European Journal of Cultural Studies

European Journal of Cultural Studies is a major international journal that publishes well-theorized empirical research from a wide variety of locations and disciplinary backgrounds in the humanities and the social sciences. Founded in Europe and edited from the Netherlands and the UK, the journal has a broad-ranging view of cultural studies, charting new questions and new research, and mapping the transformation of cultural studies to come. The common denominator for the work published is in engagement with and a critical take on how power relations are (re)produced in everyday practices of meaning making. They might concern gender, class, race and ethnicity, sexuality, sexual preference, disability and other macro or micro sites of political struggle.

The topics covered by European Journal of Cultural Studies cover a wide range. This is a result of our double focus on relations of power and processes of meaning making as the twin sides to how ‘culture’ is produced. Topic areas include (among others): popular cultural forms and practices; music; consumer cultures; media, film and television culture; post-colonial criticism; cultural policy; citizenship, sexualities, youth culture and class relations; intersectional constructions of identity; populism; creative industries.

THE KIND OF PAPERS WE WISH TO PUBLISH

While cultural studies is sometimes understood as a very generic term, we are not interested in publishing studies of culture that focus exclusively on single objects. Partly because such work is done in other disciplinary areas (such as the study of art and literature), more importantly because we feel the study of culture and cultural forms always needs wider contextualization to include how objects, practices or ideas are inserted in relations of power.

We expect authors to move beyond their own interpretation or reading of a cultural text, object or practice, a.o. by including a clear and convincing note on the methodology used in selecting materials (whether texts, interviews, policy documents or other types of data), and on how these materials are analysed. Discourse analysis, visual and narrative analysis, grounded theory and ethnography are among the methods of analysis that can be used. We are interested in how meaning is constructed and in how power relations are produced. Papers concentrating on social and cultural theory are welcome when they e.g. review a new theoretical trend. Typically these would be review articles.