History will likely remember 2020 as a turning point. Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic slowed the relentless advance of the Anthropocene and cast doubt on the capitalist development model. Locally, meanwhile, the principles that have governed us for the last four decades were also called into question, to the point of necessitating a new beginning.
Thus, this year we have faced a paradox: as guinea pigs for unprecedented global lockdown strategies, our survival depended on suspending some of the most basic forms of coexistence. Yet, precisely for that reason, we realized that we cannot exist without others. However, even the very definition of 'others' has fallen short. We are no longer speaking only of the inclusion of minorities and the marginalized, but also of other species: plants, trees, animals, or even a virus. We have coexisted with all of them throughout this year.
This issue of ARQ serves as a space to make these diverse forms of coexistence visible. The point is not that coexistence is precarious because it is at risk of failing to materialize, but rather that the very precariousness in which we all live makes coexistence necessary. If our planet can collapse due to a virus or global warming, then all our lives are precarious.
