After many years, I have resigned from my editorial role in the Radical Housing Journal. The decision, as I explain below, it is entirely personal and has nothing to do with the RHJ – a project I am still very much in love with, and one I know will continue to thrive in the future.

This does not come as an easy decision to me. I still remember where I was (the living room of my house in Cardiff) when I started playing with the idea of doing a ‘Radical Housing Journal’. It was 2016. I just returned from the Cardiff Anarchist book fair, where I discussed the project with one of the UK editors of PM Press. A few days after that chat, I called Meli (Melissa Fernández Arrigoitia) and shared the idea of the RHJ with her. I still remember Meli’s enthusiasm. Then, she organised a first meeting with Mara (Ferreri) at LSE. We then did further founding meetings with Erin (McElroy) and Mel (Melissa Lamarca)… we worked hard to produce documents and procedures throughout 2017. I remember we spent months and months working out the basics – with dozens of dreadful Excel tables! – before other wonderful people joined. Then, we launched the Journal’s project in Leeds in September 2017 and Minneapolis in 2018. After that, the first call for papers (when we had hundreds of submissions) led to our first issue in September 2019. From that moment, we published 12 full-featured issues, with articles peer-reviewed by academic and housing organisers, interviews and conversations with organisers, reviews and positioning essays situated across a number of geographies, all completely open-access.

The RHJ changed housing studies. We gave space to forms of knowledge completely absent from the mainstream academic housing publishing. The big publishers realised this. It is noticeable how journals such as Housing Studies or the IJHP started to publish certain kinds of interventions after we opened up that space. And yet, the RHJ project remains distinctive. Because it was never just about publishing academic papers. The conversations section is a testament to that. But also some of the political decisions we took (also about our own collective) and collective interventions – such as the editorials, which are widely read and circulated. This was all possible because many gave up so much energy and time, including all of those populating the RHJ board to date.

Now – after the bad accident I had a few months ago and the pain and immobility that followed – I realised that I need to focus my energy more carefully. Albeit it is hard to leave, it makes no sense to be part of the collective if I can’t prioritise it. And I know that I will not be able to prioritise it. My interests are shifting, and there are other collective projects in which I am starting to be invested, which require my attention. Professorial duties and mentoring responsibilities – which have occupied so much of my time in the last few years – won’t diminish, and I also believe one shouldn’t stay forever on editorial boards. And so I need to be honest with myself and my comrades in the RHJ collective. Leaving is the right thing to do for me now.

I know the RHJ is a fundamental project for global housing justice scholarship, and it is here to stay. If you are a reader of the journal, please help the collective spread its content and message. If you still don’t know the journal, please visit its website and dig in. In any case, support this important project: it is a rare, effective template for meaningful scholarship, engagement and research.

In solidarity,

Michele