Introduction to Editor's Column

This essay introduces the Editor’s Column of this issue of the Journal of Juvenilia Studies, a special feature consisting of five essays exploring complexities of trauma, intersectionality, and juvenilia through focusing on a youth-authored text. The five essays emerge from different disciplinary perspectives, attend to a range of historical and geographical locations, and focus on young writers who are from marginalised backgrounds and/or are not typically at the center of scholarly attention. This introductory essay raises the point that further conceptual work is needed regarding trauma and forms of oppression; questions of age, power, and intersectionality; and the nature of our access to young people’s perspectives in relation to intersectionality and trauma. The essay concludes by suggesting that engaging with questions of trauma, intersectionality, and juvenilia requires specifying, broadening, and deepening our frames.

Resisting autocratization: the protest–repression nexus in Hong Kong's Anti-ELAB Movement

This introductory essay outlines the core themes of the special issue on the rise and fall of Hong Kong's Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement. In the essay, we highlight several theoretical and empirical contributions the featured papers make to our understanding of the protest–repression nexus from the onset of the movement to the imposition of the National Security Law. First, we describe the political and social contexts of the movement. Second, we present our empirical findings on Hong Kongers' political preferences. Finally, we highlight new research avenues arising from this special issue.

INTRODUCTION: BLACK LIVES MATTER IN CONTEXT

This special issue of Mobilization collects five research articles about the Black Lives Movement (BLM) plus two essays by the editors. This introductory essay provides the broad context of the BLM. It shows how the protests and movement demands of 2020 after the horrific murder of George Floyd were tied to the protests and organizing of 2014–16 which, in turn, built on at least two decades of prior organizing. Protests about police violence are central to Black movements because police repression enforces White supremacy.

Ancient Characters and Contemporary Readers: A Response to Elizabeth E. Shively & Jan Rüggemeier and Cornelis Bennema

In this response essay, which culminates with an application of my theory of narrative empathy to the Parable of the Good Samaritan, I comment on an article by Cornelis Bennema and engage with the ideas in the framing, introductory essay by Jan Rüggemeier and Elizabeth E. Shively. In the course of carrying out these tasks, I also offer what I hope will be broadly useful comments on fictional and nonfictional contexts for character construction, on characters and characterization, and on the way diverse actual readers engage with characters. This essay concludes with some thoughts on narrative empathy, responding to the final section of Rüggemeier and Shively’s essay, which offers comprehensive overview of empathy and sympathy as aspects of emotional reading.

Latin American perspectives on datafication and artificial intelligence: Traditions, interventions and possibilities

This introductory essay illustrates the context, clarifies the relevance, and outlines the key themes of this Special Issue on “Latin American Perspectives on Datafication and Artificial intelligence”. It starts pointing out that so far, the engagement of Latin American scholarship in the exploration of data technologies and the rise of intelligent systems has been limited. However, it is argued, Latin American traditions in both research and praxis have much to offer to our understanding of the evolution of the information ecosystem. We propose to map different Latin American perspectives on datafication and AI using an analytical matrix structured along two theme lines, that is three building blocks (infrastructure, imaginaries, practices) and three interpretative lenses (decoloniality and race, feminist theory, pluriversal thinking). Then, we reflect on two procedural issues: the need to consider this Special Issue as a conversation-starter, and the importance of having this conversation in multiple languages and in an open access format. We conclude providing an outline of the various contributions of the Special Issue. Authors address algorithms from the south and coloniality, datafication and corruption, data activism, AI and journalism, and platform labor in the context of Latin America and drawing on Latin American theoretical contributions

Inhabiting the River. Musings on Boulevards and Arteries

This introductory essay revisits the multidimensionality of the river conceived of as a system of "communicating vessels," both literally and metaphorically. Drawing upon fine arts, poetry, biology, and philosophy, the argument organizing this text presents the river as a non-human, albeit often anthropomorphized, subjectivity, and serves to remind the reader of the universality of the neverending flow of essence and thought. Moored to the tides, humankind depends on the flow understood both in terms of the circulation of the ever-changing matter, but also in terms of the circulation of values. A human subject, dependent on other (not necessarily human, and not necessarily animate) subjectivities, recognizing the importance of the river as a living artery and as a principal agent of change, re-discovers the necessity to adopt the position of stewardship rather than that of ownership with respect to the world-in-flux that he or she inhabits.