Re-pairing

In her essay "A Reparative Approach to Publishing", Mia Melvær describes the shifting aspect of the written word, which once considered stable, is now within the age of digital publishing, editable and contested. Citing the example of the Wikipedia page that defines Femicide/Feminicide as one in "constant flux" between the edits of those who wish the page to represent the gendered nature of murders of women, and those who do not wish for it to exist at all, Melvær reminds us that the wiki page is a heavily contested space of writing, rewriting and redirecting, but also one that leaves traces. The software that powers Wikipedia, MediaWiki, keeps logs of revisions made to pages. The revisions are less a garden of forking paths than a heavily pruned branch, cut back and extended, over time.