Roadsides

Working on fresh approaches to infrastructures? If you can imagine editing a special issue with us, send us a proposal!

Deadline for proposals: 15 November 2025

Send proposals to our editors-in-chief:

Agnieszka Joniak-Lüthi
agnieszka.joniak@unifr.ch

Tina Harris
C.H.Harris@uva.nl

Labour of Love: An Open Access Manifesto for Freedom, Integrity, and Creativity in the Humanities and Interpretive Social Sciences With a number of recommendations toward the commonification of open access

Roadsides is Open Access, check our manifesto:

“the humanities and social sciences are too often disengaged from the public ... we want to reclaim the project of Open Access and key it to a different register of shared creativity and responsibility.”
commonplace.knowledgefutures.org/pub/y0xy565k...

Journal cover image depicting men using axes to cut blocks of natural ice on the side of a mountain

CFP for the new @roadsides.bsky.social issue, CRYOSPHERE. roadsides.net/call-for-pap... "Snow and ice have long served as vital resources for human and non-human inhabitants of this planet. Today the world is experiencing immense changes to the cryosphere."

Microlandscape on the Haber–Bosch catalyst surface, a high-pressure reactor, World War I battlefield, algal bloom in Baltic Sea, war news on an ammonia pipeline in Ukraine. Collage: Author, 2024.

In "Ammonia Synthesis: Entering a Ubiquitous Chemical Technosphere" Benjamin Steininger rethinks ammonia synthesis and follows its specific associated toxicities, putting particular emphasis on the ‘openness’ of industrial infrastructure. roadsides.net/collection-n...

Iron sulfides like pyrite have been identified as the main culprits in Donegal’s defective concrete. Due to their presence, many homes are crumbling. Photo: Angela Tourish, 2024

In her article "Toxic Recurrences" Kaitlyn Rabach demonstrates that crumbling homes and toxic mould go unacknowledged in County Donegal, Ireland, as residents fear speaking out will devalue their property. roadsides.net/collection-n...

Pellets being tracked o" the field at Azusa High School. These pellets can travel across campus and even to students’ homes. Photo: Fred Ariel Hernandez, 2023

In "Repairing Toxic: Deferred Maintenance in Schools" Margaret Tebbe and Fred Ariel Hernandez suggest how late-industrial ethnography can make visible some of the toxic hazards in Los Angeles school buildings. roadsides.net/collection-n...

SIlica dust. Photo: Tuaindeed / Getty Images.

In "Silica Trails: Turned Soils, Dusty Lungs" Juliana Ramos Boldrin illustrates how silica exposure can damage health, but mitigating the harm could jeopardise Brazil’s dominance in silica export. roadsides.net/collection-n...

Subway worker wearing a protective mask, Buenos Aires. Photo: Jorge Afarian, 2019.

In "Toxic Struggles: Asbestos in Argentina’s Subway" Jorge Afarian reveals how Buenos Aires metro workers face illegal asbestos exposure and uncovers a troubling hierarchy between acceptable and unacceptable health risks. roadsides.net/collection-n...

An abandoned plant in Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan. Photo: Nikolaos Olma, 2021.

Gulzat Baialieva considers how 80 tons of abandoned toxic waste in Kyrgyzstan trigger discussions on the toxic aftermath of neoliberal reforms and state neglect in her article "Seeking Environmental Justice Amid Post-Industrial Ruins."
roadsides.net/collection-n...

Wakar (‘minewatcher’) tent and excavator in the dirt road. Photo: Fahmi Fahroji, 2023.

In his article "Wounded Landscape: Ambivalence and Toxic Extractivism in Indonesia" Fahmi R. Fahroji explores how a coal company’s seizure of rubber plantations in Indonesia has pushed farmers into toxic, low-paying jobs in the mining industry.
roadsides.net/collection-n...

One end of the portage trails, and the site of the remediation project. Photo: Laura Goyhenex, May 2024.

In "Remediating Trails: Addressing Toxicities from Pitchblende Transportation" Laura Goyhenex links historical uranium ore spills on Indigenous land in Canada’s Northwest Territories to both toxic contamination and colonial power relations.
roadsides.net/collection-n...

In his article "Breaking Points: Mediated Contaminations, Infrastructural Toxicity" Andrea Bordoli examines mining-linked water contamination in Indigenous lands in Canada and proposes infrastructural toxicity as a lens to address settler-colonial violence.
roadsides.net/collection-n...

In "Toxic Infrastructures: An Introduction" Nikolaos Olma and Janine Hauer argue that toxic infrastructures provide a unique lens through which to capture the workings and effects of late industrialism across scales and temporalities. roadsides.net/collection-n...

Collection no. 013 | Roadsides Collection no. 013: Toxic Infrastructures Spring 2025 For decades, infrastructures have been widely seen as the backbone of modernity, a symbol of progress and development, and a manifestation of soci...

Roadsides 013: Toxic Infrastructures is done! Congratulations to all contributors and guest editors Janine Hauer and Nikolaos Olma. We will publish all articles over the next few days: roadsides.net/collection-n...

Call for Papers | Roadsides Collection no. 014: Foodways Fall 2025 Editors: Matthäus Rest and Dolly Kikon Food and infrastructure interact in multiple ways. Industrialized food is dependent on modern infrastructure for its produ...

Call for abstracts for our fall issue on foodways, edited by @dollykikon.bsky.social and @mattrest.bsky.social

roadsides.net/call-for-pap...