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The Most Lethal Virus Is Not COVID-19
agitatejournalThe escalating panic and fear surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic is palpable across the social spectrum. The Governor of California has ordered the entire to state to “shelter in place” for the foreseeable future, meaning we can leave home only for essential tasks. Yes, the virus is yet to be fully known and controlled; yes, the incidence of infection is increasing and cannot be predicted accurately; yes this virus causes death. And yes, we must keep washing our hands and taking other precautions and maintaining physical distance. We must also practice social solidarity. This means involving ourselves in mutual aid, supporting healthcare workers, and finding effective ways to support workers and families in precarious situations and small businesses at risk of not surviving. At the same time, must keep socializing virtually through dancing, music concerts, and other creative, inspiring, and healing, as well as fun, gatherings.
(Too) Great Expectations? On Fieldwork, Guidelines, and Ethics in Human Geography
agitatejournalby Mark Anthony Arceño, Deondre Smiles, Emelie Bailey, Anurag Mazumdar, Thelma Vélez, J.P. Wilson, Kelly Yotebieng, and Kendra McSweeney ABSTRACT This blog post engages the American Association of Geographers’ (AAG) 2009 “Statement on Professional Ethics.” We argue that the Statement falls short in helping us (students) understand how we know if we are doing…
Shav-vahini Ganga | Ganga, the Carrier of Corpses | શબવાહિની ગંગા | शव-वाहिनी गंगा
agitatejournalby Parul Khakhar India is going through a devastating second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although this second wave was long predicted by medical and scientific experts, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government under Prime Minister Modi boasted of how India had conquered the virus. The stories from the first wave—of thousands of migrant wage…
Demolition Politics in India: An Anti-Muslim, Anti-Dissent Strategy
agitatejournalBy AGITATE! Editorial Collective In the past few months, the Indian state under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has weaponized yet another mechanism of terror as part of its virulent anti-Muslim pogrom: the demolition of Muslim homes. Since coming to power in 2014, but especially after it was reelected in the 2019 elections, the BJP…
‘If I Must Die’ by Refaat Alareer, with Translations
agitatejournalSeries Co-editors’ Prologue to Sowmya Ramanathan’s Agitation, “Nature with Culture: Learning from Afro-Colombian feminists to imagine gender beyond the human”
agitatejournalBy Ponni Arasu, in conversation with Richa Nagar *This is part of the ongoing series Holding Movements, Agitating Epistemes convened and co-edited by Ponni Arasu and Richa Nagar.* Read Sowmya Ramanathan’s piece here. Sowmya Ramanathan’s intervention is a breath of fresh air. She drives home the critical point that just as…
యింకో ద్వేష భక్తి గీతం! Another Ode to Hate-riotism
agitatejournaloriginal poem in Telugu by Afsar, translated into English by N. Venugopal యింకో ద్వేష భక్తి గీతం!~అయినా ప్రేమిస్తూనే వుండమని కదా చెప్తావ్. గోడలన్నీ నెత్తుటి మరకలవుతాయ్, వీధుల్లో తల ఎత్తుకొని నడవలేను. పసిపిల్లాడి లాగు విప్పి మరీ సున్తీ పరీక్షలు చేస్తావ్. యిప్పటికీ నా పేరు కంటే నా చివరి పేరు మీదే నీ వూనిక. నేనెక్కడా లేను. నేనేమిటో యెవరికీ అక్కర్లేదు. శాసనాలు చేయక్కర్లేదు ఆదేశాలు కాగితాల మీదే…
Artwork
agitatejournal
by Sunil Awachar Dr Sunil Abhiman Awachar is a poet, painter and Assistant Professor at the Department of Marathi, University of Mumbai, India. He is a full-time activist in the Dalit human rights movement. He has published four anthologies of poetry in Marathi, that include ‘Global vartamanachya kavita (2008)’ ‘Mi mahasattechya darashi katora gheun ubha…
Memory Histories: I Am Not Your Data
agitatejournalBy Anjali Arondekar I am not your data, nor am I your vote bank,I am not your project, or any exotic museum object,I am not the soul waiting to be harvested,Nor am I the lab where your theories are tested,I am not your cannon fodder, or the invisible worker,or your entertainment at India habitat center,I…
AGITATE! as Creative Commons: AGITATE! Editorial Collective Speaks to Nancy Sims
agitatejournalThis interview was compiled by Nancy Sims, Copyright Program Librarian at the University of Minnesota for Against the Grain. It was published in the Charleston Hub on November 30, 2021. AGITATE! Editorial Collective members Keavy McFadden, Richa Nagar, Sara Musaifer, Emina Bužinkić, Nithya Rajan, Sima Shakhsari, and Samira Musleh participated in the interview. Introducing AGITATE!…
Gaza Monologues in the Balkans
agitatejournalPeople and collectives across geographies, including many that are part of the AGITATE! Community took up ASHTAR Theatre’s call for solidarity with Gaza. Our comrades from the Balkans organized the translation, reading, performance and extensive sharing of Gaza Monologues on the International Day of Solidarity with Palestine, observed on Wednesday, Nov 29th. The Free Palestine…
Nature with Culture: Learning from Afro-Colombian feminists to imagine gender beyond the human
agitatejournalBy Sowmya Ramanathan *This is part of the multi-part series Holding Movements, Agitating Epistemes: Remembering, Retelling, and Dreaming for Justice convened and co-edited by Richa Nagar and Ponni Arasu. Read the Series Co-editors’ Prologue to this piece here.* Does a mangrove have a gender? Do the oceans? The rivers? The skies? If you are…
Why the Chinese are Making a Catastrophic Mistake in Xinjiang
agitatejournalby Daanish Mustafa Malice against children is emblematic of evil in the Abrahamic religious tradition. The Old Testament tells the story of how the Pharaoh ordered the murder of every male Hebrew child born in Egypt to protect himself against the Messiah—Moses (es)—that the shamans had foretold would destroy him. Ironically, he ended up…
Some Thoughts on the U.S. Presidential Election
agitatejournalby Sima Shakhsari As we anxiously wait for the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, many who are rightly worried about the ramifications of another four years under Trump’s presidency have hoped that Trump’s removal would restore the American democracy. This hope for restoration raises several concerns, that while not particular to this…
The Black Radical Tradition Can Help Us Imagine a More Just World
agitatejournalby Brian Lozenski Thanks to Truthout and author Brian Lozenski for granting us the permission to reprint this article on AGITATE Now!. You can access the original article here, published originally on June 23, 2020. Just as quickly as protests mounted in cities and towns across the country after George Floyd joined the ever-growing…
On the Protests in Iran
agitatejournalBy Sima Shakhsari 23 September 2022 I got an interview request by a journalist from Switzerland and these are the questions: “My main question is why autocrats, including the Iranian regime, fear women and queer movements/activism and perceive them as a threat to their survival. Why is there a need to control women’s bodies? What…
Brownness and Being in the Twenty-First Century
agitatejournalBy Joy Mazahreh Brown.ness (n.)Being Brown;The state of being reduced to storing corpses in ice cream trucks;Or pleading for help in English at a “press conference” in front of Al-Shifa Hospital (held by children);Or trying to convince the world that you are dying by showing the corpses of loved ones on camera Teta…
A friend is passing on today…
agitatejournalWomen of Color Should Be the Ones Remaking U.S. Foreign Policy
agitatejournalby Christine Ahn, Yifat Susskind, and Cindy Wiesner In the 2020 presidential election, Black women, Indigenous women and people of color across the country delivered the votes to throw Donald Trump out of office. These voters want a new era in policy priorities, requiring radical change to the status quo—not just when it comes to U.S.…
Sci-Fi as Accessible Movement Building: A Review of Larissa Lai’s “The Tiger Flu”
agitatejournalby Chloe Dunston The Tiger Flu is set in the year 2145, which author Larissa Lai depicts as a “time after oil” divided by factions, gender, disease, and technology. After years of greedy leadership, environmental degradation, and the exhaustion of fossil fuels, Saltwater City and its outskirts stand alone in what was formerly Vancouver, Canada.…
Woman Life Freedom: A Panel on the Protests in Iran
agitatejournalMahsa Amini, a 22-year old Kurdish-Iranian woman who died while in the custody of the Iranian Guidance Patrol, has become the symbol of the massive protests in Iran. Iranian women have been in the forefront of the protests, removing their hijabs and/or cutting their hair. In this conversation, Professors Yalda Hamidi, Minoo Moallem, and Fatemeh…
Stories, Healing, Transformation: A Conversation with Amoke Kubat
agitatejournalIn October 2023, Amoke Kubat—artist, storyteller, activist, and performer—visited Approaches to Knowledge and Truth: Ways of Knowing in Development Studies and Social Change, a graduate seminar organized and facilitated by Richa Nagar through the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change at the University of Minnesota. The participants—Lindsey Willow Smith, Kaeda Sabrewing, Somayeh Nikoonazari,…
In Praise of Empathy
agitatejournalHealthy Living
agitatejournal“She has one thousand eyes, Our Mother Goddess Maadathy”: Exploring separation and invisible labor through Leena Manimekalai’s strategic deifications
agitatejournal
by Drishadwati Bargi Director Leena Manimekalai’s Maadathy: An Un-Fairy Tale (2021) belongs to a historical moment when anti-caste cinema and in extension an anti-caste audience have already acquired a vibrant presence in India and the diaspora, thanks to the works of Nagaraj Manjule, Mari Selvaraj, Pa. Ranjith, Neeraj Ghaywan among others. What is perhaps unique…
For Life, When Death Crumbles
agitatejournal
By Sima Shakhsari Mahsa (Jina) Amini, a 22-year old Kurdish-Iranian woman, died in the hospital on September 16, 2022, three days after being arrested by the Iranian Guidance Patrol (also known as the “morality police” in English ) for her alleged “improper hijab.” Her murder became the mobilizing cry for the massive protests that have…
The Gatherer’s Call: For the Love of Prayer and Protest
agitatejournalBy Humera Afridi Power, kinship, beauty, and grace evince themselves in unified, embodied supplication. Hope and victory reside in solidarity. This protest was prayer in action. There is a certain magic to Jummah. That midday hour on Friday is imbued with a sweetness which on some lucky Fridays extends a numinous quality all the…
A Frank Discussion with Iranian Americans about COVID19 and US Sanctions on Iran
agitatejournalby CODEPINK It’s one thing to read news accounts about US sanctions and the outbreak of coronavirus in Iran, but it’s another to hear first-hand accounts. The following is a frank discussion with six Iranian Americans about how the collapse of the Iranian economy and the healthcare crisis affect the lives of people back…
Singhu: The Unwritten
agitatejournalby Simona Sawhney This piece was originally published on Dalit Camera: Through Un-Touchable Eyes— a platform for narratives, public meetings, songs, talks, discussion on dalits. The response of the mainstream media to the protesting farmers at Singhu and Tikri, like that of the government, oscillates between pity and indignation. On the one hand, there…
Maadathy: An Unfairy Tale– Screening and Panel Discussion
agitatejournalby Leena Manimekalai, Bhavana Goparaju, Ajmina Kassim, and Semmalar Annam in conversation with Roja Suganthy-Singh On October 15th, 2021, AGITATE! launched the North American tour of Maadathy: An Unfairy Tale in collaboration with the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota.1 The event included a screening of this film, followed…