The recent IRSCL 2025 Congress, titled “Borders, Migration, and Liminality in Children’s Literature,” held in Salamanca (Spain), offered a unique opportunity to examine these themes from a multiplicity of perspectives — literary, aesthetic, cultural, linguistic and pedagogical. Building on the dialogues initiated at the congress, this Special Issue invites contributions that explore how children’s and young adult literature (and related media) negotiate, represent, and theorize experiences of migration and border-crossing, and how they open up liminal spaces for the redefinition of childhood in a changing world. We particularly welcome contributions that explore the intersections between literary forms and wider cultural fields, including audiovisual narratives, performance arts, digital media, multimodal storytelling, and transmedia narratives. Moreover, this Call emerges at a time of profound social and political reconfigurations worldwide, and we therefore encourage submissions that engage with critical theories such as decolonial and anticolonial studies, diaspora studies, migration studies, border studies, queer theory, Indigenous epistemologies, critical posthumanism, and multimodal analysis.

Contributions may focus on, but are not limited to:

● Representations of migration, forced displacement, diaspora, and refugee experiences
● Liminal childhoods and hybrid identities
● The poetics and politics of borders in children’s and YA literature
● Transcultural, translingual, and transmedia narratives of migration and displacement
● Translation and circulation of border-crossing narratives
● Indigenous and decolonial storytelling across borders
● Trauma, memory, and healing in border-related narratives
● Posthumanist and ecocritical perspectives on migration and liminal spaces
● Intersections of literature with audiovisual media, theatre, music, visual arts, and digital platforms
● Pedagogical practices engaging with literature on migration and borders
● Historical revisions of childhood imaginaries in relation to nation, identity, and future

Deadline for submissions: November 15, 2025

Submission guidelines:
Please send your completed manuscript to the guest editors: Johari Murray (jnals.cc@gmail.com), Izaskun Elorza (iea@usal.es), and to the journal editor, Roxanne Harde (rharde@ualberta.ca), by November 15, 2025.

Email subject: “IRCL Special Issue Borders, Migration, and Liminality.”

The submission should include:

● 1 complete anonymized copy of manuscript, with abstract (~100 words) and 5-7 keywords, totaling no more than 7000 words
● 1 cover letter with a brief bio (~ 50 words)

Please take into account the changes to the IRCL style guide (MLA) as we have migrated to Johns Hopkins University Press.

We would be grateful if you could share this CFP widely through your networks, professional associations, and relevant listservs. We look forward to receiving your completed manuscripts and continuing the important conversations sparked in Salamanca.

Kind regards,

On behalf of the guest editors:
Johari Murray, Valencia International University | Izaskun Elorza, University of Salamanca
cc: Roxanne Harde, Editor, IRCL