Editorial
The four essays in the inaugural Issue Vol 1 move across geographies and time. They foreground diverse themes: the centrality of agrarian and Aboriginal labour in the making of nations; the ecological crisis and notions of justice; and the resilience of Indigenous communities who make life liveable even in post-disaster landscapes. Written in Spanish, Chinese, Bengali and English this collection spans 19th century Australia and China to the current ecological crisis that connects lives across Latin America and South Asia.
Chris Cheng writes about Chinese migrant labourers, arguing that they were central to both the making of an agrarian Australian nation and the flow of remittances that served to establish schools in China. His essay combines archival records on banana plantations with oral histories of schools in China that bear testimony to the important role that migrant remittances played. Gabriela Coronado travels on the pathways of the Badudarri wetlands, named after Badudarri, a Darug Indigenous man. Her visual poetry foregrounds the ancient trees, and the newly sculpted canoes. These takes us back to the Aboriginal bush hidden under the shadows of the new city of Parramatta. Juan Salazar’s provocation argues that life on earth is shifting forcefully for everybody and everything. This entails a renewed sense of collective political responsibility. Discussing contemporary water struggles in Santiago – expected to fall by 40% by 2070 – he suggests this crisis stems from a combination of ecological change and the privatization of water during Chile’s military dictatorship. Arguing that such crises represents global challenges, he calls for new modes of collaborating and acting. In the final essay, Sajal Roy shows how the Indigenous Munda community in deltaic Bangladesh have rebuilt their lives after the devastation wrought by cyclone Aila in 2009. In exploring their resilience to Aila, he shows how their capacity to fight against floods, tidal waves and other disasters across generations has enabled them to cope and rebuild livelihoods today.
Malini Sur & Liam Magee
Editors, Issues
