Introdução

Abstract

The present volume opens Ilha do Desterro's publications for 2021. This year, in many aspects, does not necessarily start anew as it still carries the profound effects of a world pandemic that has severely impacted humanity as a whole. Many people, all over the world, had to find alternative ways to work, to study, to relate to each other, or to simply be in a world that has demanded more distancing, less mobility, and reimagined communities. In the midst of all the changes which 2020 brought with it, the phrase "we are all in this together" has been widely used to describe this new reality. Indeed, the past year has shown, possibly more intensely than in other times, the imbrications, the deep interconnections, of life on Earth. However, the significance of the pronoun "we" in the phrase cited above should not be overlooked.Caribbean-Canadian poet M. NourbeSe Philip, in a radio conversation with Nahlah Ayed, host of the program Ideas, in the CBC radio (Canada), has argued that, "[w]ere we truly 'in this together, ' we would not be in 'this' together" ("The Common Good" 2020). In the program, NourbeSe Philip explores the possible meanings of "we, " or of "being together" in the various communities we are a part of, from the smallest one (as the family, for example), to larger ones, such