Observing Intimacies: System-Theoretical Analyses of Love Relationships Today

CALL FOR PAPERS

Journal: Kybernetes

Publisher:Emerald Publishing

Abstract Submission Deadline: 15 April 2026

Full Paper Submission Deadline: 15 October 2026

Introduction

Around the globe, intimate relationships have undergone important cultural, normative, political, and practical transformations over the last half century. Ideals and values, expectations and distinctions through which people build their relationships have become increasingly pluralized — and so do relationship options across duration, commitment, exclusivity, and material organization.

Most theoretically oriented work in this field adopts a normative stance and a sensationalist tone, sometimes hardly concealing nostalgia for an idealized version of traditional relationships and gender arrangements. This Special Issue explicitly promotes an observational and analytical approach to intimacies — as opposed to a normative one — to advance knowledge production, encourage data-driven debates, and contribute to curbing polarized public discourse and disinformation in media debates on intimate relationships.

Scope & Significance

This Special Issue pursues two main goals:

First, it seeks to revitalize scholarly debates around a relatively underexplored dimension of Luhmann's theoretical and empirical work — namely, his analysis of the evolution of the intimate system and of love as a communication medium in modern societies. Luhmann's conceptualization and empirical investigations into the semantic and social evolution of intimate relationships remain highly relevant for scholars examining contemporary transformations of intimate life across diverse sociocultural contexts.

Second, it encourages scholars to engage with Luhmann's systems theory toolbox to provide original, theoretically robust, and empirically grounded discussions of the transformations of intimate relationships — stimulating theoretical innovation in a field where rich and diverse data on emerging relationship forms are often disconnected from theoretical frameworks.

By welcoming submissions from diverse sociocultural environments, this Special Issue also aims to bridge gaps between debates unfolding within specific national or culturally homogeneous contexts.

Two Observational Perspectives

The editors invite submissions drawing on Luhmann and systems theory, addressing topics through either of the following two perspectives:

Perspective 1 — Observing Intimate Systems Through Systems Theory

Papers adopting this perspective will deal with applications and empirically based discussions of system-theoretical concepts in the study of intimate relationships — including code, medium, intimate communication, self-reference, semantics, and autopoiesis.

Guiding questions include:

How do programs and semantic repertoires for intimacy change historically and across contexts?
What semantic evolutions stabilize emerging relationship forms?
How is intimacy reproduced through self-reference and communicative improbability within the diversification of intimate configurations?
How do platforms, markets, and mobilities reconfigure intimate communication and semantic evolution?
How are expectations stabilized under volatility — precarity, mobility, migration, long-distance — and how is disappointment dealt with?

Perspective 2 — Systems Observing Intimate Systems

Papers adopting this perspective will deal with the ways other social systems — law, politics, education, morals, media, art — observe intimacies in contemporary societies.

Guiding questions include:

How do legal categories such as family, consent, and marriage observe and shape intimate possibilities?
How do media and platform logics observe and influence relationship norms?
How do moral and political discourses observe and problematize specific intimacies?
How do parties, policy agendas, and governance devices mobilize intimacy as a resource in political conflicts?
How are queer intimacies observed, and with what recurrent inclusion or exclusion effects?

List of Topic Areas

Manuscripts are invited on themes including, but not limited to:

Social systems theory and intimate relationships
Sociology of intimacy
Sexualities and intimate configurations
Gender and relationship norms
Social semantics and the evolution of intimate communication
Luhmann's theory applied to love and intimacy
Legal, political, and media observations of intimacy
Platform logics and digital reconfiguration of intimate relationships
Queer intimacies and inclusion or exclusion dynamics
Cross-cultural and comparative studies of intimate transformations

Guest Editors

Prof. Chiara Piazzesi Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Canada 📧 piazzesi.chiara@uqam.ca

Prof. Martin Blais Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Canada

Prof. Riccardo Prandini University of Bologna, Italy

Key Deadlines

📝 Abstract Submission Deadline: 15 April 2026 📩 Author Notification of Acceptance: 30 April 2026 📄 Full Paper Submission Deadline: 15 October 2026

Submission Guidelines

⚠️ Important — Abstract First: Authors are requested to submit an abstract before submitting a full paper. Authors may then be invited to submit a full paper after their abstract has been reviewed by the Guest Editor team.

📧 Submit Abstracts to: piazzesi.chiara@uqam.ca

Full paper submissions are made through ScholarOne Manuscripts.

When submitting, select "Observing Intimacies: System-Theoretical Analyses of Love Relationships Today" from the special issue drop-down menu at the appropriate step in the submission process.

⚠️ Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication elsewhere while under review for this journal.

For author guidelines, visit the official Kybernetes journal page on the Emerald Publishing website.

About the Journal

Kybernetes, published by Emerald Publishing, is an international peer-reviewed journal dedicated to cybernetics, systems theory, and related interdisciplinary fields. It provides a global platform for scholars exploring complex systems, communication, and theoretical frameworks across the social, natural, and applied sciences.

ServiceSetu Academics — Premier Platform for Academic Opportunities & Research Collaboration

Visit official website of the publisher

DETAILS