Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2016

Abstract

This afterword to a conference-based symposium represents not only an inter-generational reflection on LatCrit theory @ XX, but also an aspirational reminder of our foundational propositions and values as we look and venture ahead. Beginning with an introduction to the foundational theoretical principles of LatCrit knowledge production - as embodied principally by LatCrit values and the related functions, guidelines, and postulates - we discuss in detail and depth how these theoretical principles underpin the various projects in the LatCrit "portfolio" and provide a historical sketch of the development of these projects as programmatic knowledge production. In particular, we aim through this account to sketch and explain our collective efforts to produce shared knowledge progressively as a foundation for community-building and collaborative action. This process happens in part through some of LatCrit's projects, and oftentimes in the form of published legal scholarship from the mid-1990s onward. As we show below, this combination of academic events with formal publications to advance the development of outsider and critical theories, communities, and networks has become during the past two decades a consistent and continuing methodology of LatCrit knowledge production and academic activism. Finally, to conclude this Afterword, we consider briefly how LatCrit values and aspirations-notably collective self-sustainability and solidarity across difference-can provide a purchase for praxis, community building, and knowledge production even in a world where the prima facie "givens" of the twenty-first century have grown more uncertain, if not hostile, to justice-centric enterprises. We hope, with these thoughts, to support the ongoing work of scholars and activists everywhere struggling for equal justice for all as we begin to engage a third decade of theory, community, and praxis.

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