Author Guidelines
Author Guidelines
Journal of Intimate Counterpublics and Care welcomes submissions from researchers, community members, activists, and practitioners. You do not need an academic affiliation to submit. We are committed to a review process that is rigorous and accessible in equal measure.
All submissions are first assessed by an editor for fit with the journal's aims and scope. Those that meet our threshold are sent for peer review before a final decision is made. An editor may desk reject a submission that does not meet minimum standards of quality, regardless of form or authorship.
Who Can Submit
Anyone whose work engages the intersection of intimacy, care, and collective life is welcome to submit. We actively encourage submissions from community members, organizers, and practitioners, as well as from academic institutions. If you are unsure whether your work is a good fit, please email the editors before submitting.
What We Publish
We welcome a wide range of forms, including empirical research, theoretical essays, autoethnography, community-based participatory work, creative non-fiction, and hybrid pieces. We do not require that submissions conform to conventional academic genre expectations, but we do ask that the argument or intention of the piece is clearly articulated and that the writing is as accessible as possible without sacrificing depth.
What We Will Not Publish
The following will not be considered for publication in the Journal of Intimate Counterpublics and Care regardless of methodological rigour or academic affiliation.
On content: We will not publish work that pathologizes, stigmatizes, or moralizes the intimate practices, relationships, or identities of consenting adults. We will not publish work that treats non-normative intimacies as problems to be explained, corrected, or recovered from. We will not publish work that reproduces carceral, eugenic, or colonial logics, including work that frames state intervention into intimate life as neutral or benevolent.
On knowledge practices: We will not publish extractive research that treats communities as data sources without accountability, reciprocity, or meaningful participation. We will not publish work that speaks for communities without their involvement, or that uses community knowledge without acknowledgment or consent. We will not publish research that has exposed participants to harm through inadequate ethical consideration of their safety, privacy, or dignity.
On politics: We will not publish work that advances white supremacist, fascist, nationalist, or eugenicist frameworks, however they are dressed. We will not publish work that is hostile to queer, trans, disabled, Indigenous, or otherwise marginalized ways of living and knowing. We will not publish work whose political horizon is the defence of existing structures of domination.
Before You Submit
Before submitting, please ensure:
- All authors named on the submission have consented to be identified
- You have obtained permission to publish any third-party material included, such as photographs, documents, or datasets
- Where your work involved research with human participants, appropriate ethics approval has been obtained in accordance with the legal requirements of your country or region
- Your title is concise, and your abstract can stand alone as a summary of the work
- You have removed all identifying information from the manuscript to enable blind peer review
Format
Manuscripts should be submitted as a Word document (.docx) using the following formatting:
- 12pt Times New Roman or Georgia font
- Double spaced
- 1 inch (2.54cm) margins on all sides
- Page numbers in the bottom right corner
- Section headings in bold, not numbered
- No headers or footers beyond page numbers
- Figures, tables, and images embedded in the text at the point of reference, and also provided as separate files where possible
- Abstract of 150 to 250 words, followed by 4 to 6 keywords
- Author details and positionality statement submitted in a separate document to enable blind peer review
We recommend the following word counts as a guide, inclusive of references:
- Research articles: 5,000 to 9,000 words
- Theoretical or review essays: 4,000 to 7,000 words
- Community pieces and shorter essays: 1,500 to 4,000 words
- Creative and hybrid work: no strict limit, though please include a brief note on form and intention
We recognize that not all work fits a Word document. If your submission takes a different form — including visual work, oral submissions, collaborative documents, zines, or other formats — please contact the editors before submitting to discuss how we can best receive and review your work. We are committed to not letting format requirements become a barrier to community participation.
Citation Style
The journal uses APA 7th edition for all citations. Authors from outside academic traditions are welcome to use a simplified version of this style with editorial support available on request.
A Note on Positionality and Disclosure
We ask all authors to include a brief positionality statement locating them in relation to the work. This might address your relationship to the communities, practices, or questions you are writing about, your disciplinary or non-disciplinary standpoint, or any other context that helps readers understand where the work is coming from. There is no correct way to write a positionality statement, and we welcome a range of approaches.
Authors must also disclose any conflicts of interest that may bear on the work, including funding sources, institutional affiliations, or personal relationships with research participants or communities. Disclosure does not disqualify a submission. We recognize that community-rooted research is often produced in close-knit settings, and we welcome transparency about that rather than treating it as a problem to be eliminated.
Given the intimate nature of much of the work we publish, we ask authors to carefully consider what they are disclosing about themselves and others. We hold disclosure as a political act, not merely an administrative one. What we choose to name about ourselves, and what we withhold, is shaped by structures of power, stigma, and safety that are unevenly distributed. Visibility is not always liberatory. For some authors, naming their relationship to a practice, identity, or community carries professional, legal, familial, or personal risk. We do not require disclosure that places authors in harm's way, and we will never treat strategic privacy as a lack of transparency.
At the same time, we recognize that autoethnographic and community-based work often involves the sharing of sensitive information about others. Authors are responsible for ensuring that anyone named or identifiable in the work has been protected through consent or anonymization, and that the risks of identification have been carefully considered, particularly where the work touches on stigmatized practices, marginalized identities, or experiences of harm.
We understand disclosure as an ongoing negotiation rather than a one-time checkbox, and we are committed to supporting authors through that process.
