Children and young people’s agency: intersectional and subaltern perspectives on resistances and futurities across time and spaces of conflict

The International Social Science Journal (Wiley) has announced a Call for Papers for an upcoming Special Issue focused on children’s and young people’s agency in contexts of conflict. The Special Issue brings together intersectional, subaltern, and decolonial perspectives to explore how children and young people experience, resist, and imagine futures across diverse social, political, and geographical settings.

The Special Issue aims to shed light on the complexities of children’s and young people’s lives in situations of micro and macro conflict, including violations of rights, structural inequalities, and everyday forms of exclusion. At the same time, it seeks to foreground stories and practices of resistance, joy, hope, activism, advocacy, and future-making, recognising children and young people as active social and political subjects.

Contributions are invited from interdisciplinary fields and are encouraged to challenge dominant capitalist, colonial, patriarchal, and extractivist frameworks. Particular attention is given to research that engages with marginalized and subaltern perspectives, decolonises knowledge production, and moves beyond conventional academic forms.

The Special Issue is also open to participatory, co-created, and multimodal submissions, including work developed collaboratively with children and young people. Authors are asked to accompany their submissions with accessible outputs designed for children and young people, supporting inclusive and reciprocal knowledge production.

Topics of interest include:

• Denied rights of children and young people in contexts of micro and macro conflict, including exclusion from health, safety, education, and culture

• Children and young people reclaiming agency and rights across time and spaces of conflict, including resistance, joy, hope, activism, advocacy, and futurities

• Intersectional, decolonial, and subaltern perspectives re-imagining childhoods and youths in conflict

• Interdisciplinary and applied research with implications for policy and practice

Guest Editors:

• Dr Sarah Foley, University of Edinburgh (UK)

• Dr Kristina Konstantoni, University of Edinburgh (UK)

• Dr Mónica Marcell Romero Sánchez, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Colombia)

• Dr Gabriela Gallardo Lastra, University of Groningen (The Netherlands)

(Members of the KReporters project participate among the Guest Editors.)

Timeline:

• Call for abstracts opens: 1 December 2025

• Abstract submission deadline: 6 March 2026

• Feedback on abstracts: 30 April 2026

• Full paper submission deadline: 28 August 2026

Abstracts should be submitted by email to: cyp.agencies.issj@gmail.com

It is strongly recommended to submit an abstract before preparing a full manuscript. Decisions and feedback on abstracts are expected by 30 April 2026.

For full details, please consult the complete Call for Papers published by the International Social Science Journal.