Introduction: From Solidão, to Isolation, to Solidão-rity

Abstract

[...]true to the various dimensions of how we have come to experience solidāo, we also write with fire in our hearts, with defiance, and the recognition of how we, like so many of our loved ones and ancestors, can take such a heavy experience that is rooted in larger racialized social processes external to ourselves and turn it into a point of enfranchisement. From this affective position during the pandemic, we share a diasporic, collective grief of lives lost to structural racism, whether through violences such as inadequate health care, police violence, or the various forms of colonial violence directed at Black gender- and sexualdissidents. Disidentification is a negotiation;it's developed by minority subjects;it's made in order to survive, and thrive;it is a deliberate act of living in a majoritarian public sphere without denying some aspect of oneself. There were new journal editors, new timelines, and an effort to figure out where we left off after an unexpected year-and-a-half pause compounded by major life changes and sociopolitical and economic upheavals in Brazil and the U.S. There were challenges in working with scholars across academies, as the requirements for publication and tenure varied across the region: there was an increase in writing letters on behalf of scholars who participated in this edition either as writers or as reviewers, the challenge of finding editors who would understand Spanish, Portuguese, the continuing evolution of gender-inclusive language in Spanish and Portuguese, while understanding the concept of Pretugues (Black Vernacular Portuguese), for example.