CfA: Transitions: Examining Changing Regimes of Sexuality in Post-Soviet Muslim Republics ('Sexualities' Journal, Special Issue)

Recent scholarship has challenged stereotypes about the role of post-Soviet Muslim republics in international politics. These works emphasize how states like Azerbaijan and the five post-Soviet Central Asian republics are more than just an arena in which regional actors such as Russia, China, Iran, and Türkiye, or more distant actors like the United States or the European Union, vie for influence. These works stress how these states actively shape regional dynamics through local norms and strategic engagement (Cooley 2012, Dadabaev 2021, Schatz 2021). Some studies reveal how a variety of actors in these post-Soviet Muslim republics leverage global legal and financial institutions to reinforce and challenge authoritarian governance at home (Cooley and Heathershaw 2017) ; others examine how China’s initiatives in the region recalibrate power balances—offering local actors leverage against Russian influence while seeking to avoid new dependencies (Petersen and Pantucci, 2022 ; Jardine and Lemon 2025). Collectively, this research challenges long-standing stereotypes of isolation, positioning states in these regions as agents in an increasingly multi-polar world ; with local elites and other actors (including civil society, activists, and cultural producers) emerging in this new scholarship as adept managers of the tensions between domestic politics and the demands of larger powers.

Despite the emerging focus on Central Asia and the Caucasus as a cornerstone to geopolitical shifts and, separately, a growing scholarship on the politics of gender and sexuality, only recently have scholars have considered the relationship between the geopolitical shifts in these regions and their impact on the politics and norms of gender and sexuality (Shevtsova, 2023 ; Luciani, 2023 ; Dall’Agnola and Wilkinson, 2025 ; Namazov, 2024). To advance this research agenda and as part of the AHRC-DFG project “Transitions : Examining Changing Regimes of Sexuality in Post-Soviet Muslim Republics,” we are organizing a Special Issue in Sexualities to develop this agenda further. Topics of interest include but are not limited to :

• “Norm entrepreneurs” in shaping discourses on gender and sexuality in Central Asia and the Caucasus since the 1990s.
• Critical junctures in efforts to promote specific normative positions by external actors—through legal reforms, funding initiatives, or other mechanisms.
• Localization of reforms or discourses introduced by external actors in Central Asia and the Caucasus. 
• The endurance of Soviet-era gender norms or how they have been displaced or hybridized. 
• Liberal and Islamic genealogies and discourses on “traditional” or “national” values.
• The role of religious actors in debates on gender and sexuality. 
• The role of global powers, including China, Russia, and USA influencing debates and norms of gender and sexuality.
• The role of other actors including from Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and the UAE in influencing debates and norms of gender and sexuality.

Submission Process

In order to provide authors with feedback and ensure the highest quality of the special issue, we follow a multi-step submission process. Authors should send Prof. Dr. Timothy Nunan [timothy.nunan@ur.de] and a proposal as a single PDF document containing their proposed paper title, an abstract of no more than 500 words, and a short biographical note (100 words, describing their current position and research focus) by December 1, 2026. 

Feedback on abstracts and invitations to submit full articles will be returned by early January 2027. Invited authors must then submit their manuscripts (maximum 7,000 words and conforming to the style guidelines of Sexualities) to Dr Delatolla and Prof. Dr. Nunan for initial desk edits by March 15, 2027, before submitting their articles to the journal portal by April 15, 2027. The articles will be independently peer reviewed ; an invitation to submit an article to the special issue does not guarantee publication in Sexualities.

Issue coordinators

• Dr Andrew Delatolla is Associate Professor in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Leeds.
• Dr Timothy Nunan is Professor for Transregional Cultures of Knowledge in the Department of Interdisciplinary and Multiscalar Area Studies (DIMAS) at the University of Regensburg.