Affilia Roundtable: Critical Feminist Scholarship in Times of Political Upheaval and Repression

For over 35 years, Affilia has been committed to supporting and publishing feminist social work research. As the first and only feminist social work academic journal, Affilia has provided an important outlet for feminist social work scholarship. Such an outlet is of vital importance in our current times, where - as we described in a recent Affilia editorial - a social work dean is removed from his position for promoting abolitionist perspectives, faculty in some states are prohibited from teaching critical race theory, and faculty in other states are barred from providing information to students that could be interpreted as "promoting" abortion (Zelnick, Kim, & Goodkind, 2023). Responding to this climate and to the SSWR conference theme of recentering and democratizing knowledge, we are planning a roundtable in which Affilia authors and editorial board members describe our processes for writing and reviewing. Affilia has always sought to center marginalized perspectives and promote epistemic justice by publishing research using non-dominant approaches to knowledge development and by engaging in a constructive, supportive manuscript review method that demystifies the publication process. This roundtable will include recent Affilia authors describing their implementation of critical feminist research and demonstrating specific elements of how to write it up, including problem statements, author positioning, theoretical approaches, methodology sections, presentation of findings, discussion, and conclusions. This roundtable will also include Affilia editors describing our manuscript review process and mentoring philosophy and approach. We envision this roundtable as a space for critical feminist scholars at any point in their careers to meet and develop strategies for supporting each other through these times of political upheaval and repression. Thus, we see this as a collaborative mentoring session, with special attention given to listening to and supporting newer scholars. We titled our recent editorial, "First they came for critical race theory" to reflect the interconnectedness of the racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist attacks on knowledge and autonomy. In this same way, we understand the liberatory projects that challenge these attacks as inextricably linked. We concluded our recent editorial by stating, "Affilia is taking seriously the social work field's stance against feminism that animated its founding in 1986. In deepening our understanding of critical feminisms, expanding our notion of academic scholarship, and broadening the intersectional imperative that critical feminism calls forth, we join you in strengthening our resolve and set of strategies to fortify our fight not only against repression - but in the construction of an equitable, just, and sustainable future for all. In the meantime, Affilia will continue to be a home for critical research, come what may" (Zelnick, Kim, & Goodkind, 2023, p. 173). We invite you to join us for this session aimed at developing and supporting liberatory social work scholars.