The new, interdisciplinary journal Kalfou is pleased to announce a call for papers for the special issue, "Banking without Borders? Culture and Credit in the New Financial World". This special edition of Kalfou seeks to unpack the way the new financial world was created and how and why its borders were shaped as well as the cultural and economic legacies of these decisions for different communities. Manuscript deadline: May 11, 2010.
Interdisciplinary Journal *Kalfou* Special Issue- Call for Papers
In 1980, Jimmy Carter's U.S. Treasury Secretary G. William Miller greeted the passage of the Depository Institution Deregulatory and Monetary Control Act (DIDMCA) with the promise that it would create a "new world" for American finance. DIDMCA was one of the key pieces of legislation that overturned the regulatory framework for American banking created by the New Deal. Miller and other neo-liberal advocates of deregulation argued that a "new world" of fewer constraints on financial institutions would create new opportunities not just for banks, but also for individuals, communities and the nation as a whole.
Much of the pro-deregulation rhetoric was focused on removing or breaking down what can be seen as two kinds of "borders." The first kind were structural borders within the system that regulated what different financial institutions could and could not do. The second kind were borders between individuals and the financial system that - in the eyes of deregulation's supporters - prevented ordinary citizens from gaining access to mortgages, credit and financial services in general. By eliminating these borders, deregulation would create not just a new set of rules for American banks, but a whole new culture of credit in American society.
Now, in 2009, it is clear that deregulation did produce lasting economic and cultural changes in the United States. However, these changes were not as universally beneficial as supporters of deregulation had claimed or hoped. Furthermore, borders, physical and metaphorical, still existed in the "new world." These borders determined who would be included and excluded from the wealth created by the expansion of the financial sector. Overall, the redefined borders of the new financial world resulted in noticeably uneven outcomes and experiences for Americans of different racial, social and economic backgrounds.
This special edition of *Kalfou* seeks to unpack the way the new financial world was created and how and why its borders were shaped as well as the cultural and economic legacies of these decisions for different communities. Articles are therefore invited that address these issues by considering some of the following questions: How was this new world created and who was it intended to benefit? Which groups and individuals have and have not been able to exercise influence over the new world and why? What roles in particular have NGOs - the AARP, immigrant groups, trade associations, consumer advocates, religious organizations, feminist and gay rights groups - played in either creating or challenging the borders of the new financial world? What has been the cultural and economic impact of the new financial world across different races, classes and genders?
Possible topics of interest include: race and access to credit; consumer movements/consumer culture since the 1970s; neo-liberalism as an economic and cultural phenomenon; civil rights groups and financial reform; and the origins, culture and impact of subprime lending.
Guest editors are accepting manuscripts now through May 11, 2010. Manuscripts should be sent as attached documents in Word format. Authors' names should appear on a separate title page so that manuscripts can be evaluated anonymously. Submissions should be in the range of 5,000 to 10,000 words, including notes, and conform to the Chicago Manual of Style. Please include a short biography with organizational affiliation and contact information.
Accepted papers will be published in an upcoming special issue of *Kalfou*.
Authors should submit the manuscripts via e-mail to banking.kalfou@gmail.com.
*Guest Editors*
Tim Boyd, PhD
American Studies Department
Vanderbilt University
2201 West End Avenue
Nashville, TN 37240
and
Devin Fergus, PhD
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20004-3027
*Kalfou* is a new, interdisciplinary journal dedicated to publishing articles examining the distribution of opportunities and life chances of aggrieved communities of color in the past, present, and future and about the roles played by the state, capital, and social structures in promoting and suppressing social justice.
Senior Editor: George Lipsitz. Founding Editors: Melvin Oliver and Claudine Michel.
For more on *Kalfou*, please visit research.ucsb.edu/cbs/publications/kalfou/
