CFP: ALTERNATIVE GEOGRAPHIES OF BELONGING IN TRANS LIVES

Deadline for proposals: April 10, 2026

‘Belonging’ in the context of spaces refers to environments that are accessible, inclusive, and nurturing—spaces that foster a sense of home, acceptance, and dignity. For trans lives, such alternative geographies emerge through practices of care, solidarity, and collective support that reimagine space beyond exclusionary social and institutional boundaries. This edited volume emerges from a persistent question: What does it mean to belong when the spaces around you are not built with you in mind? For many trans individuals, belonging is not simply a matter of social acceptance or legal recognition. It is negotiated daily through spatial encounters — in rented rooms, hospital corridors, university classrooms, border checkpoints, public transport systems, and increasingly, digital platforms.

This volume seeks to rethink belonging as a spatial process — one that is produced, withheld, contested, and reimagined. Rather than limiting itself to a single national context, the collection will bring together global perspectives that illuminate how trans lives interact with architecture, bureaucracy, mobility systems, and community formations across varied cultural and political landscapes. The aim is not only to document exclusion but to theorize how alternative forms of spatial belonging are created — sometimes quietly through mutual care, sometimes publicly through activism and protest. By placing trans studies in conversation with spatial theory, urban studies, sociology, and political thought, the book offers a sustained exploration of how gender variance exposes the mechanics of space itself. The volume asks: How are trans bodies positioned within everyday infrastructures? In what ways do documentation systems regulate mobility and citizenship? How do healthcare, housing, education, and transport systems spatialise gender norms? What counter-geographies emerge through activism, art, and collective care? How might spatial justice be rethought through trans epistemologies? Collectively, these questions frame the volume’s attempt to rethink space, citizenship, and justice through trans epistemologies and lived spatial practices.

The edited volume attempts to make a distinctive contribution by advancing a genuinely transnational framework that moves beyond Western-centric models, bringing trans studies into a rich dialogue with human geography and debates on spatial justice, weaving regionally grounded case studies with rigorous theoretical reflection, and illuminating not only the structures of exclusion that shape trans lives but also the creative spatial practices through which new geographies of possibility emerge.

We welcome interdisciplinary approaches from gender studies, human geography, sociology, anthropology, urban studies, media studies, political theory, cultural studies, law, and related fields.

Contributors may engage (but are not limited to) the following themes:

• Embodied cartographies and bodily governance
• Housing precarity and reconfigured domesticity
• Clinical geographies and medical gatekeeping
• Borders, documentation, and administrative belonging
• Digital territories and algorithmic visibility
• Public mobility and spatial exposure
• Counter-spaces, protest, and spatial reclamation
• Temporalities of transition and waiting
• Sacred and cultural spaces
• Speculative futures of inclusive design

This call for papers is open to scholars, graduate students, and independent researchers from all disciplines. Original submissions reflecting a spectrum of alternative geographies of belonging in trans lives are encouraged.

Please submit a 200-word abstract of your theoretical or empirical research to the editors by April 10, 2026. All abstracts will be reviewed, and authors will be notified of the editorial decision by the end of April 2026. Selected contributors will be invited to submit full papers of 6,000–8,000 words for the edited volume. The deadline for the complete manuscript will be announced after the selection process. Detailed style guidelines and additional submission information will be shared individually with the invited contributors via email. Authors are encouraged to clearly outline the research objectives, methodology, and key contributions in their abstracts.

Initial inquiries on the suitability of articles should be directed to belongingintranslives@gmail.com

EditorsRajni Singh is Professor of English at the Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Dhanbad. Her research focuses on women’s writings and gender studies, with particular interests in histories of gender, sexuality, and selfhood. Email ID rajnisingh18@iitism.ac.in

Neha Kumari is an Assistant Professor at Sri Balaji University Pune, India. She completed her PhD at the Indian Institute of Technology (ISM) Dhanbad, India, availing MHRD (JRF & SRF) Fellowship. She is a dedicated researcher, editor, and academic contributor in the fields of Gender and Sexuality Studies, Fat Studies, Film Studies, Transgender Studies, Cultural Studies, and Women's Studies. Email ID – nk0007788@gmail.com