Wench Tactics? Openings in Conditions of Closure

Ruth Fletcher,Julie Mccandless,Harriet Samuels,Ambreena Manji,Katie Cruz,Sarah Keenan,Dania Thomas,Sheelagh Mcguinness,Nikki Godden-Rasul,Sara Ramshaw,Yvette Russell,Ann Stewart,Emily Grabham,Diamond Ashiagbor,Nicola Barker,Nadine El-Enany

doi:10.1007/s10691-017-9355-y

Abstract

Picking up the question of what FLaK might be, this editorial considers the relationship between openness and closure in feminist legal studies. How do we draw on feminist struggles for openness in common resources, from security to knowledge, as we inhabit a compromised space in commercial publishing? We think about this first in relation to the content of this issue: on image-based abuse continuums, asylum struggles, trials of protestors, customary justice, and not-so-timely reparations. Our thoughts take us through the different ways that openness and closure work in struggles against violence, cruel welcomes, and re-arrangements of code and custom. Secondly, we share some reflections on methodological openness and closure as the roundtable conversation on asylum, and the interview with Riles, remind us of #FLaK2016 and its method of scattering sources as we think about how best to mix knowledges. Thirdly, prompted by the FLaK kitchen table conversations on openness, publishing and ‘getting the word out’, we respond to Kember’s call to ‘open up open access’. We explain the different current arrangements for opening up FLS content and how green open access, the sharedit initiative, author request and publisher discretion present alternatives to gold open access. Finally drawing on Franklin and Spade, we show how there are a range of ‘wench tactics’—adapting gifts, stalling and resting—which we deploy as academic editors who are trying to have an impact on the access, use and circulation of our journal, even though we do not own the journal we edit. These wench tactics are alternatives to the more obvious or reported tactic of resignation, or withdrawing academic labour from editing and reviewing altogether. They help us think about brewing editorial time, what ambivalence over our 25th birthday might mean, and how to inhabit painful places. In this, we respond in our own impure, compromised way to da Silva’s call not to forget the native and slave as we do FLaK, and repurpose shrapnel, in our common commitments.

Highlights

The authors are the current members of the FLS Editorial Board, who have collectively produced this editorial as a collaborative research contribution, with Fletcher playing the role of primary author
We continue to think about this question of inhabiting institutional spaces differently and are delighted to be collaborating with the Centre for Research on Race and Law in hosting Sara Ahmed for our 25th anniversary lecture on ‘The Institutional as Usual’ on 6 October; see https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ feminist-legal-studies-25th-anniversary-lecture-sara-ahmed-on-the-institutional-as-usual-sexism-tickets36747365359
Drawing on Franklin and Spade, we show how there are a range of ‘wench tactics’—adapting gifts, stalling and resting—which we deploy as academic editors who are trying to have an impact on the access, use and circulation of our journal, even though we do not own the journal we edit

Summary

Introduction

The authors are the current members of the FLS Editorial Board, who have collectively produced this editorial as a collaborative research contribution, with Fletcher playing the role of primary author. This editorial reflects on methodological openness and closure as the issue draws on different kinds of critical conversations in producing its content, and reminds us of #FLaK2016.

Results

Conclusion