publish on topics relating to all forms of migration, ethnic relations and diversity, and their consequences, from a range of perspectives, disciplines, and covering many regions of the globe. Please explore the JEMS website to gauge our scope and see examples of published Special Issues.

Within the JEMS portfolio we see Special Issues as an opportunity for a group of scholars to advance knowledge in a specific relevant research field. Editorial introductions are expected to be full article length agenda-setters that specify how the contributions advance a field of migration and ethnic relation research. You should flag up your “idea” for how your research advances the state-of-the-art when outlining the rationale for your collection in the proposal. We also request a significant degree of coherence between the contributions, that is helped by cross-referencing, and working towards a common overall aim. Our primary criteria for selecting Special Issues are quality and originality. Proposals on innovative and novel research fields as well as on topics and regions of the world that tend to be under-represented will be favourably received. We welcome proposals by scholars from the Global South.

The JEMS Editorial team solicits high-quality proposals that will be evaluated in a competitive procedure. Proposals, which should be maximum 4000-words long, must adhere the guidelines outlined below. All completed Special Issue proposals should be sent by email to [email protected] by June 30th, 2024.

Guidelines for Special Issue Proposals

The Editorial team will consider the pool of Special Issue proposals received by this deadline and select those they consider to be of the highest quality. Selection will be based on which proposals in their judgement have most potential considering:

• the “idea” for advancing a specific research field that brings a collection together
• the quality of the individual papers
• the proposed Special Issue’s degree of coherence as a collection
• the potential for the proposed Special Issue to deliver on promises to be an original creative contribution that advances knowledge in a field.

We welcome proposals by scholars from the Global South.

Proposals should be a maximum of 4,000 words long in total and include the following:

• Full contact details and a short biography of the Guest Editor(s).
• A proposed title for the Special Issue.
• A rationale for the core “idea” behind the Special Issue. This should address the theoretical and substantive empirical contribution of a Special Issue, the basis for its claim to originality, its relationship to existing literature and how it will advance knowledge, and its importance to the interdisciplinary field of ethnic and migration studies. As a general guideline, the rationale should be set out in about 1,000 words.
• A list of contributors, with institutional affiliations, and a quick note confirming they have committed to the Issue.
• Titles and a couple of lines on each paper.
• Details on the origin of the proposal, e.g., a workshop, conference, research project, research network. Individual contributions will usually have been, or be due to be discussed with a forum, e.g., workshop or conference session.
• The stage of development of the proposed issue, including clear milestones for its completion. In particular please specify proposed deadlines for:

1. Submission of first drafts by individual authors to Guest Editors
2. Submission of revised papers to Guest Editors following one external review per paper
3. Submission of the draft Special Issue to the Editorial team for collective external review by JEMS prior to final decision. Please note we expect formal submission of the draft within two years of acceptance.

Review Procedure for Accepted Special Issues

Once a proposal has been accepted, Guest Editors are responsible for liaising with their authors and the JEMS editorial team throughout the process of paper submission and review. We encourage Guest Editors to ensure that as far as possible, the milestones for submission and re-submission of papers put forward in the original proposal are followed, although we recognise that some delays may be unavoidable. We expect the draft of a Special Issue to be submitted to JEMS [email protected] within two years of acceptance, though circumstances that may require extensions can be discussed with the Editor-in-Chief Prof. Paul Statham ([email protected]), where possible well in advance. After acceptance of a Special Issue, the SI remains exclusive to JEMS until a decision on publication is made.

In the first instance, Guest Editors should contact their authors to ask them to submit their articles. Once they have received an article, the Guest Editors select one external anonymous reviewer for each paper, sending reviewers the Special Issue proposal, a standardised review form that can provided by the JEMS editorial team, and an anonymised version of the paper. Having received the comments from reviewers, Guest Editors should liaise with authors and make recommendations with regard to any revisions to be implemented, including those recommended by the external reviewer. Authors then resubmit their revised version to the Guest Editors with a note documenting the changes that have been made in responses to requested changes. In the meantime, the Guest Editors will write their original article-length agenda-setting introduction. They are welcome to gain feedback from colleagues on this if they wish to, but this is not a requirement, as the introduction is a core focus of the external anonymous review that is commissioned by JEMS. Please note that as a minimum benchmark to ensure coherence across the Special Issue, we require the introduction to cite all contributions, and each contribution to cite the introduction, and where possible other contributions.

Once all revised papers have been received by the Guest Editors, and they are satisfied with the contributions, they should send the entire collection of revised articles, and introduction, as well as the external reviews and author response letters to the JEMS Editorial team at [email protected] in electronic form (Word).

As long as the collection is submitted to the JEMS team no more than two years following acceptance of the proposal (expect with prior agreement), the Editorial team will then send the whole issue out to an external reviewer for a collective review. This will include an assessment of the coherence and integrity of the collection as a Special Issue and a focus on the contribution of the introduction to advancing the field and specifying the contribution of the collection. Our reviewer provides an evaluation to the Editorial team who will then report back to the Guest Editors with a view on the collection. Guest Editors will address any comments arising at this stage, before the Editorial team makes a final decision with regard to publication.