1.  International Association for Relationship Research Conference
Deadline: December 15, 2011

Information: The International Association for Relationship Research (IARR) conference will be held at the Palmer House Hilton and DePaul Loop Campus in Chicago, Illinois on July 12-16, 2012. The conference will provide an opportunity to present and learn about cutting-edge research in the field of personal relationships. Scholars from different countries representing a broad range of disciplines (e.g., psychology, sociology, communication, family studies, gerontology) will gather at the conference to share their work.

Invited speakers include Margaret Clark, Pearl Dykstra, Julie Fitness, Jacki Fitzpatrick, Brian Spitzberg, and Anita Vangelisti.

Submissions: The Program Committee invites proposals for symposia, papers, posters, roundtables, and interest groups on topics relevant to research and practice in social and personal relationships. Detailed information about the conference (e.g., how to submit proposals, how to register for the conference) is available on the conference website.

Submissions should be sent electronically via the conference website beginning November 1, 2011. The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2011.

2.  2012 Pacific Rim International Conference on Disability & Diversity
Deadline: December 16, 2011

Information: The conference is introducing a new topic area to disseminate and harness the big ideas, evidence-based practices, and latest research on how public health can best serve and support persons with disabilities. It was only relatively recently that public health began to focus on persons with disabilities as a major underserved population. They were not included as a subpopulation when the U.S. Surgeon General launched the Healthy People initiative in 1979 to achieve an ambitious set of public health objectives. It was not until 20 years later, when the objectives were updated for the second time (for the Healthy People 2010 national plan), that specific objectives for persons with disabilities were included. Now, these objectives have been updated for Healthy People 2020. In addition, the American Public Health Association recently established a Disability Section to represent persons with disabilities. The Disability and Public Health topic area has the potential to make a substantial contribution by raising awareness about these important advances in the field of public health and highlighting innovative thinking for maintaining progress and addressing challenges.

Individuals are invited to submit a presentation proposal by the deadline on December 16, 2011.  The co-chairs are particularly interested in the following proposal topics as they relate to public health: 

• Best practices for including persons with disabilities in public health and health promotion activities. 

• Initiatives to integrate disability and health programs into public health activities. 

• Assessments of environmental factors and levels of social participation that can be used to inform public health interventions for persons with disabilities. 

• Disability measurement tools, including surveillance tools and identification of disability-related information in data systems. 

• Inclusive initiatives that promote healthy environments and environmental justice. 

• The role of environmental health (air quality, surface and ground water, toxic substances and hazardous wastes) in promoting health and preventing primary or secondary disabilities. 

• Inclusive practices and methodologies that improve capacity for surveillance of the environment and prevention of exposure. 

• Participatory mechanisms in global health initiatives that include persons with disabilities in developing and implementing research and interventions. 

• International perspectives on the relationship between public health and social change.

Proposals in any presentation format are welcomed. Please see presentation formats on our webpage. Please check the criteria for each format and ensure that you have the appropriate number of presenters for your chosen format. You may submit proposals online or send your proposals via email.

For more information please contact the Topic Chairs: David Leake, (808) 956-0820, and Martha Guinan, (808) 956-9810.

For general information on the conference, please visit our webpage or contact Charmaine Crockett at (808) 956-7539 or by email.

For registration questions please contact Michael Corlew by email, Phone: (808) 956-8816 or Fax: (808) 956-7878.

For more information on Healthy People 2020 please visit the website.

3.  Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (MIRCI)
Deadline: March 15, 2012

Information: The planning committee welcomes submissions from scholars, students, artists, mothers and others who research in this area. Cross-cultural and comparative work including academic papers from all disciplines and creative submissions including visual art, literature, and performance art is encouraged.

The conference will examine the ethical, political, social/cultural, economic, historical, religious, spiritual, and psychological dimensions of reproduction and mothering. While the larger conference will be broad in its interpretation and engagement with the subject of 'Mothering and Reproduction', an embedded conference will be specific to exploring how mothers’ decisions and experiences of reproduction and mothering have been/are influenced by science and technology.

Topics may include but are not restricted to: 

• Bioethics and fertility; 

• Abortion, birth control and assisted fertility in a cross cultural context; 

• Reproductive technologies and the interplay of religion; 

• Mothering in families of high order multiple births; 

• Mothering on the blogosphere; queer engagements with reproduction; 

• Motherhood and the technological womb; 

• Modern childbirth and maternity care; 

• (Mis)educative experiences teaching and learning about menstruation and reproduction; 

• Re/productive roles mothers play in de/constructing embodied understandings of reproduction; 

• Surviving tramautic birth experiences; 

• Mothers in academe/research; 

• Mothering and the workplace, how technology permeates the work/home barrier; 

• Attachment with adopted and biological children; 

• Birth plans; how science and technology inform social justice issues;

• Assisted reproductive technologies, state policy, and federalism’s impacts on women in the United States and around the world; 

• Reproductive decisions and a politics of location; 

• Impact of social media on opinions regarding reproduction;  

• “Mothering” from a distance; 

• The experience of egg donation; 

• Mothers' changing relationship with "the experts" regarding birthing, infant care in the age of infectious diseases, baby books and birth control; 

• Reproductive rights and wrongs, including rise of contraceptive technology alongside state-coerced sterilization; 

• Mothering in the Information Age; 

• Maternalist political rhetoric in favor of labor rights; 

• Mothering bodies; 

• Pre and postnatal bodies and reconstructive surgery; 

• Eating disorders and reproduction; 

• Reproductive consciousness and politics of reproduction; 

• Outcomes associated with scientific/technological intervention; outsourcing of reproduction to developing nations; 

• Maternal and erotic/maternal eroticism; 

• History of reproductive technologies; 

• Indigenous mothers and mothering; and 

• Cross-cultural perspectives on reproduction including reproductive technologies

If you are interested in being considered as a presenter, please send a 250 word abstract and a 50-word bio by March 15th, 2012 via email.

Please note, to submit an abstract for the conference, you must be a member of MIRCI. For membership information, please visit the website.

Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (MIRCI)
140 Holland St. West, PO Box 13022, Bradford, ON, L3Z 2Y5 (905) 775-9089, Email

4.  Violence Against Women Special Issue | Rape and Sexual Assault Prevention, Resistance, Education, and Intervention: The Role of Self Defense
Deadline: April 13, 2012

To discuss a possible submission or the scope of the issue, or to submit a manuscript, contact Martha McCaughey or Jill Cermele.

Information: Sexual violence against women is a global health problem.  Although there is solid and growing scholarship on the reality and efficacy of women’s resistance to rape and sexual assault, many scholars, activists, funding agencies, and members of the lay public remain skeptical about women’s right and capacity to thwart an attack, and about the ethics of teaching and funding of self-defense.  Moreover, while both scholarly and advocacy literature on violence against women often discusses prevention, resistance, and intervention, these concepts do not always imply women’s use of verbal and physical self-defense techniques. Increasingly, we see positive images of women successfully defending themselves against perpetrators of violence in popular culture, but scholars of violence against women have much to communicate to both scholarly and lay audiences about women’s use of self-defense.

This special issue calls for papers that focus on the ways in which women prepare to defend themselves against sexual assault, the multiple and diverse methods women employ – including the use of physical aggression and violence — in their own defense, the effectiveness of self defense, and how self defense and resistance to sexual assault is understood and constructed in individual, social, cultural, and legal contexts.  We define the term sexual assault broadly, to include verbal, non-verbal, and physical threats or acts of sexual violence, both implied and enacted; similarly, we define the term self-defense to include verbal and physical strategies, including aggressive, violent, and lethal means, that thwart imminent or ongoing acts of sexual violence and to serve to maintain women’s physical, sexual, and psychological integrity. 

Possible topics include: 

• Efficacy of physical and verbal resistance against sexual assault   

• Efficacy of self-defense training 

• Comparative studies of different types of self-defense programs 

• Beliefs about resistance and self-defense training for women and girls 

• Self-defense training as a clinical intervention 

• Defining resistance, self-defense, and violence 

• Identity, intersectionality, and resistance 

• The collection of crime victimization data and women’s self-defense 

• The impact of women’s self-defense training on rates of acquaintance rape 

• The funding models impacting women’s opportunities to learn self-defense through schools, community centers, shelters, and crisis centers 

• Where the training or use of self-defense fits into feminist discourses of sexual assault prevention 

• Self-defense training in the workplace, on campuses, in public schools, in NGOs 

• Where women's self-defense fits into the gun control debates 

• Gender, self-defense, and the law

The Special Issue invites articles using a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, including empirical research, research notes, review essays, legal notes, and clinical notes.   Empirical research articles should not exceed 30 pages, and all other submissions should be between 12 and 18 pages, including references, tables, and figures.  Manuscripts should be typewritten, double-spaced, with footnotes, references, tables, and charts on separate pages, and should follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th edition). Each article should begin with an abstract of about 100 words. For further details, consult the manuscript submission guidelines. All submissions will be subjected to review, and submission does not guarantee acceptance in the special issue.