CALL FOR PAPERS

Special Issue of Summerhill: IIAS Review
Theme: Vocal for Local: Reconsidering the Local in a Changing India

The idea of “Vocal for Local” has acquired considerable significance in contemporary India, mainly in debates on self-reliance, local production, indigenous knowledge, cultural identity, and sustainable development. It draws attention to products, practices, skills, and knowledge rooted in local communities and seeks to strengthen their place within wider economic and social systems. Yet, the idea also raises important questions: Who defines what is local? Who owns local knowledge and resources? Who benefits when local products enter larger markets? And can the promotion of local economies remain meaningful without addressing inequalities within communities?

Summerhill: IIAS Review, the peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, invites scholars, researchers, and practitioners to submit papers for its forthcoming special issue on “Vocal for Local: Reconsidering the Local in a Changing India.” This issue seeks to examine the theme through a critical, interdisciplinary, and grounded perspective. It invites scholarship that moves beyond a celebratory understanding of the local and examines its relationship with markets, state policies, globalisation, technology, and changing patterns of consumption. Contributions may explore whether contemporary initiatives genuinely strengthen local livelihoods and community decision-making or whether they can also result in commodification, cultural appropriation, unequal distribution of benefits, and the weakening of community ownership. The issue welcomes original research papers, conceptual essays, review articles, ethnographic studies, and interdisciplinary contributions that examine the possibilities, contradictions, and limitations of “Vocal for Local” in contemporary India. Contributions grounded in field research and community experiences are particularly encouraged.
Scope
The issue will focus primarily on India, welcoming contributions from all regions, states, and Union Territories. Particular interest will be given to studies from the Himalayan region, Northeast India, tribal and forest-dependent areas, rural regions, borderlands, and other culturally distinctive localities. Comparative studies involving South Asia and other regions may also be considered where they offer relevant perspectives on local economies, knowledge, and cultural practices. The special issue welcomes contributions addressing, but not limited to, the following subthemes:

1. Local Economies and Self-Reliance
2. Indigenous Knowledge and Rights
3. Tribal and Rural Livelihoods
4. Local Crafts and Cultural Heritage
5. Food, Agriculture and Culinary Traditions
6. Women and Grassroots Entrepreneurship
7. Local Resources and Ecological Sustainability
8. Community-Based Resource Governance
9. Local Products and Market Access
10. Digitalisation and Local Economies
11. Globalisation and Cultural Change
12. Policy and the Politics of Local
13. Commodification, Appropriation and Inequality
14. Himalayan and Regional Perspectives

Submission Process and Deadline
Interested contributors, including scholars, researchers, practitioners, artists, and community-based researchers, are invited to submit their manuscripts on or before 31 December 2026. Interdisciplinary and collaborative works that combine academic inquiry with field-based or experiential understanding are especially encouraged. Contributors are requested to strictly adhere to the Author’s Guidelines and, before submitting their manuscript, to go through the paper review process and anti-plagiarism policy available on the journal’s webpage. Manuscripts should be submitted to the Editor at summerhill@iias.ac.in. Contributors are requested to mention “Submission for Special Issue: Vocal for Local” in the subject line of the email.
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