Under Construction Journal Issue 6.1 UNDER CONSTRUCTION JOURNAL 6.1 | Page 8

Editorial
A very warm welcome to the special double-length (ten article) 10th Issue of Under Construction@Keele.
This issue was meant to have been accompanied by a university-wide celebration of Under
Construction’s anniversary on May 5th, which has, at the time of writing, been temporarily delayed. The
final stages of writing and editing took place amidst the terrible Covid-19 crisis and the fast changing
conditions of uncertainty it has brought. In such a climate the ability to formulate questions across
disciplines, to speak to universality as well as methodological particularity of one school or another, by
our research community’s future in the form of Postgraduates, has become ever more key.
In editing this issue in these times, those questions of inclusivity and what constitutes an intellectual
community, what academia seeks to do, already apparent, have become ever more prominent.
Nevertheless such an ethos follows on from Keele’s HUMSS Conferences on Borders in 2019, recent ILAS
annual PG conferences and, indeed, Under Construction’s work since its inception.
Each Editor in Chief puts some stamp upon their issue: what I've hoped to convey, in conjunction with
the team, within selection and development of these articles, is plurality and heterogeneity rather than
exclusivity, in formal terms as well as methodologically. Peer Review has been used as a kind of
conversation- posing questions with the aim of cultivating the best version of each article on its own
terms in what (to betray my theory roots) the philosopher Gilles Deleuze terms its ‘virtual’ potentiality.
In commissioning and developing these pieces, articles have emerged out of the Keele HUMSS ecology
of research forums and blogs, as well as being bolstered by the support of Keele’s own KPA: in
conception and theme they reflect the quest for Social Inclusion (and in turn Keele’s new Institute for
Social Inclusion), in academia, at home and globally. Editors and Reviewers have emerged from previous
contributors, whilst former staff members have in turn showcased their current research.
Many thanks to Kathy and Glenn, my immediate predecessors as Editors in Chief - with whom I’ve
worked directly on previous issues since initially joining the team in 2018 - and to the current team
(some of whom have been much prized collaborators on other projects). As well as the Editorial staff,
credit must go to Yaar Peretz’s sterling communication and peer review liaison work in recruiting peer
reviewers as well as supporting contributors, Ellie Yates for her online promotion of the magazine and
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