“The Western Academy produces formal grammars—rules of thought…[that] form the discursive ordering force for the structure in dominance, and ultimately the constituent ideologies of ‘nation’ (culture, race, and so forth) within the bordering state.”

Through their predictive capacities, grammars control epistemological possibilities—they police knowledge. They are integral to the functions of the state.”

—Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation (2022)

 I research and write in separate stages. I read widely and takes tons and tons of notes, and then I begin writing. I rarely consult the notes, but simply begin writing. What I recall most clearly – or the details that emerge from the file or document – are the beginnings of the story or narrative. What I remember and where I start is with the detail that is the equivalent of the punctum, the moment of a life, the shape of an object, the darkness of a room, that solicits me, most often because it represents an opening or a detour.