Issue 1 editorial note
At the time of writing this editorial, the US and Israel have launched attacks on Iran while still continuing their genocide against the Palestinians. The US has also been escalating tensions within the East and Southeast Asian region, with Malaysia’s government welcoming Trump for last year’s ASEAN meeting, the Japanese government deploying missiles to back a potential US-led invasion against China, and Indonesia is still a member in Trump’s Board of Peace and continues to occupy West Papua. Meanwhile, lower in the rung, a Singaporean influencer jokes about the bombings in Iran while on a morning run near Marina Bay Sands. Of course, these are just the tip of the iceberg…
Such institutional violences and political indifference shared in the region and diaspora called for a reckoning with what it means to be East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) and its expanding meaning when we consider class, race, gender, migration, and more. re:wave is an initiative born out of such political imaginaries.
𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼
As a queer feminist press, open collective, and learning commons, our mission is to “redress fragments in ESEA queer feminist imaginaries, weave our pasts and present to reimagine our collective futures, and reorient our ways of knowing and doing.”
In our long conversations, we eventually arrived at the theme for our first issue, “Unlearning; Against Western Knowledge Production”. For many reasons — from our frustrations of neoliberal publishing institutions who often held authority over knowledge, creating and reinforcing hierarchies, and shaping often large reader bases’ perspectives unfettered. We were also deeply moved by what Toni Morrison said in a 1975 panel in Portland State University about not explaining or answering to the skeptic, which we first encountered when reading Reconsidering Reparations (2022) by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò in a separate reading group.
How can we imagine and create an alternative publishing space that moves beyond a dominant knowledge production model that extracts our agency, and instead inspires us into actions and connections for reparative futures in ESEA, diaspora, and beyond? — This question underpinned our open call for the first issue. For us, it was more than a curatorial direction or a framework, but rather an open letter to the community we’re part of and we’re hoping to find.
⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖
At the end of the open call period, we selected a total of 10 submissions, including two works submitted from West Asia. Our contributors engaged closely with the topic of unlearning and alternative knowledge making from a multitude of perspectives, all rooted in personal and ancestral stories.
As a potential way to connect their stories and encourage conversations, we invited all our contributors to the contributors’ peer review process. After the initial review by the re:wave editorial team, our contributors were paired up to peer review one another’s piece and give feedback grounded in lived experience, curiosity, and epistemic humility (of not knowing) that guides our ethics at re:wave (click here to read our contributors’ review guidelines written by Fai).
At the end of the editorial process, we asked the contributors to reflect on the peer-review, some of which we published (based on preference) as part of building a more fluid, interconnected collection of work.
Our first issue is built in this corner of the Internet from the work of our editorial team, graphics team, and of course, our contributors. We collaborated with contributors over the course of four months, getting to know a part of them in the process. This first issue comes into fruition from the many questions we reflected on, hours of conversations, emailing back and forth, and actively working to carve a space where we can harbour varied capacities both in our teams and among contributors. It has been a learning curve for our team, the lessons which we will keep reflecting on as we continue this project.
⋆｡𖦹 ˚ 𓇼 ˚｡⋆
To end the note, we would like to thank our re:wave team for pulling together this issue. You can learn more about the team here! We would also like to thank several individuals who have supported us and helped us brainstorm and shape the project.
We’d like to express special thanks to Ghiwa Sayegh from Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research, who has so generously shared with us their knowledge-experience of radical online publishing — your work has been our inspiration and will continue to do so. Please support Kohl and their future projects by donating what you can on their website.
Also a huge thanks to Eden, Linh Tran, Alice, PA, Jingjing, Amber, and Jisoo, who helped us brainstorm and shape the project when we were only a 7-page-long project proposal. The time and wisdom you offered to us continue to live on in our work in so many different ways.
𓏲𓂃𓂃𓂃
Lastly, we are currently raising funds for our friend Abood in Gaza, Palestine, who was severely injured in Israel’s drone attacks. He is now planning his travel to Europe to receive medical treatments and seek further academic opportunities. He holds an official admission to the University of Pavia in Italy and he will need an additional €2000 by July 2026 to secure his position. Please contribute via the link below, or share his fundraiser with your community:
In love and solidarity,
Shameeta and Aika
March 2026
The team behind Issue 1
Issue #1: Unlearning; Against Western Knowledge ProductionContributors
- Pippa Sterk
- Sora Anindya
- Lama Taleb
- Lara Bautista
- Nina Rivera
- Ellie/Bua Paul
- Nadine Makarem
- Meivy dan Nisa
- Zoe Kashiko Shelton
- ava clare ng
Editorial Team
- Aika
- Shameeta
- Fai
- Sarah
Translation
- Fai
Graphics Team
- Anh Thu
- Michelle
- Mika
Admin Team
- Aika
- Shameeta