Basis of Unity

This policy is a guideline. It draws on the policies of others, including articule and WomenBeing, and reserves the right to update it as we learn and grow. It tells you what you can expect from NO NIIN, but also what NO NIIN expects from everyone contributing to our magazine.

As a magazine, we want to be a safe, empowering, welcoming space of discovery for all contributors, and readers, especially those of us traditionally on the margins. The contributors at the NO NIIN form a diverse group. Some of us experience different kinds of oppression and violence including racism, imperialism, disableism, poverty, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, islamophobia and antisemitism, to name a few. These oppressions are not separate from each other which can be exhausting and painful. We want to create a space that recognises and challenges the oppression and exploitation that some of us are harmed by and some of us benefit from.

• NO NIIN recognizes that systemic oppression exists in and operates through arts communities to disempower individuals because of their race, nationality, gender, sexuality, economic status, religion, ability, and more. The shape these intersecting forms of marginalization take includes unequal access to opportunity, cultural insensitivity, cultural appropriation, harassment whether psychological or physical, microaggressions, sexism, racism, homophobia, transmisogyny, ableism, and derogatory language.

• NO NIIN commits to prioritizing the knowledge and safety of individuals with intimate, lived experience of particular oppression in order to collaboratively arrive at ways to address its effects.

• NO NIIN values solidarity, patience, and compassion in the process of working towards equity in both personal encounters and structural decisions; this includes both individual and collective accountability as well as prioritizing accessibility and QTBIPOC safety.

• NO NIIN acknowledges that good intention is not enough; anti-oppressive practice requires individuals to cultivate an ongoing awareness of the dynamics which disempower some and privilege others, in order to redress inequalities.

• NO NIIN is committed to investing in the process of self-critical adaptation, maintaining collaborative efforts with other cultural workers, and developing ongoing public outreach to include those marginalized by the arts community we operate within.