Archives

  • There's No Place Like Home
    Vol. 4 (2026)

    December 2025 marked Plurality’s second anniversary and was celebrated with new and old faces. I first became a part of the team as part of marketing, eager to be involved in a project that celebrates intersectional feminism, brings people together, and provides a space for undergraduate students to get involved with academia. Last spring, I was entrusted with the role of Lead Editor, succeeding Emmi Wilkinson, to continue to offer this space. Working with this journal has been an incredibly rewarding experience, one that has deepened my understanding of intersectional feminism and has allowed me to grow alongside my peers. As Plurality’s second Lead Editor, my goal is to foster a community grounded in collaboration, curiosity, and critical engagement, where undergraduate students feel supported in exploring complex ideas and contributing meaningfully to feminist scholarship.

    “There’s No Place Like Home” was conceived by our Deputy Lead Editor, Rose Bates. This issue’s theme struck a chord for many, including myself, as “what is home?” and “where is home?” can be very complicated questions that facilitate many different answers. ‘Home’ not only means a place where someone lives but is also a feeling and an experience. Whether the discussion lies at home in the literal sense, in the domestic sphere, or the feeling of being ‘at home’ in one’s own body, or how the experience of home is something deeply political and socially constructed, this issue’s theme encouraged authors to explore the concept through an intersectional lens.

    Issue 4 opens with our Philosophy and Divinity section, where Almundena Mahou deconstructs the novel Convenience Store Woman from the viewpoint of Japanese philosophy, arguing that the novel both evokes and challenges legacies of feminism and existentialism in Japan. In Art and Literature, Violet Blackburn employs a queer reading of the plays A Taste of Honey and Mrs Warren’s Profession, as both feature unconventional forms of gender, family units, and relationships. In another queer analysis, Andrea Cheng looks at two queer Chinese films to show how Western coming-out narratives are not always applicable to Chinese queer trajectories. Rounding up this section, we follow Dorothy down the yellow brick road in Kayla Greer’s exploration of domestic ideology in The Wizard of Oz. Kicking off our Social Sciences section, Annwen Thurlow examines everyday borders through the case study of two women footballers to demonstrate the intersections of racial governmentality and hegemonic ideals of femininity. Sommer Lugert, a two-time published author for Plurality, uses a feminist lens to examine how home and belonging are produced, negotiated, and contested in the lives of autistic mothers. We then turn the page to History and Classics, where Cerys Jones looks at how reading functions as a means of asserting personal autonomy and individuality for interwar and postwar women, and Molly Ebdy draws attention to the various roles of women in the colonisation and resistance on the American Frontier. In Miscellaneous Musings, Apsara Shah combs through the ideas of androgyny and how gendered appearance can impact how we perceive ourselves and others. Bringing us home is Rita Merle Destremau, who uses an intersectional lens to discuss the power and colonisation perpetuated by homosexual women on the island of Lesbos, and asks if there is a home for lesbians.

    This issue would not have been made possible without the contributions of these brilliant authors and the hard work of the Plurality team. Thank you to the artists Elise Adams, Rosy Fitch, and Madeleine Brady, who worked across artistic media to create the stunning cover and in-text illustrations, making the idea visually come to life. Thanks to our Head of Production, Khoo Yi Xuan, for collaborating and coordinating across the team to put these beautiful pages together. To section editors Zeynep Kilic and Helena Osie Bishop, for continuing to work with Plurality over the past two years, and Asher Rose, Ruby Scott, and Poppy Williams, for joining them in working closely with the authors to help create the pieces that we have today. This issue would not be up to its editorial standard if it were not for our copy editors, Lauren Hood, Juliette Pepin, and Layla Kaban Bowers. And our outreach team, Daniel Wills and Maeve Burrell, for spreading the word of Plurality to reach authors and readers alike. Last but not least, thank you so much to my fellow executives, Rose Bates and Neha Ajith; this issue would not have been made possible without your support and leadership.

    As this chapter closes, another one begins with our upcoming issue, “The Natural”. In a world increasingly shaped by bioessentialism, climate change, and artificial intelligence, I encourage authors to ask themselves: what do we consider to be ‘natural’? How has this idea been embedded within our social structures, institutions, dominant ideologies, and even our understanding of time? What can we learn about the natural world and from our evolving relationship to it that might help us reimagine the present and future? ‘Natural’ logics play into everything from how we understand gender and power, to how we value bodies, organise society, relate to the environment, and even in defining beauty. These concepts do not exist in a vacuum but are rather shaped by history, culture and power. I hope this theme inspires authors to explore ‘The Natural’ through an intersectional lens and that Plurality can continue to offer a space for reflection and reimagining.

    In the meantime, I hope you enjoy Issue 4: “There’s No Place Like Home”.

  • Coalition and Interruption
    Vol. 3 (2026)

    Feminist publication has long played an important role in the development and distribution of critical discourse. Theorists have used the independence of these publications from institutions, particularly their grassroots and independent nature, to question and express important criticisms of paradigmatic thinking. However, while these publications have been important, I sometimes wonder if this is enough to change the material conditions which we live under, and how can we expand our activism to go beyond the page. Along with the importance of not solely residing in critical discourse but also constructing feminist visions to aspire to and lead collective social movements with both an eye towards the ideal and non-ideal theorisation, to ensure that there is a mutual flow of ideas from the ground up and vice-versa. Thus, I am thrilled to present Plurality’s third issue on the theme of Coalition and Interruption. As we think in the ways theory and practice can form a coalition for change, along with how each can interrupt and ‘call in’ the other for the perusal of the project of liberation.

     

    In this issue we have nine wonderful articles, starting off with Aileen Kuang thinking about how we can use Donna Haraway’s situated knowledges to expand intersectionality frameworks to consider beings beyond the human. Our other Philosophy and Divinity piece analyses the arguments of Lucrezia Marionella criticising the notion of using women’s beauty to argue for their value presented by Roopsha Deshmukh who argues that this fails to interrupt the patriarchal valuations of women based on beauty which cannot be reclaimed. For our Arts and Literature section we have Jada Horan who considers how Zora Neale Hurston utilizes spatial politics to question forms of authority via dynamic spaces and a lens of transformation. Followed by Piper Farmer’s piece which explores female solidarity analyzing the figure of the old crone in Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Tale using Le Guin’s notion of ‘space crone’ to show how the crone can be a site to facilitate mutual aid and coalition-building. For the Social Sciences we have Rachel Barlow who looks at how women educators in Afghanistan have used coalition to resist oppression to learn from and apply to other feminist movements. Along with Elizabeth Hamilton analysing how nation branding uses ‘nation(ist)’ coalitions to define the discursive space of feminisms and who is included in the construction of the Nation. For our History and Classics section, Júlia Norman offers a careful consideration of Yorkshire women welders during the Second World War as agents within power structures who utilized collective resistance and individual acts of defiance to questioning paradigmatic historiographical narratives of women during this period. Grace Law Woodhouse begins the Law section with illustrating how feminist legal coalitions within reproductive rights movements have had to navigate the tension between calls for inclusive representation and increasingly restrictive legislation. Finally, we have Beth Hutchinson who ends off the issue with looking at how morality can be conflated with normative legal framework to restrict the body autonomy of marginalised communities, policing bodies who interrupt understandings of ‘the normal body’.

    I am proud of where this project has come and the community which I hope it has fostered, even as I move away from leading the publication. I never would have thought that the publication would already be on its fifth issue! Along with the opportunities it has provided authors in being able to publish their work in a publication which attempts to demystify the academic publication process and expand what academic publication can look like. This past autumn we had the first transition to a new committee. While at first I was nervous with the prospective instability this could create, since continuity is often the step where student projects end, my worries were shown to be unfounded. I am humbled by how the new committee has stepped up and continued the important ethics of the publication along with expanding the project to greater heights. In many ways this issue has been a collaborative coalition between the past and future committee, in the sharing of skills, time and labour. It certainly gives me hope that this project may continue long past me being a student at Edinburgh.

     

    The next committee has been diligently working on Issue 4: No Place Like Home, and calls for papers for Issue 5: The Natural are currently open so I thoroughly encourage aspiring researchers and writers to submit as I am confident you will find the editorial process a challenging yet rewarding experience. I write this final letter not as a goodbye but as a starting point for hoping that I have built a platform where future feminist thought can be published to foster the careers of current student feminist theorists and activists.

  • Witness
    Vol. 2 (2025)

    Plurality celebrated its first year anniversary this December, and it truly has been an incredible year for the publication. From conception to materialization to now having two issues published. I am grateful for the journey it has taken to come this far and the ways this publication has facilitated my personal growth in many ways. I hope that Plurality has succeeded in its goal of providing a space for undergraduate researchers to share in the study of intersectionality. Additionally, that this publication has been a learning ground for both editors and authors, as we work together to create something which will build the feminist literature. 

    The issue starts with Mia Taylor’s exploration of whether abolitionist spaces can provide a refuge from the infamous male gaze. Rounding out our Philosophy and Divinity section, we have A Hijazi who writes about how the defiance of Palestinian witness testimony creates historical continuity from sites of dispossession. For Art and Literature, we have Rose Devine who analyses the role of women as symbolic witnesses and repositories of desire in Marie de France’s Lanval. Jack Lyall discusses how Emmanuel Levanis’ conception of responsibility appears in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Jean Rhys’ Good Morning, Midnight. Sommer Lugert, for our Social Sciences section, looks at how current frameworks of human trafficking lack intersectionality leading to the marginalisation of certain trafficking survivors. Analysing the Jinv resistance, Tongyu Hu provides an account of how to understand this radical feminist movement happening in China. Anna Braun, starts our History and Classics section, with a critical analysis of current narratives around northern Nigerian women in the context of Boko Haram and its related conflict, arguing that the framing of victimization overshadows women as witnesses and their diversity of experiences. Next, Melissa Kocacinar looks at how the memories of the Algerian diaspora put into question monolithic narratives of national identity in France. Yuna Watanabe uses the lens of orientalism to bear witness to the lost history of Japan’s premodern homosexual culture, nanshoku. For our musings section, we have Ruby Scott looking at online hate-speech using Baudrillard’s “Simulacra and Simulation” framework to argue how online commenters fail to witness the personhood of marginalised people. My sincerest thank you to our authors for submitting their work and being open to developing it into the drafts you see in this issue. I encourage you to spend time in acknowledging your momentus achievements as well as the way this process has hopefully helped you grow as a researcher.

    Read our full issue here or scroll below to access individual articles.

  • Waves of Perception
    Vol. 1 (2024)

    The first issue of Plurality is here 'Waves of Perception: The temporal nature of gender conception’ focuses on the nature of progress in society and how progress is felt at different levels throughout time, with the more marginalised of a movement often being unjustly sidelined or forgotten. It is about moments of progress and how our perceptions of gender have changed over time.

    Our authors bring to light important discussions and issues, analysing them in connection with intersectionality. Beginning with Lucy Barrie’s analysis of the importance of modest dress being incorporated into the feminist project. Elizabeth Hamilton theorises how we can resist with words and the importance of anti-oppression speech. Rounding out our ‘Philosophy and Divinity’ section, we have Lily Roberts who explores whether feminist interpretations of the biblical story of Genesis are possible. For our ‘Art and Literature’ section, Julia Guzikowska explores how women writer’s have subverted patriarchal storytelling norms through the use of metafiction. Focusing on the representation of the female body in 90s pop culture and literature, Julia Owczarek looks at how female protagonists who do not reject their bodies are still unable to liberate themselves. Moving to the ‘Social Sciences’, Lea Kern looks at how Māori women’s experiences have been shaped by colonialism and patriarchy, and how indigenous feminisms such as Mana Wāhine have been important in capturing this positionality. Ellie Robertson gives a linguistic analysis on the possibility of removing gender from language. Using feminist and decolonial theoretical frameworks, Liza Yeroshkina analyses Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine. Focusing on how queerness affects temporal experiences, Izzie Atkinson argues how this could redefine how we think of historical progress. For our ‘History and Classics’ section, Adeline Cheung considers the importance of an intersectional approach for historians of empire. Eliza SInclair Kidd looks at critical inclusion of early feminists in the feminist historiography of geography focusing on Ellen Churchill Semple. Eve Coffey discusses the legal implications of virginity testing within the UK legislative environment in our ‘Law’ section. Finally we have our ‘Miscellaneous Musings’ beginning with Ruby Scott who analyses how TikTok and social media have changed what femininity means via choice feminism. Focusing on the muse in art, Martha Gane uses a gendered lens to analyse the role of musehood and artist. Abigail Nicoll brings important considerations of the importance of intersectionality within psychological research. 

    I am infinitely grateful for Plurality’s editors, for helping the author’s develop their voice and writing. Thank you to Maria for helping guide the editors and the development of the sections. This publication would not have been possible without Abby’s and our wonderful copy editors’ attention to detail. We received an incredible number of submissions for our first issue thanks to our talented marketing team. Thank you to Daisy, Marnie and Bessie, our wonderful artists for helping the issue develop into a gorgeous work to flip through with your eye-catching art pieces and cover design. It has been absolutely amazing to see the materialization of this project with the publication of this first issue and I am thrilled to have been a part of it. We are already working on our second issue ‘Witness’ and I am excited to see how this publication develops in the future.