Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work Journal
Call for submissions with a special focus on affirming and inclusive perspectives on sex, gender, and sexuality in social work.
In the past few decades, the world has seen increased recognition and acceptance of diverse identities and expressions of sex, gender, and sexuality. However in more recent years people’s sex, gender, and sexuality have been increasingly policed, politicised, and weaponised at the micro, meso, and macro levels. In particular, people who are seen to transgress gendered and sexed norms are being targeted and weaponised, often as a vehicle for right-wing authoritarian agendas and regimes.
In this special focus, we welcome critical articles (empirical or theoretical), viewpoints, research briefs, and book reviews exploring aspects of sex, gender, and sexuality in social work. The focus can be contemporary, historical, or include both. We especially welcome submissions that are authored by and/or centre and affirm knowledges and practice from our transgender, nonbinary, asexual and intersex communities. We are keen to hear from scholars who centre Indigenous understandings of gender, sex, and sexuality, such as Takatāpui, MVPFAFF, Sistergirls and Brotherboys.
Submissions will be considered in these formats:
- Full articles, 7000 words
- Research briefs, 3500 words
- Viewpoints, 2000 words
- Practice notes, 3000 words
Follow this link to find out more about submission formats.
Full articles and research reports will be anonymously reviewed by two readers from a panel of reviewers. Shorter pieces will be reviewed by an editor and one reviewer. Reviewers are asked to offer constructive feedback to authors.
Please submit your article for review by 30th November 2025.
Please submit your article as per the guidelines linked to above but contact the special focus editors to let them know it connects to the special focus. You can also contact the special focus editors with any questions about the relevance of a paper to the focus, balancing positionality, disclosure, and safety, or to submit an abstract in advance of your paper.
Contact: eileen.joy@auckland.ac.nz or justin.canty@utas.edu.au
The Normative Turn in Sociology: Opening the Black Box
Sociology’s special issue hopes to lay the groundwork for a sociology of normativity; that is, a form of sociology (be it “critical” or otherwise) which is expressly normative. Editors are looking for contributions, theoretical and/or empirical, that engage with the question of normativity in sociology
Submissions due: January 22, 2026
More information can be found here
Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion – Call for Papers
The 18th volume of the Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion is currently calling for manuscript contributions. The aim of this volume is to engage scholars in an exercise of sociological imagination. What forms might religion assume by the year 2050? How might society itself be reconfigured? Can we envisage the faces of religion in society that will be quite different from what we know today? And crucially, is sociology able to grasp the key processes currently underway that may shape tomorrow’s religious-social landscape?
Submissions due: September 30, 2025
Rethinking Tomorrow: Emerging Research for Social Change
We live in a time of precarity, uncertainty and unrest: the climate emergency is escalating, far-right ideologies are mainstream, political and social systems and society is becoming increasingly post-digital and artificially intelligent. How are we – as researchers, professionals, advocates, activists – responding to the challenges of our time? What innovations could enable a more equitable and sustainable society for younger generations? How might we imagine, foster, and enable social changes that are lasting, resilient, and sustainable? How might we share and collaborate to build what Pierre A. Lévy calls our collective intelligence, that is our capacity as human communities, to cooperate in creation, innovation, invention and we should add, interventions? And importantly, how might we communicate our creation, innovation, invention and interventions? Rethinking tomorrow: Emerging research for social change provides a platform to tackle these questions and have robust discussions.
Conference registration:
- The cost of attending in-person is $170. This includes registration for the event as well as food and refreshments throughout both days. Please note: the conference dinner (held Monday Dec 1st) is yet to be confirmed and will be an additional charge.
- Online attendees can register for $50 (inclusive of both days)
When: December 1–2, 2025
Where: Auckland University of Technology (AUT) and Online
More information and registration here
21st Annual International Conference on Urban Health
Join the 21st Annual International Conference on Urban Health (ICUH 2025), hosted by the International Society for Urban Health. This year’s conference is hosted by Pōneke/Wellington!
ICUH 2025 sets the stage for a transformative dialogue on the future of urban health. Thought leaders, researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and innovators are invited to share insights and solutions that address the pressing challenges of urbanisation, climate change, and health inequities.
ICUH 2025 will focus on diverse perspectives from across the Asia-Pacific region while also fostering a global exchange of ideas.
Explore how to build healthier, more resilient cities that prioritise sustainability and wellbeing for all.
When: November 17–21, 2025
Where: Pōneke/Wellington
More information and registration here
Adaption Futures Conference 2025
The 8th international Adaptation Futures Conference (AF2025) will be held in Ōtautahi/Christchurch, New Zealand. It is hosted by the University of Canterbury | Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha with regional Oceania and international partners.
Adaptation Futures is the flagship event of the World Adaptation Science Programme (WASP). This premier international climate change adaptation conference series enables practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and academics from across the world to gather to network, collaborate, learn, and inspire!
More than 1,300 international climate scientists, researchers, community leaders, and representatives from industry and business will join, either online or in person.
A key focus will be on challenges and solutions for Indigenous peoples and Pacific Island communities.
When: October 13–16, 2025.
Where: University of Canterbury and Online
More information and registration here.
Caring Economies Symposium
Hosted by Massey University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences, this one-day symposium brings together researchers, community groups, advocates, and policy makers to collectively explore what it could mean to live in a caring economy, and to recentre care as a foundation for our economic and social futures. Guided by a keynote from Emeritus Professor Joan Tronto, and enriched by workshops and panel discussions, the event will provide space to share ideas, build connections, and develop new avenues for research and engagement. The agenda is available here.
Highlights of the day include:
- Pōwhiri at Te Rau Karamu Marae
- Keynote: Thinking with Care by Professor Joan Tronto, with responses by Dr Joni Angeli-Gordon and Ellie Tapsell.
- Workshops on researching care economies and communicating care research and activism featuring Wellbeing Economy Alliance communications lead Georgia Craw, visual methodologies researchers Deanna Haami and Swarnima Kriti, and public commentator Dr Rebekah Graham.
- Panel discussions featuring researchers and community leaders, led by Professor Kelly Dombroski, Dr Aisling Gallagher and Professor Katharine McKinnon.
- Opportunities to connect and collaborate on future initiatives
Cost: Keynote webinar only $10, in person all day including morning tea and lunch $25. Please get in touch with the organisers if this cost is an issue for you or your organisation.
When: Friday, 17 October 2025, 9:00 AM – 4:15 PM
Where: Te Rau Karamu Marae, 5 Hayward Terrace, Wellington
More information and registration here
Science Media SAVVY
The Science Media Centre’s flagship media training workshop is open for applicants looking to increase their confidence and skills to engage more effectively with the wider public through broadcast, print and social media.
The Science Media Centre creates a unique experience for each workshop by drawing on its relationships with the media. Day one covers key communication skills and interview preparation. Day two offers a behind-the-scenes opportunity for participants to meet and interact with experienced reporters who cover science and research.
These workshops are ideally suited for researchers with previous media experience seeking further development of their skills, as well as beginners anticipating media interest in their work.
Upcoming workshops:
Auckland – 6-7 November (Applications close September 28th)
Wellington – 4-5 December (Applications close October 28th)
Find more information and registration here.
Social Moments: A Student Journal of Social Relations – Call for Papers
Social Moments is a free, online, peer-reviewed student journal examining society and culture through a social science lens. Disciplines include sociology, criminology, gender and sexuality studies, political science, social psychology, anthropology, and cultural/social geography.
The journal publishes research articles (approx. 5,000 words), book reviews (up to 3,000 words), and perspective pieces critiquing key concepts or ideas in the field. Graduate students are prioritised, though undergraduate contributions are also welcome.
Submissions (Rolling – no deadlines)
- Who can submit? Undergraduate and graduate students in the social sciences.
- Requirements: Submissions must be original, polished, and not under review or published elsewhere.
- Format: Word document only; approx. 5,000 words (max). Use APA referencing, Times New Roman 12pt, double-spaced, 1” margins. Include:
- Page 1: Title page with author details
- Page 2: 50–75 word author bio
- Page 3: Abstract (≤150 words)
- Review process: Blind peer review with a decision of Accept / Revise & Resubmit / Reject (usually within 3 months).
Want to Review?
Faculty and advanced graduate students are invited to serve as reviewers. Reviews are blind and expected within 30 days.
🔗 More information can be found here.
📧: For more inquiries, you can contact them at Social.Moments.Student.Journal@gmail.com
Decentring migration scholars, centring paradoxes: Autoethnography as resistance
Studies aimed at ‘decolonising’ or decentering the academy have been growing rapidly and attention has been increasingly paid to the role of scholars. However, migration scholars have been relatively reluctant to place their positionality as migrants (and often as native intellectuals) under the microscope. To decenter migration studies, migration scholars must first decenter themselves.
Dr. Sylvia Ang notes: “this session argues that autoethnographies that celebrate paradoxes is a method that could disrupt colonial paradigms of binaries. I approach this argument through using autoethnography to decentre myself as first, a ‘migrant’ through thinking about diaspora and hybridity, and second, as a ‘scholar’ through thinking of myself as part of the white academy. I introduce the framework of paradoxical integration to suggest it can help us to reject colonial binaries: opposites (such as “colonizer” and “native”) need not be in tension, but can interact to form a state of wholeness. Drawing also from this framework, I conclude that autoethnography, with its ‘softness’ – affect, emotions and stories – can be a strategy to overcome ‘hardness’ or the violence of colonisation.”
When: 1.30 pm (NZST) on 25th September 2025
Where: Online
🔗 Registration and more information here.
Call for Papers: Pre-Internet Military Networks
Guest-edited by Dr Noel Packard & Dr Bradley Simpson
The American Behavioral Scientist (ABS) is seeking contributions for a special issue: “Survey of a Cluster of Pre-Internet Networks.” This issue will explore how Cold War-era military communication systems prefigured today’s globally networked digital systems—built for counterinsurgency, political control, and surveillance during the 1960s–70s.
These early infrastructures, often overlooked yet pivotal, laid the groundwork for many of the tools and ideologies shaping the digital age. The editors invite scholars from sociology, history, media studies, political science, and related fields to contribute historical and theoretical insights that connect past surveillance systems to today’s digital power structures.
Areas of focus include:
- Communication technologies and hardware used in these networks
- Public visibility (or invisibility) of these systems
- Institutional design and staffing
- Links to neoliberal economic agendas
- Impacts on inequality, political polarisation, and civil liberties
- Methodologies for studying historical communication systems
Submission Guidelines:
- Abstract: 500 words (English)
- Bio: 200–300 words
- Deadline: 1 October 2025
- Contact: Dr Noel Packard – npac825@aucklanduni.ac.nz
- Publication timeline: From December 2025 into 2026
More information can be found here.
You can read an interview with Dr Noel Packard here for more context on the project.
More information about The American Behavioral Scientist can be found here.
Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work Journal
Call for submissions with a special focus on affirming and inclusive perspectives on sex, gender, and sexuality in social work.
In the past few decades, the world has seen increased recognition and acceptance of diverse identities and expressions of sex, gender, and sexuality. However in more recent years people’s sex, gender, and sexuality have been increasingly policed, politicised, and weaponised at the micro, meso, and macro levels. In particular, people who are seen to transgress gendered and sexed norms are being targeted and weaponised, often as a vehicle for right-wing authoritarian agendas and regimes.
In this special focus, we welcome critical articles (empirical or theoretical), viewpoints, research briefs, and book reviews exploring aspects of sex, gender, and sexuality in social work. The focus can be contemporary, historical, or include both. We especially welcome submissions that are authored by and/or centre and affirm knowledges and practice from our transgender, nonbinary, asexual and intersex communities. We are keen to hear from scholars who centre Indigenous understandings of gender, sex, and sexuality, such as Takatāpui, MVPFAFF, Sistergirls and Brotherboys.
Submissions will be considered in these formats:
- Full articles, 7000 words
- Research briefs, 3500 words
- Viewpoints, 2000 words
- Practice notes, 3000 words
Follow this link to find out more about submission formats.
Full articles and research reports will be anonymously reviewed by two readers from a panel of reviewers. Shorter pieces will be reviewed by an editor and one reviewer. Reviewers are asked to offer constructive feedback to authors.
Please submit your article for review by 30th November 2025.
Please submit your article as per the guidelines linked to above but contact the special focus editors to let them know it connects to the special focus. You can also contact the special focus editors with any questions about the relevance of a paper to the focus, balancing positionality, disclosure, and safety, or to submit an abstract in advance of your paper.
Contact: eileen.joy@auckland.ac.nz or justin.canty@utas.edu.au
Lighting the Academy 2025—Rainbow Research Symposium
Please save the date of the Rainbow Research Symposium, to be held at Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makaurau (AUT) on 7th November 2025.
Lighting the Academy is the second of the biennial, national Rainbow Research Symposia; the first was hosted by Victoria University in 2023. The vision is to create an inclusive and forward-thinking academic platform that amplifies LGBTQIA+ voices, fosters cutting-edge research, and envisions a thriving future for queer, takatāpui and trans communicates. By shining a light on present research and future possibilities, we aim to inspire innovation, mobilise advocacy, and empower individuals to pave the rainbow road.
Please view the website for more details, and click on “Sign Up for Updates” so you never miss important information about the symposium.
Annual Meeting of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists
Sociologists have long understood that the social world is not a solely rational place: it is messy, it is interactional and it is felt. Emotion management has a key role in supporting both work done to nonhuman animals (e.g. animal testing, fHarming, slaughter), and for nonhuman animals (e.g. activism, caretaking, critical animal research).
Increasing acknowledgement of the emotional and sensory experiences of nonhuman animals opens up exciting new avenues through which to better understand and challenge their exploitation. Here, methodological and theoretical innovation provides key resources for vegan sociologists to expand their toolkit.
In the 2025 meeting of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists, participants are invited to consider how emotions and sensory experiences are integral to understanding and challenging nonhuman animal exploitation.
Date: October 4–5, 2025
Location: Online
More information can be found on the conference website.
Assisted dying in Aotearoa conference: save the date and call for abstracts
Inaugural Conference on Imagining the Ideal Assisted Dying Service in Aotearoa: Access, Safety, & Equity.
Participate in an engaging and transformative conference on 12-13 February 2026 at Victoria University of Wellington, where participants will imagine the ideal assisted dying service in Aotearoa with a focus on access, safety, and equity. Dive into thought-provoking presentations and discussions about the current system and the future of assisted dying research and practice in Aotearoa New Zealand, to deliver a culturally attuned, safe, accessible, and equitable service. This two-day programme is dedicated to exploring assisted dying through an interdisciplinary lens.
This conference is the culmination of ‘Exploring the early experiences of the AD service in Aotearoa’, funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand.
Academics, healthcare and legal professionals, ethicists, policymakers, and other stakeholders are welcomed to attend. Attendees are also invited to submit a conference paper. For more information about the call for abstracts (closing 3 August), please see the Assisted Dying Research Network website.
JRSNZ Call for Papers:
Special Issue on Māori Data Sovereignty: Research, Practice, and Policy
E te tī! E te tā! He karanga tēnei ki a koutou e ngā pūkenga o te mana raraunga.
The Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand is calling for expressions of interest for a special issue planned for release in early-2026 entitled ‘Māori Data Sovereignty: Research, Practice, and Policy’.
“Nothing about us, without us” has been the call to Indigenous data sovereignty worldwide. But how is Māori data sovereignty operationalised in research, science, innovation, and technology in Aotearoa New Zealand?
This special issue will be guest edited by Associate Professor Lara Greaves (Ngāpuhi, Pākehā, Tararā) from Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, Dr Logan Hamley (Ngāti Rangi, Whanganui) from Whakauae Research and Dr Nicole Edwards (Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Kahungunu) from The University of Auckland | Waipapa Taumata Rau.
Find out more.