Noun to verb: Propositions for transformative intersectional publishing

Abstract

From Wikieditathons to making Palestine solidarity badges, from creating open source publishing platforms to trans*feminist zine workshops, I propose to approach publishing as a scene of relations. Rather than focusing on primarily output-based approaches to publishing, I argue for a shift in focus to the processes, values and relationships that publishing can enable. Starting with key questions around the politics of a publication’s fixity, I ask whether a learning and teaching moment, for instance, can be considered as publishing. Using the example of my PhD thesis, developed and published as a MediaWiki, I challenge individual authorship and propose to replace concepts of originality and autonomy with porosity, creating space for multiple voices and dissent.

Building on this, I will probe the agency of editorial processes to address power relations and accessibility in publishing. For this I will be referencing kritilab, a discrimination-critical resource and network for art and education currently in development. And what about decolonial feminist practices of dissemination, sharing and reuse? How to deal with issues of cultural appropriation and power asymmetries found in current mainstream Open Access publishing?

Forming part of a collective effort to address this problem, I will share a work-in-progress practice document “Collective Conditions for Reuse”, that, in lieu of a licence, proposes to take the implications of reuse into account.