Call For Papers

Dear Researcher,

Questões Transversais – Journal of Epistemologies of Communication (ISSN: 2318-6372) (QUALIS A4) announces that its 2026 Edition (continuous flow) is now open for submissions.

Media and Femicide: Pathologies, Intersections, and Mediatization

(PRELIMINARY CALL FOR PAPERS)

Editors of this Call

Carmen Hein de Campos (external guest editor from outside the field of communication):
PhD in Criminal Sciences from PUCRS (2013); Master’s degree in Law from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC, 1998) and from the University of Toronto (Reproductive Rights Program, 2007). Bachelor of Law from the Federal University of Pelotas/RS (UFPEL, 1988). She is a visiting professor in the Master’s Program in Law and Social Justice at the Federal University of Rio Grande (FURG) and a collaborating professor in the Graduate Programs in Law at UFPEL and at the Centro Autônomo do Brasil – UniBrasil. She was a visiting professor in the Master’s Program in Social Rights at the Federal University of Pelotas (2023–2024 – UFPEL). She is the author of several articles and books, including Feminist Criminology: Feminist Theory and Critique of Criminologies, published by Lumen Juris (2017; 2020).

Claudiane de Carvalho:
PósCOM/UFBA. Permanent Professor at the School of Communication of the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA). CEPAD-UFBA. Midiaticom Network.

Deivison Moacir Cezar de Campos:
PPGCC-PUCRS. Coordinator of the Journalism undergraduate program and permanent professor in the Graduate Program in Social Communication. Editor of Questões Transversais. Midiaticom Network.

Luisa Schenato Staldoni:
Executive Editor of Questões Transversais. Midiaticom Network.

INTRODUCTION: FEMICIDE AS A FORM OF FASCISM

Femicide constitutes one of the most extreme expressions of gender-based violence and must be understood as a structural phenomenon, deeply entangled with authoritarian dynamics of power. As argued by Rita Segato (2016), the killing of women is not an isolated or merely individual act, but rather a form of communicative violence, directed both at the female body and at the social fabric. Women’s bodies become a symbolic territory of dispute, upon which messages of domination, control, and discipline are inscribed—particularly in contexts marked by the weakening of democracy, the resurgence of authoritarianism, and the naturalization of violence as an instrument of social ordering.

From this perspective, authoritarianism in the form of fascism finds in gender a privileged axis for the reaffirmation of power. Authoritarian regimes—formal or diffuse—tend to reinforce patriarchal hierarchies, promote rigid models of family and sexuality, and silence dissent, thereby producing an environment conducive to the intensification of violence against women. Femicide thus operates as a mechanism of a pedagogy of cruelty, in Segato’s terms, in which the physical elimination of women reaffirms male and state sovereignty over life and death. This form of violence does not seek merely to destroy the individual victim, but to restore an authoritarian moral order threatened by processes of female emancipation, pluralism, and gender equality.

An intersectional approach is indispensable for understanding how femicide manifests unevenly, disproportionately affecting Black, Indigenous, poor, migrant, and peripheral women. Authoritarianism does not operate homogeneously; rather, it articulates with racism, coloniality, classism, and heteronormativity, producing differentiated regimes of vulnerability and lack of protection. Femicide must therefore be analyzed as a phenomenon situated at the confluence of gender, power, and structural inequalities, requiring legal, political, and social responses that confront not only the crime itself, but also the authoritarian conditions that render it possible, tolerable, and often invisible.

Articles must be grounded in the analysis of media processes from the perspectives of mediatization (according to both “Global South” and “Global North” traditions). This will be the primary focus to be considered. Analyses that relate mediatization to social processes connected to femicide events will also be particularly valued.

MAIN FOCUS: MEDIA EVENTS, MEDIATIZATION, AND COMMUNICATION

Non-media institutions (especially the legal field) and media institutions (circulatory processes)
Discursive configurations – event and symbolic death
Networked actors and subjects in resistance
Post-hermeneutics and the reconstruction of hermeneutics in times of AI, algorithms, and platforms
Media construction of collectives, networks, and forms of actorship
Circulation beyond what is said and what is done
Interactions and communication with the feminine

In the analysis of mediations, we particularly value analyses, in relation to mediatization, that take into account:

Intersectionalities
Social relations of production (economy, culture, and politics)
Foundational myths
Social classifications
Discursive structures and signs of femicide
Institutions and institutionalization (rights)

References

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SPRINGER, Simon; BIRCH, Kean; MACLEAVY, Julie (Ed.). The handbook of neoliberalism. New York: Routledge, 2016.

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