CFP : Essential Workers in Pandemic Discourse – Dramatic Depiction on Stage and on Screen (Media)

The year 2020 was not only a pandemic year, it overstretched many people specifically the frontline and essential workers. From the health professionals and caregivers in hospital wards, to the police and emergency officers, cleaners, reporters and journalists, postman that delivers mails and others. These people due to the peculiarities of their jobs had to hold the bull by its horns. For many of them, this was unprecedented and through sweats, cries, laugh and moments of giving-in and giving up, and determination, they held strongly to the fort.

Essential workers have played altruistic roles that measure up quite commendably; especially during the outbreak of the pandemic. These people even took on volunteer roles which demand some sort of compensation or outright wages, for duties carried even at the risk of losing their lives. A scholarly collection that valorizes essential workers and critique existing structures in which these workers exist is important. This is because many postcolonial governments, and state functionaries hardly see the remarkable ideals of selflessness in essential workers but rather, ignore the very core nature and circumstances that surround the tasks they fulfill in order to curtail the anxieties caused by the pandemic, saving lives and reducing the death rates, helping elderly people to go survive the health hazards, instructing potential victims about how to maintain social distancing at health centers, hospitals, clinics, isolation centers, distributing masks even at the risk of their own lives. In spite of their contributions most of them go unrewarded for their act of bravery and valor, during the period of these unsavory quagmire. In a recent article by Bouakary Sawadogo, the writer opined that, in the city of New York,

“it is estimated that there are thousands of undocumented African immigrants in New York. Undocumented immigrants in the US are ineligible for emergency assistance, such as unemployment benefits or the economic impact payments of up to $1200 per individual paid out by the federal government. Yet, these immigrants— mostly low-paid essential workers—form a key part of the labor force that kept New York City running under the stay-at-home order. Many African immigrants in particular work in “essential” occupations such as delivery workers, grocery store clerks, cab drivers, cleaners, homecare aides, health care workers, and more, without protection mechanisms such as health insurance.”

If immigrant essential workers could go through such grueling experience, from a government they claim to serve how much of the horrendous experiences, would have gone uncited or unrecorded, in the continent of Africa and indeed the third world? The collection seeks to constitute a discourse around how Covid-19 impacted on, and altered duties of essential workers, and how these workers have been mediated and remediated in the media, on screen, literature and the stage enactments and performances. Our focus shall also gesture towards alternate media such as, street drama, street performances, flash mobs, short films, features films, documentaries and so on. We seek essays that demonstrate what Boukary Sawadogo described (about the attitude, bravery and rare courage of these peculiar workers), as “emblematic of a certain resilience and adaptability”, of a different breed and a selected population of people who risked their lives at the expense of a lot of people.

This book proposes to investigate ways in which essential workers have been depicted both on stage and on screen. Essays will critically examine creative contents via different theoretical lens.

Questions that might be explored (although this list is by no means exhaustive) include:

• What lessons can we learn from essential workers?
• How can government be instigated to take essential-workers serious in a neo-
  colonial polity?
• How do we see the concept of “commitment” in a time of Covid 19?
• How can marginalized people benefit richly, and massively from the huge
  largesse in government coffers of postcolonial governments?
• How has the media, screen, literature or stage performances and other alternate media and performances mediated the iconic resilience of frontline
  workers during a period of Covid 19?
• How can we embrace the diversity of essential labour in film, literature,
  popular literature and culture?
• What would be an aesthetics of labour or the dignity of labour in World Screen
  Media-within the context of essential/frontline workers?
• How does equity and diversity distort hegemonic tendencies and attitudes in
  a dichotomized world?

The aim of the volume is first to celebrate frontline and essential workers by shining
light on their exemplary work and effort before, during and after pandemic. Also, in this volume, we want to challenge dominant narrative that exist within frontline/essential workers categorization as a way to create a dialogue around the issues of equity, representation, and labour. We invite contributions from scholars across different disciplines to engage with the ideas proposed in this call. We welcome different methodologies, from practical case studies to theoretically or empirically informed arguments to creative responses. We also welcome the inclusion of quotations in different languages (although with English translations.)

Submissions need to include:

i) An abstract of 500 words (highlighting whether it is a paired work or single authored work)
ii) Author’s biography of not more than 150 words.

Deadline for submission: 1 November, 2021

Submit to Editors: Dr. Taiwo Afolabi (Taiwo.Afolabi@uregina.ca) and Tunde Onikoyi (tundeonikoyi@gmail.com)

Please note: We will notify you by 1st December, 2021 of the outcome of your abstract. If selected, we will expect a full chapter draft of 6,000-8,000 words by March 1st 2022. Word count will include footnotes but excludes bibliography. The final decisions about articles selected to compliment the volume will depend on the quality of your paper.

Style Referencing System
Please use the APA style referencing system and UK rather than US spelling. If you quote something in an African language (which is encouraged), please make sure that you also provide an English translation.