EDITORIAL Dr. Lars Cornelissen ISRF Academic Editor
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s I am preparing this issue of the ISRF Bulletin for publication in July 2020, the social order as we know it feels like it is being shaken to its core. Challenged not only by the Covid-19 pandemic and its myriad social, economic, and political implications but also by a global wave of anti-racist demonstrations, today’s dominant mode of governmental reason seems once again to be facing a crisis of legitimacy. Although one should be careful not to announce its demise prematurely, it feels increasingly unlikely that the liberal status quo will come out of these times unscathed. It feels strange, therefore, to be compiling a Bulletin issue that does not address these topics head on. As an organisation that is focused on the critical analysis of real-world problems and that, both academically and politically, unreservedly supports anti-racist struggles, the ISRF certainly encourages and supports reflection on these topics, as it has always done. Now, as ever, timely and informed critique is crucial. But this is not to say that the need for timely critique exhausts the role of scholarship in times of crisis or disruption. In other words, even if thoughtful reflection on current affairs is undoubtedly necessary, a case must also be made for the continuation of what feminist criticism has come to call ‘slow scholarship.’1 Good research more often than not requires time: time to think, to ruminate, to edit, to deconstruct. The demand that scholarship be of immediate relevance to the present, that research agendas adjust themselves to ever-changing circumstances and to the temporal regime set by the news cycle, 1. See Alison Mountz, Anne Bonds, Becky Mansfield, Jenna Loyd, Jennifer Hyndman, Margaret Walton-Roberts, Ranu Basu, Risa Whitson, Roberta Hawkins, Trina Hamilton, Winifred Curran, “For Slow Scholarship: A Feminist Politics of Resistance through Collective Action in the Neoliberal University,” ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 14, no. 4 (2015): 1235–1259. My thanks goes to Craig Jones for bringing my attention to this work. 4
