Editor’s Introduction

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a mosaic is “a variegated whole formed from many disparate parts,”¹ which perfectly captures this issue’s geographically, historically, intellectually, and artistically wide-ranging, and diverse yet interrelated contents. Each piece—whether poetry, testimonio, essay, creative nonfiction, or interview—touches on key themes iterated in unique ways depending on the context. Featuring work focused on Afghanistan, Canada, Haiti, India, Mexico, Tunisia, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Puerto Rico, and the United States mainland, this Mosaic issue reveals a broader picture of the complex, contradictory, and challenging nature of enacting transnational or intersectional feminist solidarities within and across borders, whether physical, political, ethno-racial, or ideological. Coincidentally, I write this introduction as each of the countries, diasporas, and issues examined here are prominent in the current news cycle: the politically exacerbated impacts of natural disasters (Turkey, Puerto Rico); religious fundamentalism’s impact on women and girls (Afghanistan, India); civil unrest...