The Funambulist No. 61: Ten Years of the Funambulist

On August 13, 2015, in the e-flux headquarters in New York’s Lower East Side, Léopold, alongside contributors and friends Sadia Shirazi, geunsaeng ahn, and Minh-Ha T. Pham, launched The Funambulist magazine, after five years of existence of The Funambulist as a blog (and later, a podcast). Ten years later, we propose an issue to celebrate this anniversary and take a pause to reflect on our trajectory. Rather than engaging in a self-congratulatory exercise, this September-October 2025 issue favors an introspective one, insisting on what we could have done better this past decade. This is how we asked ten loyal readers (some of whom are also contributors to the magazine) to play the role of editors in this issue, and commission a piece on a topic they feel has been remarkably missing from our first 60 issues’ editorial line.

— Michaëla Danjé invites Berhane and Mebrek about international adoption
— Xan Coppinger invites Zarae Whakaka Davis about the relationship between ableism and settler colonialism
— Lissell Quiroz invites Constanza Evans about the politics of motherhood and the struggle against obstetric and gynecological violences
— Kai Bosworth invites Antonio Roman-Alcalá and David E. Gilbert about agriculture and land reform
— Sara Greavu, Andrea Francke, and Giuliana Vidarte invite Olinda Silvano and Cordelia Sánchez (SOI NOMA) about South-centric approaches to Peruvian artistic creation
— WAI Architecture Think Tank invites Luis Othoniel Rosa about tactics to publish in fascist times
— Ana María León invites Nicolás Verdejo about Chilean neighborhood organizing using graphic novel
— Koni Benson invites Parselelo Kantai about complexities and contradictions in Pan-African history

In addition to these blind spots addressed by our guest editors, this issue proposes a text about the usefulness of The Funambulist’s contents and editorial orientation by regular contributor Sinthujan Varatharajah, as well as descriptions from four readers about the issue they deemed most useful for their work and organizing (Adam Arca, Yamina Sam, Kimberly F. Monroe, and Juli Reithinger). As for the cover artwork, it was created by Lori Micu specifically for this issue.

In the News from the Fronts section, you can read a text on the continuity of plantation logics in the Dominican Republic’s tourism industry (Luisa Jimenéz), a description of the Brazilian state policies regarding the country’s semi-arid region (Leonel Olimpio), and an analysis of the use of spoil tips for antifascist and working-class organizing in the French miner city of Saint-Étienne (Thomas Goumarre).