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Everyday emergencies on Sri Lanka’s excessive use of emergency procedure
No full textA generation of Sri Lankans has grown up in the shadow of the 26-year long Civil War which began in 1983 and was undoubtedly the culmination of centuries-long ethnic tensions between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamil populations on the Island. The Government of Sri Lanka passed the Prevention of Terrorism Act (Temporary Provisions) Act of 1979 (PTA) under its emergency procedure to curb these tensions. The Government of Sri Lanka has, during its recent history, capitalised on the spectre of terrorism perpetrated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in order to keep the PTA in force for over 40 years and to indiscriminately declare states of emergency, even when such a declaration may not be warranted by the necessary conditions precedent set by international standards. In fact, the Government of Sri Lanka has shirked its duties on the international stage when it comes to declaring states of emergency, and has, as a result, been condemned by the international community including the United Nations. The over-arching question is this: What is an “emergency”? Flowing from this question as regards the situation in Sri Lanka is “Why, and how, is the PTA still utilised fifteen years after the LTTE were militarily defeated?” Most importantly, “Can the citizens of Sri Lanka expect their Government to minimise its use of emergency procedure?” This article attempts to answer these questions
The Inner Sensorium in Media Ecology: Justification for Study of Media Ecology
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This essay explores the pertinence of this interior sensorium to media ecology and its role in shaping human identity in a technological age. 
Street Art Rising
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This illustrated article discusses the various manifestations of street art—graffiti, posters, stencils, social murals—and the impact of street art on urban environments. Continuing perceptions of street art as vandalism contributing to urban decay neglects to account for street art’s full spectrum of effects. As freedom of expression protected by law, as news from under-privileged classes, as images of social uplift and consciousness-raising, and as beautification of urban milieux, street art has social benefits requiring re-assessment. Street art has become a significant global art movement.
Detailed contextual history includes the photographer Brassai\u27s interest in Parisian graffiti between the world wars; Cézanne’s use of passage; Walter Benjamin\u27s assemblage of fragments in The Arcades Project; the practice of dérive (passage through diverse ambiances, drifting) and détournement (rerouting, hijacking) as social and political intervention advocated by Guy Debord and the Situationist International; Dada and Surrealist montage and collage; and the art of Quebec Automatists and French Nouveaux réalistes. Present street art engages dynamically with 20th C. art history.
The article explores McLuhan’s ideas about the power of mosaic style to subvert the received order, opening spaces for new discourse to emerge, new patterns to be discovered. The author compares street art to advertising, and raises questions about appropriation, authenticity, and style. How does street art survive when it leaves the streets for galleries, design shops, and museums?
Street art continues to challenge communication strategies of the privileged classes and elected officials, and increasingly plays a reconstructive role in modulating the emotional tenor of urban spaces. Two cases studies of Christchurch, NZ and Hanoi, Vietnam illustrate how street art is being used to heal tragic wounds and inspire hope.
I want to dedicate this article to J.S. Porter—friend and writer—who took a keen interest in my photographs of street art, interviewed me for Hamilton Arts & Letters, and wrote about my work in his blog. Please see the References for links to his writing for further context. All photos (except Figure 1) are by the author. 
Ethnicity Statistics as Tricky Tools in “Post-Racial” Britain: Celebrating the Lives and Obscuring the Deaths of Mixed-Race Populations
No full textThe inclusion of a “mixed and multiple ethnic” category in the UK census since 2001 has mobilized a post-racial discourse that sensationalizes Britain’s growing mixed-race population as representing Britain’s post-raciality. Two decades later, the 2011 census was linked up with National Health Service records to provide death statistics disaggregated by ethnicity. This article explores the consequences of these statistics for Britain’s claims of post-raciality, given that the Office for National Statistics reported the “mixed and multiple ethnic” category as dying at amongst the highest rates of suicide in the UK between 2012 and 2019. In this article, I use feminist data science methods to research the UK’s ethnicity statistics and surrounding discourses in order to analyze the co-existence of celebratory narratives of mixedness and high rates of suicide. Drawing on Rajani Bhatia’s articulation of the male/female sex ratio as a “tricky tool” for feminist struggle, I consider the UK’s ethnicity statistics as a tricky tool for research on mixedness at the intersections of the overrepresentation of mixed lives and the underrepresentation of mixed deaths in “post-racial” Britain
Anti-Colonial Recoveries: Building an Alternative Infrastructure in New Mexico
No full textThis paper explores the emergence of Quebrar, a community-led drug recovery program, as a dynamic and evolving alternative infrastructure within New Mexico’s complex historical, political, and social contexts. Established in 1968 by a coalition of activists, drug users, and individuals in recovery, Quebrar aimed to address the pervasive lack of support for drug addiction in a region marked by racial violence, land dispossession, and the criminalization of drug use. Through ethnographic research and archival sources, this paper explores the processes and strategies through which Quebrar transformed a decommissioned site into a drug recovery program. Quebrar’s infrastructure serves as a “thing-in-motion” by resisting and reimagining colonial and carceral systems tied to addiction treatment. This exploration raises questions about how alternative infrastructures can evolve in response to histories of colonialism and what they offer for future reimaginings of care and justice. Finally, it considers how these themes intersect with the practice of research itself, asking how embodied knowledge can be incorporated into the research process.
Resumen
Este artículo explora el surgimiento de Quebrar, un programa de rehabilitación de drogas dirigido por la comunidad, como una infraestructura alternativa dinámica y en evolución dentro de los complejos contextos históricos, políticos y sociales de Nuevo México. Creado en 1968 por una coalición de activistas, consumidores de drogas y personas en proceso de recuperación, Quebrar pretendía hacer frente a la omnipresente falta de apoyo a la drogadicción en una región marcada por la violencia racial, el despojo de tierras y la criminalización del consumo de drogas. A través de la investigación etnográfica y fuentes de archivo, este artículo examina cómo Quebrar transformó un lugar abandonado en un programa de rehabilitación de drogas y cómo su infraestructura resiste y reimagina los sistemas coloniales y carcelarios vinculados al tratamiento de la adicción. De este modo, la infraestructura de Quebrar se convierte en un «objeto en movimiento» que evoluciona en respuesta a las condiciones históricas y materiales. Este artículo también plantea cuestiones sobre cómo pueden evolucionar las infraestructuras alternativas en respuesta a las historias de colonialismo y qué ofrecen para futuras reimaginaciones del cuidado y la justicia. Por último, se reflexiona cómo estos temas se entrecruzan con la práctica de la investigación
Cover Art | Hogar-refugio para migrantes La 72 / Home-shelter for migrants La 72: From: Collateral Damage Series
No full textDeclaración del artista: A diferencia de la concepción más tradicional de la fotografía como práctica de extrañamiento y construcción de otros fotográficos, mi interés como artista visual está marcada por procesos de empatía y reconocimiento. Esto supone asumirme como parte de lo que mira y es mirado, en una suerte de efecto espejo que trasciende la mera curiosidad antropológica para abrazar, en cambio, el acto gozoso de participación colectiva y la mirada voyeur. Pero esta mirada no es una mirada universalista o atemporal, sino la mirada de una artista mujer en una de las ciudades más grandes del mundo, la Ciudad de México. Habitar el lugar del voyeur en espacios donde la mirada hegemónica es masculina supone cambiar de posición para ser, por un lado, la artista que mira desde el anonimato, y por el otro, la que experimenta con la imagen fija y la imagen en movimiento, en un impulso constante por registrar los vestigios de la urbe. Es así que concibo mi mirada detenida a través del lente de una cámara como un acto semejante al de mirarse en un espejo. Me miro, reconozco y diferencio en otros y otras. Para luego poder mostrar la imposibilidad de todos esos intentos, con elementos fundamentales como el tiempo, ya sea en video, instalaciones fotogénicas o la poesía.
Este tipo de mirada es una intervención radical en un país como México donde las relaciones sociales se encuentran sujetas y determinadas por roles de género y de clase; donde la invisibilización de los individuos es un elemento de control. Me interesa incidir en las artes visuales de las Américas desde planteamientos fotográficos en clave expandida, nuevos formatos, soportes y soluciones expositivas, pero desde un situacionismo social, epistémico y creativo. A lo largo de 10 series y dos libros, he construido a la Ciudad de México como escenario de la mirada y al mismo tiempo, como un personaje más que determina el transitar de sus habitantes.
Para más información sobre la obra de Nirvana Paz, visite: www.nirvanapaz.com
Artist statement: Unlike the more traditional conception of photography as a practice of estrangement and the construction of photographic others, my interest as a visual artist is marked by processes of empathy and recognition. This involves acknowledging myself as part of what sees and is seen, in a sort of mirror effect that transcends mere anthropological curiosity to embrace, instead, the joyful act of collective participation and voyeuristic observation. However, this gaze is neither universalist nor timeless; it is the gaze of a woman artist in one of the largest cities in the world, Mexico City. To inhabit the voyeur’s perspective in spaces where the hegemonic gaze is masculine implies shifting positions—to be, on one hand, the artist who observes from anonymity, and on the other, the one who experiments with still and moving images, driven by a constant impulse to document the vestiges of the urban landscape. Thus, I conceive of my gaze through the camera lens as an act akin to looking into a mirror. I see myself, recognize, and differentiate myself in others. Then, I aim to reveal the impossibility of all those attempts, using fundamental elements such as time, whether through video, photogenic installations, or poetry.
This kind of gaze represents a radical intervention in a country like Mexico, where social relationships are subject to and shaped by gender and class roles, where the invisibilization of individuals serves as a form of control. I am interested in influencing the visual arts of the Americas through expanded photographic approaches, new formats, media, and exhibition solutions, but always from a social, epistemic, and creative situational perspective. Across 10 series and two books, I have constructed Mexico City as both the stage for the gaze and a character itself, shaping the journey of its inhabitants.
For more about Nirvana Paz\u27s work, please visit: www.nirvanapaz.com
Past, Present, and the Politics of Witch Hunts
No full textThis article compares contemporary political rhetoric from and around Donald Trump with early modern discourse on witchcraft. Trump frequently and explicitly positions himself as the victim of political “witch hunts.” I will argue that he also deploys rhetoric that parallels early modern arguments connecting the persecution of witches with the exercise of sovereign authority, implicitly putting him in the position of the witch hunter. The article focuses on two Renaissance texts, Jean Bodin’sOn the Demon-Mania of Witches (1580) and King James VI and I’s Daemonologie (1597), highlighting the ways in which both the contemporary and early modern discourses appeal to disruptive conspiracies, the threat of political and epistemic chaos, and the targeting of legitimate political authority. The language and logic of witchcraft, past and present, provides Trump and Trumpians with a powerful rhetorical resource.Cet article compare la rhétorique politique de Donald Trump et de son entourage avec les discours tenus autour de la sorcellerie dans les premiers temps modernes. Trump se présente fréquemment et explicitement comme la victime de « chasses aux sorcières » politiques. Je soutiens qu’il déploie en même temps une rhétorique rappelant les arguments des premiers temps modernes qui associaient la persécution des sorcières à l’exercice de l’autorité souveraine. Ce faisant, il se met implicitement dans la position d’un chasseur de sorcières. À partir de deux textes de la Renaissance, De la Démonomanie des sorciers (1580) de Jean Bodin et Daemonologie (1597) du roi Jacques VI et Ier, cet article montre en quoi tant les discours contemporains que ceux des premiers temps modernes font référence à des complots subversifs, à la menace d’un chaos politique et épistémique, et à la lutte contre l’autorité politique légitime. Le langage et la logique de la sorcellerie, dans le passé comme aujourd’hui, offrent à Trump et aux trumpistes une puissante ressource rhétorique