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CATALYST 
Published by: Prevention at the Intersections

ISSUE I
Theme: Mind, Body, & Gender

For the 1st issue of CATALYST, we are accepting submissions that address the connections between the mind and the body in our work to prevent violence and heal community harm. We are accepting submissions that focus on strategies to mend injustices from a variety of perspectives. We would like to review work that focuses on embodied philosophies of social change and healing as a practice of collective liberation. 

Our goal will the Mind, Body, & Gender issue is to bring light to issues that intersect with people's experiences of ability, sexuality, citizenship, age, gender identity, relationship status, body image, and beyond. We recognize that the work to prevent violence is multi-faceted and we need critical voices in defining the framework for strategies to be developed. 

"I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually."
― James Baldwin

"I really think the range of emotions and perceptions I have had access to as a black person and as a female person are greater than those of people who are neither... So it seems to me that my world did not shrink because I was a black female writer. It just got bigger." 
  • Toni Morrison


ISSUE 2
Theme: The Criminalization of Dissent

In the 2nd issue of CATALYST, we will focus on the theme of social and political dissent in the U.S. With a particular emphasis on the protection of our civil and human rights. We are interested in sharing experiences from front line organizers, artists, and thought leaders about our rights to engage in civil disobedience. We accept submissions that focus on human rights and access to civil rights. We want to review submissions that highlight what is being done in the U.S. to dismantle our abilities to provide much-needed dissent in American political decision making.  We know that through misuse of policies and covert action by the government and law enforcement agencies, there is a strategic effort to silence our voices and remove our ability to self organize and work towards collective liberation.

​We will publish submissions that focus on the themes of this issue with a particular emphasis on issues of political and social dissent in the United States.  We are open to submissions that focus on strategies to rebuild and defend our constitutional rights to offer dissent to the state. We will review submissions that relate to experiences about the misuse of power by our government and U.S. corporations. We'd like to publish submissions that discuss key tactics being used by the U.S. government and local municipalities to convert the image of dissent into terrorism and to shape protests as criminal behavior.  

"To sin by silence, when they should protest, makes cowards of men."
― Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence."
― Leonardo da Vinci


ISSUE 3
Theme: Systems Change

At the intersections of our individual and group experiences, we have different relationships with the state and how the system impacts us. For the 3rd issue of CATALYST, we will accept submissions on the themes of systems change. The goal is to raise awareness of the root causes of social problems that are embedded in local, state-wide, regional, and national agencies. We hope to address concerns regarding policy change and moving past reformation framework of systems change, to systems creation. A system is 'a set of things — people, cells, molecules, or whatever — interconnected in such a way that they produce their pattern of behavior over time' (Meadows, 2010). We are interested in submissions that address concerns of complicity and defiance against the systematic oppression people face. We want submissions that will bring light to the intractable networks of oppression that mar the lives of people at the margins.

"You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time."
― Angela Davis

"Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the initiators, if they themselves are the result of violence?"
― Paolo Freire

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."
― Desmond Tutu (Foreword)


ISSUE 4
Theme: The Politics of Health & Well-Being

Health and well-being are wrapped up in our social, political, and economic norms and forced living conditions. While power and the influence of capitalism, arguably, should not have an impact on whether an individual, group, or community has access to the care needed to live a healthy life - the reality doesn't mirror that framework. Instead, we are put at risk by a health care system funded by corporations that aim to conflate profitability with the well being of human beings and the environment.

Well-being as a concept and as a policy framework that has been researched and debated extensively in the fields of Humanities, Economics, Psychology, Sociology, Social Work, and Human Services. However, the discipline of Politics or even a political analysis on the topic has been largely shallow in their analysis and critique of the system. Thus, leaving potentially important and critical insights absent from debates. In this final issue of CATALYST, we are looking for submissions that will highlight the intersections of health and well being in our lives and lived structures and systems.

 
"It is man's social being that determines his thinking. Once the correct ideas characteristic of the advanced class are grasped by the masses, these ideas turn into a material force which changes society and changes the world."

 - Mao Tse Tung 



Types of submissions we accept.
  • Academic Articles
  • Commentaries
  • Poetry
  • Short stories (fiction/nonfiction)
  • Case Studies
  • Testimonials (inspired by personal experience)
  • Notes from the life of an organizer
  • Photography (with 50-100 word captions @ minimum) (high-resolution photos)
  • Videos (1-8 minutes) (with 50-100 word captions @ minimum) (.mov files only)
  • Audio files (1-8 minutes)  (with 50-100 word captions @ minimum) (prefer mp4 or mp3 files)
 

Text Requirements
  • 11-12 point font (Times, Arial, Helvetica)
  • Double spaced
  • MLA or APA citations
  • Hyperlinks also accepted


All submissions will only be accepted on submittable. See this link: submittable.com to create an account. 
 
Email preventionagenda [at] protonmail.com with any questions. 72-hour standard wait time for responses.

 
Editor
Crystallee Crain, Ph.D.
 
Advisory Board
Tammy Murphy, LLM
Heather Mattioli
Angel Brown
Michele Wilson, M.A.




 
About us
Prevention at the Intersections is a community-based organization that works to eliminate harm within marginalized communities.
 
We are an international network of scholars and activists interested in bringing a critical, interdisciplinary perspective and a human rights approach that analyzes, researches, and organizes groups towards community action.
 
Our mission is to: create and implement transformative responses to violence and other forms of harm against marginalized communities. We do this by providing rigorous research, publication opportunities, and training programs.
 
We have been in existence for 10 years, to celebrate our anniversary of prevention science work and research we are publishing 4 issues and one volume of an online open-access journal on topics that intersect with prevention community violence, state oppression, and systemic inequality.
 





About Editor: Dr. Crystallee Crain
Crystallee Crain Ph.D., is a social and political critic with academic roots in sociology, political science, and psychology. Dr. Crain has developed curriculum and taught courses at the university level for over a decade. She specializes in uncovering the layers of institutional inequality while supporting communities to shift ways of being and practice to improve life chances. She has worked as a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant for nonprofit organizations. Crystallee has a passion for evaluation studies that will impact policy reform and positive social change. 

Currently, Dr. Crain holds a lectureship in the Political Science department with California State University - East Bay.  Dr. Crain is a human rights scholar and advocates for government accountability globally. She has traveled to 23 countries on the continents of Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Australia/Oceania.  Recently, she has done research in the South Pacific (Republic of Marshall Islands) on domestic violence survivors and plans to conduct an equity-based evaluation of LGBTQ people's experiences, policies, and practices in Indonesia in 2020. She reported on the World Festival of Youth & Students in Caracas, Venezuela in 2005 and regularly writes cultural critiques on her Medium site. 

She teaches online courses on a variety of topics including (but not limited to): media studies, creative writing, self-publishing, nonprofit advocacy, health equity, and other social justice topics. You can find more of her curriculum development work on her Social Justice Curriculum website.  She has written two books, the first edition of A People's Primer: Dispatches on Politics & Social Change (2014) and her upcoming publication - Superfluous Pains (2020).

Crystallee earned a Doctorate of Philosophy in Transformative Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, CA. She holds a Master of Arts in Social Sciences (a concentration in Sociology from Eastern Michigan University), and a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from Northern Michigan University. In 2013 she received advanced training in Health and Human Rights from the School of Public Health at Harvard University. 

Dr. Crain has served as a member of the Alameda County Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Commission, The City of Portland's Human Rights Commission, and is a current member of the National Coalition of Independent Scholars, the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE), the National Anger Management Association, and the American Evaluation Association.