About the Journal
Simbolismo, a Filipino term (derived from "symbolism" or "symbolisme" originating in late 19th century France), refers to the artistic use of a sign, symbol, or icon with a deeper contextual, social, cultural, political, or personal meaning moving beyond the literal meaning. These signs or symbols reside and are captured in images, texts, narratives or stories, literature, poetry, folk songs, dances, lived experiences, media, visuals, emotions, struggles, and memories and states of mind of individuals, groups, or communities that represent ideas that stand for something bigger.
Simbolismo has the power to summon us to question, remember, reflect, and find grounding and meaning in our environments, subcultures, and communities. Simbolismo sanctions us to locate our identity and galvanize our sense of place and positionality in the local communities in which we live, and in the expanding diaspora in which we continue to tread.
Simbolismo invites us to engage ourselves in persistent introspection, rumination, and deep memory recall as our way of maintaining a deeper connection with our distant past as a people and a community with rich history, traditions, and culture so that we can keep living the present and forging ourselves to the future.
Simbolismo allows us to have a clearer sense of who we are, our beginnings, and our collective consciousness by exploring, explicating, narrating, or writing about ideas and topics that resonate deeply with our sense of self, and our way of life as a people, wherever we are in the world.
Simbolismo summons qualitative researchers to explore gaps in the subjectivities in meaning-making that can potentially be bridged by how signs and the understanding of sign systems are shared and understood.
Simbolismo recognises that even if we share a common language, words can mean different things to different people; therefore, misconceptions and miscommunication can happen, and the qualitative researcher has the role of surfacing subtle behaviours of people and subcultures for more nuanced meanings to come to the fore.
Simbolismo offers writers, researchers, and scholars a safe space to share their articles that matter to them and their communities. Recognising multiplicity, plurality, and intersectionality of ideas and knowledge (established or emerging), Simbolismo would like to inspire beginning writers and scholars of semiotics and its related fields to think, write, and publish. Rather than stigmatise beginning writers and scholars, Simbolismo offers them a proactive and supportive review process that promotes inquiry and inclusivity.
Simbolismo is free and open access and uses DOIs for cross-referencing. It is licensed through Creative Commons and published through OJS-PKP (Open Journal Systems – Public Knowledge Project) as the main platform and workflow.
All content published in Simbolismo is under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International CC BY-NC 4.0 at no cost to authors and will be freely available to readers.
Aims and Scope
Simbolismo publishes original articles emerging primarily from the field of semiotics (sign systems or the intersubjective mediation by signs). As a qualitative journal, Simbolismo encourages researchers to consider semiotics as the theoretical and methodological framework in their studies of signs and symbols around them (e.g., images, texts, narratives or stories, literature, poetry, folk songs, dances, lived experiences, media, visuals, emotions, struggles, and memories, and states of mind, to name a few).
Simbolismo accepts articles that explore, analyse, or interpret the sign systems and sign-object relationships that are evident but hidden in the local language, local culture, and local heritage, traditions, habits, and practices of peoples and their communities. Simbolismo also accepts articles that attempt to intersect or entangle other fields or domain knowledge, spheres, and theories with the fundamental tenets of semiotics or the study of intersubjective mediation by signs and symbols. Simbolismo invites articles in which authors put the intersecting fields of their disciplinary knowledge in conversation with semiotics or sign systems to surface new, emerging, or subjugated knowledge in a creative, imaginative, artistic, unorthodox, and critical way.
Simbolismo accepts articles that explore sensemaking or meaning making in semiotic systems such as language, gestures and expressions, images, texts, narratives or stories, literature, poetry, dance, metaphors and analogies, music, media, lived experiences, relationships, emotions, memories, and states of mind, to name a few. Simbolismo welcomes submissions combining semiotic theory and creative-interpretive methodology with empirical evidence that stimulates the meaning-making of signs and objects and illustrates the relevance and meaning of this relationship to scholars, researchers, and the reading public.
The Editors of Simbolismo maintain ideation workshops that aim to inspire beginning writers and researchers to conduct creative research that pursues deep thinking, veering away from conventionally formulaic research practices that can potentially impede writing, stifle creative imagination, and stymy interest, curiosity, drive, and motivation.
Simbolismo provides a progressive, proactive, dynamic, critical, and creative space for researchers to utilise qualitative methods and other creative methods for new, emerging, and subjugated knowledge to come to the fore, yet ensures that the quality and originality of work is maintained.
Editor-in-Chief: Dr Nimrod L. Delante | Email: editor@simbolismo.org
Publisher Registration No: R250508-007 with the National Library Board of Singapore
