Are we at the center?
*transcript cleaned by Kaitlyn Gastineau 


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is the work we're doing becoming central
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oh right and I no no I mean that
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that's the question right yeah
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this is the age old question what happens
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when the margin becomes the the
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periphery, margin becomes the center
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uh
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so do we lose our
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marginality? I mean I think
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we're still we're struggling with that
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tension now right now people are looking
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to us to make these kind of statements
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and maybe if I- we could talk about the
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tensions of inhabiting that position
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because for me it's still an uneasy
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thing like uh I was talking with Sophia
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earlier this week and she was trying to
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convince me that I have a legacy
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I don't have a damn legacy
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not yet
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[Laughter]
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right what does it mean to to to be at
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the center of this of this moment of
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this thing and so that's an interesting
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thing to consider for me part of your
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reluctance to to not want to be at the
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center or not want to suggest that you
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have a legacy yet is that our notion of
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what it means to have a legacy is really
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rooted in like a white capitalist
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supremacy like it's really [Lisa: True]
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this thing and so the the desire to
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dissociate one's research and self and
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ethos from notions of legacy and
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centrality in the work are really
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bounded to how we have conceptualized
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what it means to hold legacy in our
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field and what it what what we think one
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has to do to achieve that status right
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what we know people have done to achieve
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that status so
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what if we start thinking about what it
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means to move from margins to center
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and what that center and actually
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changing what that center point is so to
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go back to what Ray is saying about
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revolution right it's not about like
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we're here to like break things up maybe
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DISCO's not here to do that but maybe
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our very existence
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does break to pieces
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something about how we conceptualize
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what is at the center of a field and
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what it means to do work at the center
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of a field but I think there has to be
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so much intentionality about that and I
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think your reticence is is correct
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because without intentionality we
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replicate the exact same systems that
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kept us at the margin and I think that
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we can see pieces of that happening
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in lots of areas digital culture and
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study but also in racism and
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studies of race right how there's
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replication from race scholars of the
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things that put race scholarship at the
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margins to start with when your work in
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interstices then becomes the work that
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other people are looking to as
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the reference work in some ways at least
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of a subfield
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are you forcing other people into
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interstitial positions
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because they're not looking at what
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you're looking at
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like what what's left what becomes the
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interstitial after your interstitial
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work becomes
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accepted?