Community News submitted by: Prentiss Dantzler, University of Toronto
This call for papers invites critical engagement with the emerging role of cities in addressing historical and ongoing racial injustices through reparations programs. As municipalities across the United States begin to grapple with their complicity in slavery, segregation, displacement, and racial wealth extraction, this call seeks scholarship that examines the design, implementation, and implications of urban reparations initiatives. We welcome submissions that analyze local policies aimed at redressing racial harms—whether through housing, education, land return, economic development, or cultural restoration—as well as the political, legal, and ethical debates that surround them.
Papers might explore the possibilities and limitations of municipal-led reparations, their relationship to federal inaction, and how local, regional and state efforts intersect with grassroots organizing and broader visions of racial justice. We are particularly interested in scholarship that interrogates the spatial dimensions of reparations, including how place-based harms are identified and how repair is imagined in relation to land, neighborhood, and community. Contributions that situate urban reparations in transnational or comparative contexts are also welcome, especially those that challenge conventional policy paradigms and offer bold, liberatory visions of repair.
Abstract submissions due: June 1, 2026
Decision on abstract submissions: July 1, 2026
Papers due: October 1, 2026
Please email abstracts to:
– Prentiss A. Dantzler ([email protected])
– Rashad Williams ([email protected])
– Akira Drake Rodriguez ([email protected])
Bibliography
- Balfour, L. 2023. “The politics of reparations for Black Americans”, Annual Review of Political Science, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 291–304.
- Boxill, B. R. 2003. “A Lockean argument for black reparations”, The Journal of Ethics, no. 7, pp. 63–91.
- Coates, T.‑N. 2014. “The Case for Reparations”, The Atlantic, June. Available online at the following URL: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631.
- Darity, Jr., W. A. and Mullen, A. K. 2022. From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
- Reed, Jr., A. 2020. “Socialism and the argument against race reductionism”, New Labor Forum, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 36–43.
- Simone, B. 2021. “Municipal reparations: Considerations and constitutionality”, Michigan Law Review, vol. 120, no. 2, pp. 345–391.
- Táíwò, O. O. 2022. Reconsidering Reparations, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Metropolitics is an editorially peer-reviewed online journal that publishes concise academic essays and papers aimed at an international audience. The journal’s mission is public scholarship: short-form work about cities and urban politics, based on original research, on a quick time frame that allows researchers to contribute to public debate and make their scholarly work relevant to a broad readership.
What we publish
● Essays (1,500 words), which draw on empirical work to develop arguments relating to societal and political debates, and which provide a new perspective on key urban issues and challenges.
● Debates (1,500 words), which relate to current social, professional or political developments on current issues, and concisely present the state of knowledge bearing on current public debate.
● Reports from the Field (1,500 words), which draw on case studies, experiments or remarkable situations to shed new light on urban phenomena and developments.
● Reviews (1,000 words), which offer authors’ perspectives on books, films, exhibitions and other events, evaluating their intellectual contributions for a wide audience.
● Interviews with activists and policymakers, presented in audio, video or text form.
View our editorial charter and style guide.
Access to Metropolitics is free. Articles can be downloaded as PDF files; videos are available as podcasts.
For more information, please visit the full call: https://metropolitics.org/CALL-FOR-PAPERS-Governing-Repair-The-Role-of-Cities-and-States-in-Reparations.html
