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Editor's picks

Kontinentalist
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What Rivers Remind Us Of— issue #66

Indigeneity teaches us memory, and like rivers, carries us back to the contested places we call home, their interconnections, and the responsibilities they demand.

Munirah Mansoor
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Crafting Air Pasang Surut

Making meaning with Orang Laut Singapore for Hari Orang Pulau.

Recent Posts

Kontinentalist
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Have you eaten yet? That is to say, how are you? — issue #59

Have you eaten yet? That is to say, how are you? In Thailand, you may hear people greet each other with “กินอะไรหรือยัง? (kin khao reu yang?)”, meaning “Have you eaten rice yet?” It demonstrates how essential rice is to life in Thai culture, where it is equated

Kontinentalist
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Unlearning what we know — issue #58

“I have learned the names of all the bushes, but I have yet to learn their songs.” These past months, the Kontinentalist team has been deep in learning and reflection. We started our “Decolonial Reading Club”: bi-monthly sessions breaking down coloniality, knowledge, and being. This quote from Braiding Sweetgrass, recounting

Zafirah Zein
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On Palestine: Covering culture in a time of genocide

What does Gaza require from those who bear witness? The team behind our latest story on Palestine shares their process, thoughts, and feelings while highlighting the beauty of life in Gaza amid the profound loss of Palestinian heritage and cultural identity.  Zafirah (Writer): I came across an Instagram post by

Kontinentalist
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Don’t call us the underdogs — issue #57

2022, Doha Airport. I am catching a flight back to Singapore, but there are other pressing matters in the transit area. Morocco is playing Portugal for a spot in the World Cup semi-finals, and is one goal up at the 90th minute. Behind me, an Arab auntie is saying a

Zafirah Mohamed Zein
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Sports is political: An analysis of power and bias in global sports

Munirah and Zafirah, who worked on the microstory Rise of the Underdogs: How Asia left its mark on the 2022 FIFA World Cup, reflect on how the Olympics is colonial by design. Beatrice Go, the writer behind SEA Games: A stage of unity or power play, joins them to take

Heather Wang
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My first time in Singapore: Seeing Asia anew

When I decided to move from China to the United States for college, I could never have guessed that I would end up working and living in Singapore for four months. For many Chinese international students in the US like me, our perception of the world is often limited to

Kontinentalist
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The art of abundance — issue #56

I’ve been thinking a lot about what Pei Ying wrote in our last newsletter on refusal. These thoughts come on the back of growing research on the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the environment: a search on ChatGPT consumes 25 times more energy than a Google search, and

Samira Hassan
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Behind the Seams: Wax & Stitch Workshop

How the idea started At Kontinentalist, most people know us because of our stories, but we’ve always been interested in making data more approachable and relatable to people’s daily lives. So it was serendipitous when we met Hafiz Rashid, an experienced museum docent and self-proclaimed “Nusantara otaku” at

Nabilah Said
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The Global South, AI, and journalism

“I’m a sceptic.” I declared this to a room full of media practitioners who had come to listen to a panel about AI and journalism. I heard a few nervous titters, spotted some smiles. But I also sensed a collective metaphorical groaning, and imagined a few people internally rolling

Kontinentalist
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What is the point of education if it cannot stop suffering? — issue #55

Apologies: We accidentally sent a test version of our latest issue. Please ignore the previous email and continue reading to enjoy this month's reads! It’s the end of May and spring is in full swing. I’ve just completed my second term at the University of Edinburgh,

Gwyneth Cheng
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Small but Mighty: Behind the Scenes

Our latest microstory Small But Mighty: Conservation lessons from a community in Kinabatangan began with a visit to the headquarters of Our Better World, a local non-profit digital storytelling studio started by the Singapore International Foundation, which highlights stories of global communities doing good. There, they introduced us to the

Loh Pei Ying
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Data is just texture

How can we develop a more intentional approach, methodology, or manifesto around our perspectives towards data? Particularly, how do we think of it ethically, countering eurocentrism whilst applying a feminist and decolonial approach?