Papers by Leslie Quintanilla
Ethnic Studies Review, 2020
A discussion facilitated by Jason Magabo Perez, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at Californ... more A discussion facilitated by Jason Magabo Perez, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at California State University (CSU), San Marcos. Featuring commentary and analysis of the statements of solidarity curated by Natchee Blu Barnd included in this issue.
Feminist Formations, 2022
Can science be feminist? Can feminist science emerge from and take hold within the neoliberal uni... more Can science be feminist? Can feminist science emerge from and take hold within the neoliberal university? As a collaboratory of researchers and educators under the name Star Fem Co*Lab, the previous questions have shaped our in-progress book, The Science We are For: A Feminist Pocket Guide. The aim of the guide is to take readers, with a focus on undergraduate and popular audiences, away from routinized ways of thinking about and doing science– such as science in the service of profit over people– towards a feminist science practice that is focused on always asking “who is science for?” In this article, we discuss how feminist collaboration might take shape within the neoliberal university as a challenge to the Eurocentric models of scientific knowledge production and valuation on which the institution rests. Our six-member collaboratory reflects on the experiences and motivations that shaped our co-labor of thinking, writing, and care to shed light on roots and routes toward a feminist pedagogy invested in equipping students with practical tools for social justice science engagement. As such, this article makes the case for a vision of feminist science that brings together feminist theory with scientific research and social studies of science to retool and reclaim scientific knowledge production by and for social justice imperatives to redirect power, resources, and knowledge to benefit communities most impacted by imperialistic science and its histories.
Water Justice and Technology: The COVID-19 Crisis, Computational Resource Control, and Water Relief Policy, 2022
We Need to Reject "Sustainable" Technologies
That Reproduce Colonial Gold Rush Devastation
on Ind... more We Need to Reject "Sustainable" Technologies
That Reproduce Colonial Gold Rush Devastation
on Indigenous Peoples.
Critical Ethnic Studies, 2021
Delen el dinero directamente. Ellos saben lo que necesitan hacer.-Salvadoran Civil War refugee Wh... more Delen el dinero directamente. Ellos saben lo que necesitan hacer.-Salvadoran Civil War refugee When we were part of the organizing for Break Down Borders 5K, 1 an annual event beginning in 2014 that drew connections between Palestine and the United States at the San Diego///Tijuana 2 border, we were able to create a deep and intimate network of relations that crossed community, geographic, and border contexts. Far from being just a 5K run/walk, this event also functioned as an act of protest or resistance to the everyday realities of border, colonial, carceral, and other structural violences. One of our goals as organizers was to create an accompanying program that would foster exchange and connection between each of the participants and highlight each of their various struggles. One of the most inspirational and concrete examples of what a world without borders could look like was the moment when recently resettled Syrian refugees and Yaqui political organizers were able to talk to each other, learn from each other, and invite each other to their respective struggles with the help of our translation-Arabic to English to Spanish and back again. A Yaqui leader spoke about water struggles and political organizing on Yaqui territories in the border region of Mexicali-Calexico, 3 while the Syrian elders shared their stories of coming from farming, land-based communities. Land and water struggles from both geographies connected them, and us, across language. As part of the run, we invited both communities to participate and speak. While also being able to engage the broader community present at the 5K, more importantly, they found each other through the stories they were telling. Without knowing much about each other's contexts aside from what was being shared in the moment, they began attempting to communicate in order to express their solidarities and share the resonances of the lived experiences that each person was describing. In this organic moment, organizers facilitated a trilingual back-and-forth of grassroots, experiential knowledge and a display of the ways in which transnational solidarities and joint struggles can surface in their own ways at any given moment. All that was needed were the conditions to meet-the invitation to be present with us at the fifth annual Break Down Borders 5K-but the otherwise geographically distant yet politically connected bonds were already present. These bonds continue to grow, develop, and evolve in the undercommons. 4 As activist descendants of immigrants from the Palestinian and Central American diasporas, we have organized in joint struggle to bring together global analyses of border regimes while directly serving the most vulnerable and newly displaced communities where we have resided-specifically, on Kumeyaay territories, or the San Diego///Tijuana border region. This site has one of the largest resettled refugee populations in the United States 5 and has enabled us to create new organizations, spaces, and coalitions for grassroots organizing. In this work, we are informed by our past organizing experiences in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Italy, and throughout California. As we grow together in our organizing praxis, we find ourselves building a feminist praxis that Angela Y. Davis has theorized when she asks us to imagine "a woman of color formation [that] might decide to work around immigration issues. This political commitment is not based on the specific histories of racialized communities or its constituent members, but rather constructs an agenda agreed upon by all who are a part of it. In my opinion, the most exciting potential of women of color formations resides in the possibility of politicizing this identity-basing the identity on politics rather than the politics on identity." 6 We are learning from each other's geographic and transhistorical specificities of border regimes and displacement, while organizing to serve new refugee communities as they arrive in the United States and Europe today. Through our positionalities as children of displaced communities, committed grassroots organizers, and educators in the academic-industrial complex, we find our specific vantage points in joint-struggle organizing as important entryways into more disciplined and accountable methodologies, analyses, and critiques of solidarity organizing in border contexts and regions. While we do not want to perpetuate the gatekeeping of on-the-ground work with refugees who need immediate services and relief, we do, however, want to speak to various dynamics that often result in more damage than good. No organizer, activist, or academic is immune to perpetuating violent dynamics and unethical relations with migrants and refugees who are crossing borders every day-including ourselves, as we write our reflections based on our different histories of organizing on the ground. We view "on-theground" work as being involved, potentially in an organization or as an individual, in collective work; going to meetings; and actively facilitating logistics, communication, and service provisions that prioritize vulnerable communities with various needs over a long period of time. While there are occasional interruptions to the continuity of our engagements, we always strive to remain committed to the work and to centering vulnerable communities and their known/expressed needs. We recognize that institutions, bureaucracies, funding streams, and different political strategies that intend on helping migrants in transit and refugees in spatial border limbos all have their possibilities and faults. In the cracks of state infrastructures that have always
Ethnic Studies Review, 2020
A discussion facilitated by Jason Magabo Perez, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at Californ... more A discussion facilitated by Jason Magabo Perez, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at California State University (CSU), San Marcos. This historical conjuncture demands deep reflection, critical imagination, and continued action. In the midst of popular protest against continued state-sanctioned anti-Black violence; in the midst of an ongoing pandemic that is disproportionately devasting Black communities, Native communities, and poor communities of color; and in the midst of drastic shifts in the landscape of higher education, the California State Senate passed AB 1460, a bill that would make Ethnic Studies a graduation requirement at California State University. As CSU faculty, we feel it urgent to build solidarity across campuses and with local communities. Using the topic of recent solidarity statements as our point of departure, we gathered to discuss solidarity statements, activism, and the limitations and possibilities of ethnic studies at the university. What follows are excerpts from a casual conversation among five colleagues. By no means is this intended to be representative of our programs, departments , or campuses. We understand this humble effort as a beginning of a conversation, a move toward genuine solidarity.
Science for the People, 2019
This ground-breaking new article, "No Comemos Baterías: Solidarity Science Against False Climate ... more This ground-breaking new article, "No Comemos Baterías: Solidarity Science Against False Climate Change Solutions", by the Center for Interdisciplinary Environmental Justice (CIEJ) explains why lithium batteries and electric cars exploit Indigenous peoples and threaten sacred waters in South America, how they actually create more carbon emissions that gas vehicles, and why they are not justice-centered solutions for climate change. We also define a decolonial feminist science practice and present a call to action for scientists and researchers who want to challenge capitalism and support repatriating land and life to Indigenous peoples.
Science for the People Magazine, 2019
https://magazine.scienceforthepeople.org/vol22-1/agua-es-vida-solidarity-science-against-false-cl... more https://magazine.scienceforthepeople.org/vol22-1/agua-es-vida-solidarity-science-against-false-climate-change-solutions/
This ground-breaking new article, "No Comemos Baterías: Solidarity Science Against False Climate Change Solutions", by the Center for Interdisciplinary Environmental Justice (CIEJ) explains why lithium batteries and electric cars exploit Indigenous peoples and threaten sacred waters in South America, how they actually create more carbon emissions that gas vehicles, and why they are not justice-centered solutions for climate change. We also define a decolonial feminist science practice and present a call to action for scientists and researchers who want to challenge capitalism and support repatriating land and life to Indigenous peoples.
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Papers by Leslie Quintanilla
That Reproduce Colonial Gold Rush Devastation
on Indigenous Peoples.
This ground-breaking new article, "No Comemos Baterías: Solidarity Science Against False Climate Change Solutions", by the Center for Interdisciplinary Environmental Justice (CIEJ) explains why lithium batteries and electric cars exploit Indigenous peoples and threaten sacred waters in South America, how they actually create more carbon emissions that gas vehicles, and why they are not justice-centered solutions for climate change. We also define a decolonial feminist science practice and present a call to action for scientists and researchers who want to challenge capitalism and support repatriating land and life to Indigenous peoples.
That Reproduce Colonial Gold Rush Devastation
on Indigenous Peoples.
This ground-breaking new article, "No Comemos Baterías: Solidarity Science Against False Climate Change Solutions", by the Center for Interdisciplinary Environmental Justice (CIEJ) explains why lithium batteries and electric cars exploit Indigenous peoples and threaten sacred waters in South America, how they actually create more carbon emissions that gas vehicles, and why they are not justice-centered solutions for climate change. We also define a decolonial feminist science practice and present a call to action for scientists and researchers who want to challenge capitalism and support repatriating land and life to Indigenous peoples.