Edge Effects is currently accepting submissions to our series on the Plantationocene. We’re interested in previously unpublished essays (~1500-2000 words), photo essays, and other creative pieces from a diverse array of academic, artistic, and activist perspectives.
In January 2019, Edge Effects published “Plantation Legacies,” the inaugural piece of our 18-month long Plantationocene series. That essay, and the series as a whole, explores the idea of the Plantationocene—a proposed alternate name for the epoch often called the Anthropocene.
Because environmental concerns cannot be disentangled from colonialism, capitalism, and racism, this series investigates agricultural plantation spaces as well as the ways that plantation logics organize modern economies, environments, and social relations. Inspired by the scholars, artists, and activists visiting University of Wisconsin–Madison as part of the 2019-2020 Sawyer Seminar, “Interrogating the Plantationocene,” this Edge Effects series aims to foster conversations that address plantations, past and present, from multiple theoretical and empirical perspectives.
Previous contributions have examined plantations and the Plantationocene in a variety of formats, such as an interview about the environmental histories of Vietnamese rubber plantations, an essay on the cultural politics of plantation-style housing in Hawai‘i, a multimedia exhibit unearthing the material conditions of plantation soil in the American South, and a 30-foot drawing depicting a palimpsest of colonial plantations and more in Cap Haitien.
Join Monique Allewaert, Michitake Aso, Christian Danielewitz, Leanne Day, Pablo F. Gómez, Donna Haraway, Rebecca Hogue, Kwynn Johnson, Raina Martens, Gregg Mitman, Sophie Sapp Moore, Bii Robertson, Deborah A. Thomas, and Anna Tsing in contributing to the Edge Effects Plantationocene series.
We especially welcome creative approaches, perspectives that center the voices and experiences of historically marginalized communities, projects that discuss the limits and erasures of the Plantationocene concept, and research that examines plantations and the legacies of plantations in Southeast Asia and Latin America.
Submission details
- Anyone is welcome to submit to the Edge Effects Plantationocene series. As always, we especially hope to highlight the research, writing, and creative work of graduate students, postdocs, practitioners, and early career scholars.
- Interested parties should send a full draft of their piece to the Edge Effects team at edgeeffects@nelson.wisc.edu. Please note that we publish content geared toward a public audience. We encourage you to browse our recent publications to familiarize yourself with the style and tone of the magazine.
- Drafts should be accompanied by a brief (~250 word) pitch. Please see submission guidelines for details.
- Selected submissions will go through our routine editorial process. We will create a personalized editorial schedule that ensures adequate revision time (4 weeks minimum).
We look forward to reading your work!
