Contribute to our inaugural issue:

Tua Ira: Queer Studies in Aotearoa invites contributions for its inaugural special issue, a celebration of Rainbow Research emerging from the Rainbow Research Symposium hosted at AUT.

This issue gathers and extends the intellectual, creative, and political energies of takatāpui, queer, rainbow, trans and allied research across Aotearoa. We are particularly committed to supporting emerging scholars, alongside established voices, in an interdisciplinary and affirming scholarly space.

Scope

We welcome contributions across disciplines that engage with takatāpui, queer, rainbow and trans concerns in Aotearoa:

• Indigenous, decolonial, and intersectional approaches
• Creative, poetic, and practice-led methodologies
• Public pedagogy, visual culture, archival and community-based research
• Experimental and hybrid forms of scholarly expression

Submission Format (Inaugural Issue)

Our inaugural issue celebrates the Rainbow Research that was presented at the Biennial National Rainbow Research Symposium: “Lighting the Academy” in 2025.  For this issue, we are asking contributors to submit short form articles developed from Symposium presentations. If you didn't present at the recent symposium but want to include your queer research in this issue, get in touch with the editors.

• Length: 3,000-4,000 words
• Form: Short form research articles, creative-critical essays, poetic inquiry, mixed-media or hybrid works

Submission Process

Expressions of Interest (EOI) can be emailed to tiqsa.editors@aut.ac.nz including:

• Working title
• 150–200 word outline of your intended contribution

Timeline

• Call for Papers Released: May 2026
• Expressions of Interest Due: 1 June 2026
• Full Submissions Due: 1 August 2026
• Peer Review & Revisions: August–October 2026
• Publication: 1 December 2026

Why Tua Ira?

Tua Ira gestures toward what lies beyond the visible line of life—towards thresholds, origins, intensities, and the genealogies of queer becoming. This journal seeks not only to document, review and advance queer research across the motu but to reimagine interdisciplinary queer thought and explore its possibilities. Tua Ira is a platform dedicated to emerging and established queer, rainbow and takatāpui research in Aotearoa.