exploring the intersections of race, language, technology + the state

Contributors to this intersectional archive start by recognizing that race, language, technology, and the state are entangled, not separate.

In the modern world, we imagine race through language and language through race, and we rely on technologies of various kinds to mediate our encounters with difference. States also rely on race, language, and technologies to draw boundaries between and among groups of people—to decide who belongs and who does not, to normalize and institutionalize these judgments, and to insist and try to convince us at every turn that these judgments are necessary, even natural.

However, for contributors to this archive, this isn’t a conclusion—it’s a starting point. The interconnections among race, language, technology, and the state will look different in every context and from different perspectives. For this reason, the archive is not meant to be engaged as a total or complete picture of the ways that race, language, technology, and the state intersect. Instead, the archival contributions and annotations chart a series of partial, subjective itineraries through a complex, multiplex terrain.

The archive is organized by theme, but we intend for your engagement to be open-ended and nonlinear. We hope that resonances and connections will emerge organically as much as they emerge by design.