^{Figure 1. Marcos Emiliano Escamilla-Guerrero. Siteless Iteration of a Lighthouse.}

I.

The first three issues of CriticalProductive Journal train our collective critical gaze upon the logics underlying our global and contemporary intersections of aesthetics with the political and social conditions of everyday life. From “Sovereignty/Populism” (the topical theme of CriticalProductive Journal No. 01) to “Currents/Flows” (the topical theme of CriticalProductive Journal No. 02), we shift from the philosophical to the operational. How do the foundational, sometimes nationalistic and parochial, interests of a nation, a society, govern the operational and tactical actions on the ground?

Currents/Flows takes up the issues of human migratory flows, planetary and climate precarity, and the resulting natural and cultural conditions. Today, human subjects, primarily from the Global South, traverse bodies of water, arid desertscapes, forests, and dirt trails, to escape trafficking and exploitation, violence, political persecution, and economic inequities, while formal ports of entry are utilized regularly by digital nomads, expats, and tourists. Across the globe, low-income and minoritized populations often reside in neighborhoods and precincts frequently interrupted by highways and other urban infrastructure, organized around marginal industrialized zones, and characterized by low air quality and racial exclusion through redlining.

Currents/Flows represents an on-the-ground appraisal of how we humans manage . . . to get around, to escape, to produce a kind of fugitivity, and to find stability within unstable conditions. What can we learn about the cultural outcomes of past human migrations? Do new forms of mobility offer new possibilities to uplift marginal populations? Can the creation of border housing, public/social housing, distributed health/medical facilities, and so on provide a more secure social safety net for dislocated populations? What is the role of government, philanthropy, and private capital in improving conditions for a global population of refugees? Are there remedies for the allowance of wealth and poverty to be geographically siloed within urban environments?

The work in this volume explores the aesthetic, spatial, and physical dislocations that result from the organization of people and capital, both in and around urban centers and cities, and between them. It includes creative work, critical analysis, and studies from urbanists, humanists, designers, architects, artists, philosophers, anthropologists, and others on this important topic. The work addresses human tragedies relating to migration and the global refugee crisis, and the economic activities that direct flows of people, capital, goods, materials, and services between cities and atomized industries internationally. The work brings new intelligence and epistemological approaches to these questions.

As Associate Issues Editor Arturo Ortiz Struck states at the opening of the Conversation: “Currents/Flows”:

“I would like to engage each of you to speak from your perspectives—as an architect, a philosopher, and a lawyer—on the issues of migration, diasporas, and the constant global flows of human beings and commodities. Can we find new ways of understanding these issues, apart from how they have been represented in the media and political agendas? We are interested in examining the relationship between the movement—of people and things, and the space that is moved through, particularly in Central and North America. What are the impacts of this movement on the built environment—on architecture, art, aesthetics, and the urban fabric? Is it possible to establish new epistemological ways to attend to migration in terms of ‘the urban’? What of the migrant’s body, which is subject to established systems of production, to precariousness, and to violence? Do you detect the circumstances for a new type of slavery, integrated within these systems of production? And what kind of artistic or aesthetic strategies are being produced, or could be produced, in the face of migration and diaspora?”

II.

In the section Conversation + Criticism, we feature two conversations. One, “Currents/Flows,” situated in Mexico City, includes scholars and designers discussing the full breadth of body and commodity mobility in our contemporary nation-states; one is a conversation with Germane Barnes, on his exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago about the expression of identity through columnar constructions. In the conversation “Currents/Flows,” moderated by Associate Issue Editor Arturo Ortiz Struck, thorough examinations are undertaken, on the one hand, of the historical tensions within the spatial and geographic identity of the migrant/immigrant, and, on the other hand, of the constitution of identity(ies) as such by those in power and authority. In the context of what it means to be a “citizen,” the porosity of definitions has real on-the-ground consequences for communities and individuals.

In this section, we also feature a book review of Marisel Moreno’s Crossing Waters: Undocumented Migration in Hispanophone Caribbean and Latinx Literature and Art, by Dartmouth professor Reighan A. Gillam.

III.

The section Black Cities Americas combines historical/archival material with contemporary issues and illustrations, juxtaposing mappings of the Atlantic slave trade voyages and transport routes with the architecture of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC; with images of a newly constructed public high school in New York City; and with a projective speculative spatial project in conversation with author Toni Morrison. Together, these works articulate a newfound precision of Black thought and its expression in architectural form and space and aesthetics.

IV.

Work in the Global Briefing section explores a wide array of issues surrounding contemporary debates on nationalism, migrant and immigrant status, and movements. From refugee camps to spatial practices within and amongst migrant populations, collectively these essays and provocations urge us to contextualize how we cohere borders and nation-states, along with the conceptual protocols that overlay contestations about who should be where. The authors urge readers to rethink closely held positions while reconsidering how visual representation produces a more mutually respectful dialogue.

In light of the raw politicization of the concepts of the citizen, migration and immigration, and the status of the refugee, I hope that the work in this issue sheds light on the complexity of identity, the dignity that each human deserves, and the necessity of a rights-centered approach to the humane treatment of each individual. The conjunctures that are examined in this issue—of bodies versus commodities, citizens versus consumers—expose the treacherous use of othering as a tool of displacement and dissociation. Drawing instead a circumference of the self and the social that includes the stranger and the subaltern as viable allies and fellow citizens (not of a nation but of a species, if you will), how must we reconcile the political veils that inscribe inherent tension in this relational condition?

I want to thank Arturo Ortiz Struck for partnering in the curation and creation of work in this issue as Associate Issue Editor. His collaboration and acute insights on the topics covered were invaluable. Managing Editor Grace Teresa Cillo, now transitioning to new endeavors, has brought passion and sophistication to her work, always challenging us to be true to our core mission and our values. Her ideas and attention to detail have set the standard for our publication.