In a recent tweet, professor Toby Miller pointed out that “The two hundred highest-ranked journals in the Social Science Citation Index and Web of Science find authors blissfully ignoring knowledge from the Global South—the citation of such “others” by European and North American researchers over the last thirty years is virtually zero.” In other terms, the Media Studies academic world reproduces the same hierarchies at work in other aspects of social life. It is thus Eurocentric, giving priority to works coming from Western Europe and North America. The imperial imagery that Shohat and Stam defined a long time ago in their influential book Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media (1994) remains largely unchallenged.

Not coincidentally, in the recent Sight & Sound poll for best video essays of 2020, the overwhelming majority of titles in the list are in English. Granted, English is the lingua franca of international academia, and not all these works are Eurocentric. It is also legitimate that authors often utilize English to give more visibility to their research and creative projects. At the same time, this lack of cultural and linguistic diversity is a very telling fact. In Tecmerin: Journal of Audiovisual Essays, we publish works in any language, as long as they have English or Spanish subtitles. Consequently, we do participate in the perpetuation of these hierarchies even if we modestly contribute to alter them too.

In issue 7, we are proud to incorporate a new language to our video essay collection: Farsi. We are also delighted with the fact that the majority of works have been made by women, challenging the dominant role of male authors and creators within the worldwide panorama, and, specifically, Spain.

In the section “From the Archive”, via the phenomenal project carried out by a group of UC3M researchers, the Archive of Cinematic Mobility, we showcase two audiovisual pieces that deal with “The Global South”. Specifically, they approach issues of migration, mobility and displacement.  We include two pieces,  Border Diaries, by Ceuta filmmaker Irene Gutiérrez and Round Trip, the result of a series of collaborative projects and workshops that reflect upon migrant experiences in contemporary Spain. 

Finally, we open a new section, “Student Showcase”. In the Media Studies Department at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, we have successfully implemented the realization of video essays in different courses of our curriculum. We have encouraged students to submit their works for publication in the journal. All these audiovisual essays have gone through a blind peer review process.

We hope you enjoy this spring issue. Winter ain’t coming yet.