Introduction

Days are getting longer here. Bluish afternoon shades and early evenings gradually give in with the arrival of springwinter, vårvinter. ¹ At midday the vision is challenged by intense snowlight, snöljus. Mainland, island, and lake perform as one, connected by the ice, and temporarily ice roads, isvägar, create lines and ringlets on the frozen surface. The writing of this introductory chapter takes place in the same season as the establishment of an international interdisciplinary writing network three years ago. ² Two years earlier, in the summer of 2006, I had come to this new university, located in a sparsely populated area, gles-bygd, in Sweden to work and to write. It seems timely that my final work as editor of this volume, which focuses on a question that has received little recognition in the field of feminist studies, takes place in a transition season that blurs the contours of two of the established ones, winter and spring. One of the contributions of this volume relocates dislocation in writing and considers how the re-shaping of forms of writing can contribute to promoting an ethics of change and a renewal of reflexivity in feminist studies—and beyond. It seeks to provide opportunities for readers to engage in the possibilities and limitations of such a project. Characteristic of relocating dislocation in writing, as employed in this volume, are writings that embody contradictions, messiness, and doubts, and that potentially reshape repressive forces in society and promote liberating ones (Ebert 2007).