Holding Movements, Agitating Epistemes: Introducing a Multipart Series on Remembering, Retelling, and Dreaming for Justice

Convened and co-edited by Richa Nagar and Ponni Arasu

To invoke movements in search of justice is to summon many layers of lived existence—including motions, moments, rhythms, relationships, and visions—that are, by definition, fluid and uncontainable. What might it mean, then, to document or analyze a movement? Is it possible to hold and feel the ever shifting spaces and moments in which collective resistance and dreams for justice are made and remade? Can documenting and reflecting on such histories be a part of a praxis that liberates the ‘archive’ from walls, shelves, and folders and translates it into hungry retellings and readings for unbuilding and rebuilding, again and again?  These are the kinds of questions that have brought us into this space of collaborative dreaming and doing.

Documentation and reflection on social movements as an intertwined praxis has always existed in the form of oral retellings across the world. This work has been embraced in written form at least since the anti-colonial struggles in the second half of the twentieth century. For instance, much documentation and reflection on movements for justice and change was embraced by communities whose lands were colonized, at times for multiple centuries. ^[1]Here we invoke a range of works, including that undertaken by the Subaltern Studies scholars in South Asia (from the 1980s onwards) and in Latin America (throughout the 1990s). While this field of … Continue reading Another crucial body of work is the documentation of resistance to slavery—writings that centered initially on resistance by the non-enslaved and were subsequently interrupted by the descendants of the enslaved who powerfully transformed the very concept of ‘resistance.’ ^[2]While this is a huge body of work, we acknowledge as our key inspirations Walter Mignolo, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, and Saidiya Hartman. The writings on and by those whose ancestors were indentured workers also form key contours of this shared path of remaking and claiming (hi)stories ^[3]See, Lisa Yun. 2008. The Coolie Speaks: Chinese Indentured Laborers and African Slaves in Cuba. Philadelphia: Temple University Press; Marina Carter & Khal Torabully. 2002. Coolitude: An … Continue reading—a path marked by the turns and imprints of those who are often unremembered or erased by their situatedness, yet integral to the fluid and ever growing epistemes and aesthetics of movement: women, children,  nature, and events that defy naming or categorization. ^[4]One example that profoundly illustrates the rupturing of the narratives of slavery through the lives of women is: Clifton Crais and Pamela Scully. 2009. Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost … Continue reading

For decades, analyses of afore-mentioned documentation and reflection have been undertaken from institutionalized sites of knowledge production, including academia and organizations with large endowments, museums, and foundations. Along with this, there have been stories lived and held in music, poetry, performance, vibrant recastings of traditional folk forms, painting, and sculpture, not to mention proverbs, jokes, songs, and tales passed from mouth to mouth and ear to ear across times and spaces.

Holding Movements, Agitating Epistemes: Introducing a Multipart Series on Remembering, Retelling, and Dreaming for Justice takes its cues from this long line of work. We, too, join those who defy the dictums of form and content by seeking refuge in words, strokes, tones, and breaths that help us to remember, relate, and rebuild in search of justice. We share with you—our readers, listeners, and viewers—stories and reflections that are intentionally incomplete, an open invitation for your curious engagements with our offerings and the meanings and possibilities they might open up. ^[5]See, Richa Nagar. 2019. Hungry Translations: Relearning the World Through Radical Vulnerability. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. At the same time, each offering strives to be holistic through its commitment to the processual. Far from strictly defining and categorizing our offerings, we focus on bringing nuanced vibrancy and rigor to each piece even as it refuses closure. We offer stories of embodied and lived epistemes and relationships that form the layers of what could be described as resistance: the striving for collective change and co-imaginations of justice, both social and poetic. ^[6]Ibid. We bring to you stories that are close to our hearts, lands and being. While we begin here, it is our hope that we will be joined by other fellow travelers in this agitational caravan. ^[7]We use the term ‘Caravan’ inspired by the idea of collective creation used in the blog https://kafila.online/ where they explain Kafila as “a Hindi word derived from Arabic, it means a caravan, … Continue reading We seek to create a moving space that is also a throbbing place for dynamic meditations on resistance and collectivity. Meditations that do not simply respond to hegemonic power but are founts of creativity in and of themselves. We hope to create a “constellation” ^[8]Saidiya Hartman. 2016. “The Dead Book Revisited.” History of the Present 6: 2: 208-215. formed by the then and now which has an “affective relationship to the past rather than a causal or linear one.”^[9]Ibid. We will search for nodes that suggest new worlds ^[10]See, Essar Batool, Ifrah Butt, Samreena Mushtaq, Munaza Rashid, and Natasha Rather. 2016. Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora? The Story of a Mass Rape. Zubaan. New Delhi. This collectively written book … Continue reading molded by beings who populate these histories in their sentience and interconnectedness. ^[11]Lata Mani. 2013. The Integral Nature of Things: Critical Reflections on the Present. Routledge. New Delhi. We believe in and have borne witness to these worlds being imagined and created. We wish to nourish those histories and let them breathe free here. We invite you to embrace this creative space as one of curiosity, inspiration, rest, and rejuvenation.

We begin our journey with Ponni Arasu’s and Kamala Vasuki’s cluster on Doing History.