Kohl

This issue started as “A Revolutionary Archive of 2020,” and acquired a life of its own. It took the shapes and contours of the writing circle Kohl called for in early 2021. The circle met virtually for eight Saturdays. Tearing through the realisms of lockdown, migration, COVID-19, and occupation, we created an oasis for us to grieve, breathe, be in solidarity with each other, and do community differently. Our counter-archives spilled over disembodied archives. Despite all the odds, the circle continues to be our queer utopia in the making.  

Transformative justice is especially about how entire communities can radically address violence as structural without canceling each other, by going beyond individual and isolated blame. Those who are willingly putting themselves out there, exposing their own vulnerabilities, are calling on us to engage in this community work of care. 

This issue, in line with Kohl’s trajectory/ies, is a labour of political love. It finds solace, commitment, and determination in the undergrounds and cross-Oceanic rhizomes of friendships that defy conventional borders, visa applications, and our present time.  

This issue on resisting ableism, queering desirability is our attempt at building on and adding to the rich thinking that shapes disability justice, with interconnections between disability, race, gender and sexuality where we center queer disabled people of colour.  

Throughout the issue, patriarchy and capitalism are theorized as the pillars that sustain the status quo. With such a meta-structure, what are formal economies, and whose work is considered more valuable? 

• Refuting the Ideology of the Lebanese Rentier Economy: Towards Radical Change • Whose Revolution? A Reflection on The Iranian Uprisings - Iran • Co-optation versus co-creation: Reflections on building a feminist agenda • “Un violador en tu camino:” Lessons from the Feminist Chilean Revolution – Chile and more

Understanding systems of criminal justice as massive machines for mental and physical isolation, including incarceration, policing, and surveillance from a feminist lens, and expose the effects of liberal reformist politics when it comes to incarceration, and the ways in which such reforms create a system where punishment is more entrenched..  

This issue, rooted in the communities that aliment our social justice movements and plights, attempts to further the understanding of reproductive justice in our regions as not only lens, but praxis, against “single issues” organizing.