'Diffractive Drawing' Chapter Published

Afield's essay titled 'Diffractive Drawing' was published today in the book IN CONVERSATION WITH KAREN BARAD: DOINGS OF AGENTIAL REALISM, edited by Vivienne Bozalek (University of Western Cape, South Africa) and Karin Murris (University of Oulu, Finland). The chapter is used to place Barad in conversation with Audre Lorde and to place them both in conversation with an historic preservation project intended to mitigate wear on the famous rock-hewn churches in the Ethiopian city of Lalibela. Much of the chapter revolves around the redirection of epistemological power flows that usually typify the relationship between historic preservation professionals from the Global North and Global South communities in which preservation projects are located. This chapter is the first time that we articulate a signature way of working that shapes Afield as practice: the use of the term 'Diffractive Drawing.' The chapter grows out of a 2017 workshop in Cape Town with Barad and interlocutors from Africa, Europe, North America, and South America. The edited volume is a part of Routledge's Postqualitative, New Materialist and Critical Posthumanist Research Series edited by Murris.