About the Journal

Samyukta: A Journal of Gender and Culture has a legacy, starting with the launch of the foundation’s initial print journal, Samyukta: A Journal of Women’s Studies in 2001, by G.S. Jayasree, who was then teaching at the Institute of English- a department under the University of Kerala. As knowledge and boundaries between disciplines shifted and turned porous and technologies and access methods changed, the decision to begin a new journal to take forward the rigorous engagements and to make it available digitally was made. Thus, was born Samyukta: A Journal of Gender and Culture in 2016.

Samyukta: A Journal of Gender and Culture, has, in every number, delved into issues that are of immediate and historical urgency. The intense social and historical consciousness that forms the USP of the journal has led to some very original research being featured on gender dynamics in sociological processes and cultural transactions between history, participatory politics and life narratives. The early issues of the journal on topics such as migration, the politics of exclusion, beauty, health, education and so on, through their women-centric approach, draw out the need to revise our existing concepts of the way power relations manifest themselves. The global re-conceptualisation of the semantics of words like beauty and health has led to the journal revisiting these topics in subsequent issues after a few years, thus facilitating knowledge that is disruptive in its continuity.

Samyukta: A Journal of Gender and Culture has constantly experimented with the possibilities of change that a journal can make possible. To this end, it has featured the translations of iconic texts and plays in Malayalam and through them, read the nuanced development of the many modernities in Keralam. The journal refuses to locate itself in any specific geography, preferring instead to address the impact of global currents trickling down to colour individual lives. Issues on Islamic Feminism, Sexualities and Theories of Affect have brought in perspectives that cross borders and 
nationalities. Over the years, the contents of Samyukta have gone beyond being articles, to qualify as campaigns in themselves.

In a world that grows more entrenched in the matrices designed by grand narratives, rhetoric and superlatives, Samyukta: A Journal of Gender and Culture is a chronicle of selves and microcosms.