Volume Article

There’s Something in the Water

Tia-Simone Gardner

In her book A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None, Kathryn Yussof (2018) describes a thick relationship between extractive capitalism, geologic time, and (anti)Blackness. She writes, “As the Anthropocene proclaims the language of species life – Anthropos – through a universalist geologic commons, it neatly erases histories of racism that were incubated through the regulatory structure of geologic relations.

Khalamuni

Efadul Huq

This poem is an act of mourning, remembering, and grieving a loved one taken by the pandemic.

इंसानियत का लॉकडाउन

Richa Nagar and Richa Singh

The title of this piece translates to—Humanity in Lockdown. It documents the plight of migrant workers who fled Indian cities en masse, the deepening religious divide, and intensifying poverty in the context of COVID-19 pandemic and the nation-wide lockdown that was instituted in April 2020.

The Passage

Marijana Hameršak and Selma Banich

This work of Selma Banich & Marijana Hameršak that emerged in collaboration with the Women to Women Collective is a collection of portraits of migrants who lost their lives on the perilous journeys in the Balkans.

Remembering, Honoring and Grieving Migrant Deaths: Unsettling the Politics of Grave Silence

Emina Bužinkić

Emina Bužinkić I write these lines to remember, record and grieve fallen migrants who fiercely fought against the relentless border regimes in the Balkans and wider European geographies. Pushed into despair and ultimately robbed of breath, thousands of migrants attempt to cross the perilous terrains of the Balkans only to meet police batons, electric shocks,…

This is Not an Eggplant

Katayoun Amjadi

Katayoun Amjadi’s multimedia installations and visual poems, This is Not an Eggplant and Diaries of a Village Potter, question the “collective” and meditates on the course of political and environmental shifts.

Not Everything that Shines is Gold

Ericka A. Lara Ovares and Juliana Vélez
Agitate Logo

Collaborative writing isn’t easy. In the fall of 2017, Juliana and I (Ericka) took a class on ‘Ways of Knowing: Approaches to Knowledge and Truth in Development Studies and Social Justice’ that encouraged us to write together. Even though our fields are very different, we discovered we had a love for nature and our homelands in common. We took the opportunity to write on what threatens the vitality of our countries’ environments, and to write in a way that also reflects our people’s struggles to maintain sovereignty over their lands.

Vellai Mozhi

Marappachi Theatre, A. Mangai, A. Revathi, and Tamilarasi Anandavalli

We live in a time when conflict and destruction are no longer the exception but the norm. It often feels like a dark cloud is looming over us. However, those of us who have chosen to live with the purpose of changing the world to the best of our ability always see a silver lining to these clouds. Here we feature a performance of A. Revathi’s Vellai Mozhi directed by A. Mangai as well as a bilingual (Tamil/English) panel discussion on the role of art in queer activism. We also include written comments from Mangai and Revathi on how art, theatre, and Vellai Mozhi have presented issues of sexuality in Tamil Nadu.

Collective Anti-Disciplinarity: Feeling Promiscuous, Positioning Narrative, and Making Home

Siddharth Bharath, SeungGyeong Ji, Naimah Petigny, and Sandra Rellier
Agitate Logo

Caste, Race, and Indigeneity Collective: How does one navigate the uneven terrains of scholarly recognition within academic work? What happens when no matter how loud you speak, certain bodies and the collectives they signify are not engaged, entirely dismissed or ignored within the academy, or within dominant intellectual and political institutions more generally?

Basic Demographic Questions

Suzanne Chew

Suzanne Chew’s poem grapples with the question of a “good interview” and the extractive nature of traditional academic research.

Autopsy and State Violence: Implications in the Death Investigation of George Floyd

Deondre Smiles

This essay examines the circumstances surrounding the death investigation of George Floyd, tying it into larger discussions surrounding the role of law enforcement and state structures in death investigations and autopsies. Drawing upon indigenous studies research, the piece looks at the undue influence upon coroners and medical examiners in cases of death by police brutality that do not put law enforcement in legal jeopardy.

Healthy Living

Jordan Starck

This set of companion poems agitates the dominant narratives that, for marginalized peoples, silent compliance will best secure their safety and wellbeing.

Telling Dis/Appearing Tales: Re-membering, Re-calling, Re-wor(l)ding

Richa Nagar, Sara Musaifer, and Maria C. Schwedhelm

In Spring 2017, the three of us became part of a semester-long journey through ‘Stories, Bodies, Movements’, a course co-facilitated by one of us (Richa) with Tarun Kumar, a visiting theater artist from Mumbai who joined us at the University of Minnesota. Here we reflect on our ever-unfolding relationships and experiences together.

Fractured Threads (Script)

'Stories, Bodies, Movements' Class, Fall 2017

Access is provided to a full copy of the script for Fractured Threads.

Imagining Transnational Solidarities: Speaking Across Divides

Imagining Transnational Solidarities Research Circle

Imagining Transnational Solidarities: Speaking Across Divides is a series of webinars that centered transnational feminist, Black, indigenous, migrant voices speaking to the contestations and possibilities emerging for social movements, art-making and political shifts in the midst of multiple crises.

Unlearning and Relearning the Self and Other: The Pedagogical Potential of Stories in the Classroom

Esmae Heveron

Each one of us has a unique way of making sense of our life experiences. The exchange of stories, in many different forms, allows us to develop and negotiate how we perceive ours and others’ identities, what we come to know as right and wrong, ethical and just. The way we think of power and privilege, oppression and freedom, and our wants and desires, are shaped through our individual interpretation of the stories we have received throughout our lives and continue to receive daily.