Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies

The current public health emergency intersects with crises of xenophobia, racism, settler colonialism, ecological degradation, and nationalism, particularly for vulnerable and marginalized groups. The social and cultural concerns brought to light with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic offer a unique window of opportunity; one that forces us to confront power relations that have shaped our political, social, cultural and economic life in contemporary society.

As we enter a new era of digital episteme and scholarship, visual culture has become the gateway for the production and dissemination of knowledge. Contemporary approaches to the Humanities have pushed the limits of interdisciplinarity by embracing empirical methods such as Digital/Computational Humanities, Corpus Linguistics, and Computational Social Science. By attempting to bring the old and new theoretical approaches in the Humanities in conversation with each other, and through its focus on visual culture, this special issue of Imaginations seeks to highlight the various ways in which decolonizing knowledge production through contemporary interdisciplinary Humanities has become crucial for the struggle over the future practices of academic institutions.

Privileging marginal realities, this issue sets out to challenge prevailing structures of colonial hegemony in this precarious period of global, economic, political and ecological crises. The particular focus of this issue are visual and/or digital media practices that reflect, negotiate, or confront the oppressive forces of neo-colonial regimes embodied in the experience of marginalization through racialisation in its various intersections. Contributors are invited to reflect on the possibilities of decolonial methodologies and praxes that centre resistance, survival, hope and healing for marginalized communities.

Cover image: R. Benedito Ferrão