Call for Papers: Special Issue in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies
"Indigenous Cultural Studies"
Michael Lechuga and Ashley Cordes, Special Issue Editors
Marina Levina, Journal Editor
Proposed Forthcoming Date: June 2026.
Since the "decolonial turn" reached the terrains of our scholarly field nearly two decades ago (Maldonaldo-Torres, 2008), there has been a growing interest in Indigenous Studies and Native Studies in Communication Studies from Turtle Island and beyond. Indigeneity is having a moment; however, this special issue proposes to move indigeneity past the studies of identity and representation and to the very core of cultural studies theories and methodologies. We want to consider how cultural studies can be challenged, shaped and changed through and by Indigenous epistemologies, ontologies and methodologies. In other words, we want to consider pluriverse and embodied theories that derive from Indigenous ways of knowing and being (Escobar, 2020; Altamirano-Jimenez, 2020). Our goal is not simply to add to conversations in cultural studies from an "Indigenous perspective," or identity, but rather reimagine cultural studies through indigeneity. We invite critical/cultural scholars to generally re-consider how the core theoretical tenants in the discipline – including, but not limited to, time, space, land, affect, and power – can be challenged and informed by Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies. Therefore, in this spirit, we invite papers to a special issue centering Indigenous theorizing that resist a universalizing impulse that is often centered in dominant approaches to humanities and social science research. In other words, we envision this special issue as one that centers indigeneity at the very core of cultural studies.
In thinking through Indigenous Cultural Studies, the special issue will address topics that are core to the Indigenous ways of knowing the world. We consider literary, political, and media expressions that illustrate the decolonial frameworks utilized by those that are subject to settler colonial violence. Importantly, though, we would like to uplift work that demonstrates an engaged investment in Indigenous futurity outside the colonial registers of possession and dispossession, those that operate outside the nationalist logics of colonialism. We seek to highlight the historical belonging with the natural worlds that exists within Indigenous communities' epistemologies-including tribal conquest against the institutional biopolitics of the nation-state-and how these relationships give spirit to the cultural, social, sacred, material, and economic lives of Indigenous people. Ultimately, our hope is to spark a discipline-wide investment in the vast Indigenous ways of knowing the world beyond discussions of representation.
Scholarship may include but not be limited to:
- Indigenous epistemologies' conceptions of power, time, space, or affect
- Cultural critique rooted in Indigenous epistemologies
- Indigenous critiques of law and policy
- Theorizing from international and transnational indigenous perspectives
- Theorizing subjectivity through a lens of relationality and Indigenous kinship (including race, gender, nation, class, and others)
- Theorizing that challenges the nature/culture divide
- Theorizing that describes the relationship between sophisticated communication technologies and Indigenous ecological knowledges
- Theorizing to build better relations with the more-than-human world in the face of climate catastrophe
- Indigenous methodologies and community research
- Data sovereignty, governance, and futurisms in the Digital Age
- Histories of Indigenous Cultural Studies and theories
- (New) Materiality and Indigenous object-oriented ontologies
- The new theorizing of bodies from indigenous perspective (perhaps challenging dominant perspectives on disability, movement, etc.)
- Indigenous challenges to the dominant theorizations of affect
Submission Guidelines and Deadlines:
1. Please submit a 500-1000 word extended abstract to Dr. Michael Lechuga (michaellechuga@unm.edu) by January 15th, 2025. The abstract should clearly outline the proposed topic; provide a concise statement of theoretical contribution to the issue; and explain how the article will theorize and analyze communication phenomenon from an Indigenous Cultural Studies orientation. Please include a separate author's bio (75 words) and a list of relevant publications/conference presentations. Please include "CCCS Indigenous Cultural Studies" in the subject line of all correspondence and submissions.
2. You will be notified by February 28th, 2025, if your proposal has been selected to move forward in the special issue. Please note that this is not a guarantee of publication – in keeping with the CCCS practices, all full-length articles will undergo rigorous anonymous peer review
3. The full-length articles will be due July 15th, 2025. The full-length articles will follow CCCS journal guidelines for submission.
We welcome inquiries and questions prior to extended abstract submission. Please feel free to email Dr. Michael Lechuga (michaellechuga@unm.edu) or Dr. Ashley Cordes (acordes@uoregon.edu).
Please include "CCCS Indigenous Cultural Studies" in the subject line of all correspondence and submissions.
Michael Lechuga (Xicano Xiximeca) is the Cochair and Associate Professor in the Department of Communication & Journalism at the University of New Mexico, he researches and teaches Rhetoric, Settler Colonial Studies, and Cultural Studies. His research broadly focuses on how settler colonial logics are mapped onto Turtle Island (North America) and the interventions anti-colonial agents and thinkers make in resistance. Additionally, Lechuga studies the relationship between technologies and new media and the Indigenous ways of knowing become adopted, coopted, or negated by these technologies. He is the author of Visions of Invasion (The University Press of Mississippi), as well as Unspeakable Acts: Dog Whistles and Political Violence in Settler Colonies-an investigation in the settler colonial roots behind the dog whistle in the U.S., one of the far-right's most effective tools for propagating settler violence. https://cjdept.unm.edu/people/faculty/profile/michael-lechuga.html. Click or tap if you trust this link." rel="noopener">https://cjdept.unm.edu/people/faculty/profile/michael-lechuga.html
Ashley Cordes (Coquille/KōKwel) is an Assistant Professor of Indigenous Media in ENVS and ENG at the University of Oregon and a recent American Council of Learned Societies Fellow. Her research lies at the intersection of Indigenous science and technology studies, digital media, and environmental/place-based studies. She is interested in how Indigenous culture and technology producers leverage discursive, technological, and media forms of "digital Indigeneity" toward Tribal economic independence, representational and data sovereignty, Indigenous cultural revitalization, and the resurgence of Indigenous knowledge systems. Her research in AI has been published in the Indigenous Protocols Artificial Intelligence position paper and her other works on representation, digital humanities, and Indigenous methods have been published in journals such as Cultural Studies <>Critical Methodologies, Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, and Feminist Media Studies. She is the author of the book, Leave Some for the Rest: Storying Indigenous Currencies in the Gold Rush and Cryptocurrency Rush in production with MIT Press.
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Dane Claussen
Director of Research, Pubs., & Prof. Advancement
National Communication Association
Silver Spring MD
United States
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