Call for Papers
Special Issue
2024 (Volume 44/ Issue 2)
Beyond surviving:
Understanding and facilitating exits from homelessness
Guest editor:
Mehmet Ali Akyurt (Istanbul University, Istanbul, Türkiye)
Deadline for article submission:
September 1, 2024
Istanbul University Journal of Sociology is pleased to announce our special issue titled “Beyond surviving: Understanding and facilitating exits from homelessness,” and we welcome your submissions.
The rise of homelessness in the US, Europe and the rest of the world since the 1980s has led to an increase in homelessness studies. With the diversification of services provided and the increase in permanent solution attempts, research focusing on the phenomenon of "recovery from homelessness" has also started to be conducted since the late 1990s. In addition to understanding the sources and causes of homelessness, the problems experienced by the homeless and the "tactics" they develop to cope with them, ensuring their return to social life has also become an important issue. This special issue is needed both for the evaluation of the existing literature and for new research in this field. The following topics come to mind in the context of this issue:
- Relationships, hierarchy and groupings among homeless people on the streets and their positive and negative effects on recovery from homelessness
- Relationships of street homeless people with service providers and local actors and their impact on recovery from homelessness
- The effects of homeless people's emotional states, daily routines, self-care activities, their outlook on the future, their relations with stray animals, etc. on their recovery from homelessness
- The effects of relationships and solidarity patterns among homeless people staying in homeless shelters on recovery from homelessness
- The relations of homeless people in institutions such as shelters, day centers, drop-in centers and housing-first buildings with the neighborhood and the approach of local actors to homeless people
- The role of peer support and the "formerly homeless" in processes of recovery from homelessness
- Use of volunteer labor by service providers working with homeless people, volunteer cultivation processes and their contribution to recovery from homelessness
- Professional difficulties experienced by social workers, psychologists and counselors working with homeless people, gaining experience and supervision processes
- Factors that make it difficult and easy for homeless people to be involved in the processes (persuasion, accompaniment, treatment, care) of gaining physical/psychological health and recovery from addiction
- Employment support as a facilitator of recovery from homelessness and the difficulties and facilitating factors in the processes of homeless people acquiring a profession and getting a job
- Evaluation of the staircase model and housing-first approach; food distribution, basic needs support, accompaniment, family reunification, psycho-social support, mediation services, street social work, outreach work, homeless shelters, day centers, drop-in centers, and innovative models in terms of their effectiveness in overcoming homelessness
- The relationship between recovery from homelessness and socio-demographic variables such as age, gender, education, qualification, and conviction status
- Difficulties experienced by homeless people in processes such as settling into a home, socializing, managing social relations and budgets, points where the process is blocked and facilitating factors
- The phenomenon of becoming homeless again in the post-homelessness recovery process, risks related to exiting homelessness and returning to homelessness, and supportive activities
- The role of local and central governments in the process of recovery from homelessness in the context of social policy
- Exiting homelessness and "ex-homeless" success stories
It is envisaged to publish studies in the disciplines of public health, psychiatry, communication, demography, anthropology, psychology, social psychology, social work and sociology around these titles or similar ones. We are looking forward to your contributions such as review articles, theoretical articles, research articles, book reviews, etc. for the special issue of our journal "Beyond surviving: Understanding and facilitating exits from homelessness", which is planned to be published in December 2024.
All submitted manuscripts will undergo a double-blind peer-review process. Manuscripts that are not related to the scope of the special issue, are not in the correct format, or do not follow the author guidelines will be returned without review.
About Istanbul University Journal of Sociology
Istanbul University Journal of Sociology is published by the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Letters, Istanbul University, which was founded in 1914, and has made significant contributions to the development of sociology as a scientific discipline in Turkey. Istanbul University Journal of Sociology, the first issue of which was published in 1917, is a peer-reviewed academic journal published biannually and indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) - Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) and TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM TR-Dizin. (For more information about the journal, see https://iupress.istanbul.edu.tr/tr/journal/iusd/home)
About Article Submission
Submissions will be accepted in Turkish or English via https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/tjs until September 1, 2024. For questions to the editor, please contact mehmetali.akyurt@istanbul.edu.tr. For technical questions, please email sosyolojidergi@istanbul.edu.tr.