Scroll down to learn more about zines, zine cultures, making zines and the zine assessment on Encountering Cities.
WHAT'S A ZINE?
Zines
Zines are hard to define because they assume so many different shapes, styles, and formats, and they cover such a vast array of subjects.
But simply put, zines are self-published magazines that have a small circulation.
Zines provide a medium for people to express themselves freely and creatively.
They can be about pretty much anything. Many zines celebrate the quirks of everyday life and the idiosyncrasies of places; some are vehicles for expressing and building subcultures; while others are crafted as part of political movements (including feminism, the civil rights movement and anarchism).
A common feature of zines is that they provide spaces for marginal voices to express themselves, and for hidden or alternative perspectives to be aired and to circulate.
Zines are an important means of communication for community groups, political activists, film collectives, punks, feminists, anarchists…Typically they are made by and for specific groups of people.
And so when they are used as part of a research project zines introduce a collaborative ethic that forces researchers to think about the obligations to research participants, and what they might need from the research.
Aesthetics and ethics of zines
One important characteristic of zines is that they are homemade and they privilege a do-it-yourself (and a do-it-together) ethic.
They are an assessment that involves working away from a screen...something that is more important than usual this year.
Zines are concerned primarily with content and communication, not aesthetics.
Indeed, the DIY style of zines is self-consciously fashioned in opposition to the glossy aesthetics of commercial media in a society of mass consumption.
Making zines involves folding, drawing, cutting and pasting. It eschews screens for paper, scissors, found text and images, sharpies and glue sticks.
Another important feature of zines is their reproducibility. You have to be able to photocopy your zine to produce multiple copes.
Zines often involve comic-style drawings. But they don’t have to.
Another key feature of zine making is that appropriation of other published materials in collage to inject new meaning.
There is, of course, an ethics involved in this kind of use of other material that has to be negotiated and discussed when making zines.
Zines in Encountering Cities
You will produce a zine (of no more than 1000 words) to reflect on your group project exploring some aspect of everyday life in Edinburgh.
The zine is an individual assessment that builds on the fieldwork.
The zine is designed to give you a chance to express your understanding of key theories, methods and issues from this class.
It should not read like as standard essay, but is an opportunity to communicate your understanding in a way that is creative, engaging and should be accessible to pretty much anyone.
The zine needs to tell the story of some aspect of your fieldwork in the group mapping exercise. It should make connections back to relevant academic literature and involve some analysis of the materials you produced during the fieldwork. It also offers space to reflect on what you have learnt from doing the fieldwork and making a zine.
The emphasis in zines is on the content and communication rather than aesthetics.
In this assessment you are not being assessed on your drawing skills or the aesthetic quality of your zine. You are being assessed on the content of the zine and how successfully it communicates your understanding of an idea or method from the course by telling the story of some aspect of everyday life in Edinburgh.
However, to do this effectively you will need to think about the visual and material qualities of the zine.
One way of staying on track is trying to think about the audience of the zine.
Who would be interested in reading the zine?
How would you grab - and hold - their attention?
To help you better understand what I am looking for in the assessment I've made a zine of the zine grade-related marking criteria. Download it here:
The skills
Making a zine might feel like an unusual - even uncomfortable - assignment.
But the ethics and cultures of zine-making fit well with many of the goals of this course.
Much like zines, Encountering Cities pays attention to the mundane details of everyday life; it seeks out marginalised, overlooked and silenced voices and perspectives; it finds political potential in the humdrum and practices of everyday life.
And making a zine should develop a range of skills.
Creativity
You'll experiment and develop a distinctive voice and gain new skills in visual and written communication.
The zine provides you with the opportunity to be original and creative when identifying and analysing aspects of the everyday urban life.
Zines offer a space for you to examine incoherence, mess, contradiction, juxtaposition, ephemerality, liveliness, and non-linear stories in ways that are often difficult within the structure of an essay or formal academic writing.
Putting ideas to work
You will have to think critically and apply your understanding of key concepts, research methods, and issues introduced In Encountering Cities.
It will also help you understand how research methods and styles of representation shape our understanding of cities. It's an opportunity to think about the performativity of research and play with the idea that academic knowledge makes the worlds it seeks to understand.
Reflection
You should also be reflecting on the ethics of doing research (and appropriating already published material). A key aspect of zine publishing is that as forms of knowledge they should be accessible and circulate freely. At the end of the course I would like each zine to be part of an archive that contributes to the documentation of everyday life in Edinburgh.
A zine about making zines on Encountering Cities
Here's a zine I made with a former students on this course. It's a zine about making zines that is a collaboration. It introduces how and why zines became a part of the assessment on the course.
You can download the zine here:
It also tells the stories of some of the students of making zines on this course. In particular it emphasises what the students got from making zines.
This includes stories about collaborating. For many it was the first time they'd sat down together to work on an assessments. Cutting, pasting, writing, drawing and making can be a social thing and where if you can I'd encourage you to do it together.
One of the things I loved most about the zines, was that a number of students said that for the first time they'd shared what they were working on at university. They we passing their zines to flatmates, friends and families.
Many students also talked about how the challenge and unfamiliarity of zines actually helped develop their understanding of key ideas and theories. I think the mix of being asked to do something that is unfamiliar, alongside being asked to make and do that helped develop and deepen understanding.
The zines also produce an amazing archive of your work (if you're willing to let me have a copy after the assessment). I've gathered zines from previous years and these provide a fantastic resource for you to work with and be inspired by. But as a class we're beginning to build up an archive of zines of different parts of Edinburgh.
Some inspiration FOr your ZineS
SHAWN'S BEHIND THE ZINES TOUR
Shawn introduced me to zines.
And it was while we were making and talking about zines on a chilly picket line that I started to see the potential for zines as an assessment on Encountering Cities.
Here Shawn shares some of his zine collection and talks you through some of the stories and the organisation of zines.
There are some fantastic ideas and suggestions here for your zines.
You should also check out the Edinburgh Zine Library
Edinburgh Zine Library is an archive and reference library of self-published material based in the Art and Design Library at Edinburgh Central Library on George IV Bridge.
The library holds 200 or 300 zines and aims to increase access to zines in Edinburgh. If you're looking for inspiration you could check out their collection in a filing cabinet at Edinburgh Central Library.
The Edinburgh Zine Library also promote zines, zine making and DIY culture through workshops and other events. Usually they come and run a zine-making workshops for this course. Introducing us to zine cultures and getting us making.
To find out more check out their webpage:
Cool Schmool Zines
You might also take a look at Holly Casio's blog about zines and zine-making.
Holly makes zines about mental health, fatness, pop culture, fandom, diy punk, queerness, and class
She's also made a zine about the appropriation of zines: This is Fake DIY.
The zine discusses DIY culture, the problems with using the term ‘zine’ as a catch-all for all self-published material, and troubles how institutions and brands use zines and DIY culture as a quick diversity fix.
Using zines in a research project
Geographer Sarah Marie Hall has used zines in her research on everyday austerity.
Her research involved an ethnography that gathered personal accounts of everyday life in austerity.
These accounts were turned into a series of original drawings by North-West zine artist Stef Bradley, exhibited alongside field notes, sound-bites, and collected materials to ‘lift the lid’ on austerity.
James's zine experience
James is one of the tutors on this course. Last year James took Encountering Cities.
I think it was fair to say that he had some reservations, but here he shares some reflections on making zines.
Hopefully James's words reassure those of you who don't think you are that creative or crafty.
Zine reading
Bagelman, J. and Bagelman, C. (2016). ‘Zines: crafting change and repurposing the neoliberal university’, ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 15:2, 365-392.
Biel, J. (2008). Make a Zine: Start your Own Underground Publishing Revolution. Portland, OR.: Microcosm Publishing.
Michelle Comstock (2001). ’Grrrl Zine Networks: Re-Composing Spaces of Authority, Gender, and Culture’, JAC, 21: 2, 383-409.
Duncombe, S. (1997). Notes from the Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture. London: Verso.
Todd, M. & Watson, E. (2006). Whatcha Mean What’s A Zine? The Art of Making Zines and Mini-Comics. Boston, MA.: Graphia.
ZINE-MAKING
Now that you've learnt a little about zines, it's time to get making.
Before we get making, you will need:
Paper (ideally A3 size). This is available in the Geography Building (or any printer)
Pens
Glue
Scissors
Old newspapers, magazines, flyers...basically anything that you can cut up and use in a collage.
The Origami bit
One of the tricky things to practice is how to fold a sheet of paper into an 8-page zine.
Try following one of these instructions:
And if you're still struggling you might find these videos useful. The first is by a zine-maker. The second comes from the kitchen table at my house where my daughter Eliza helped me out with a demonstration.
Now you have folded the paper it's time to try making a zine.
This works best if you do it with a few other people. If you can do it safely you might get together in your groups.
Or you could just rope in your flatmates for a bit of crafting.
This video takes you through a speed zine-making. There are a couple of slides of instructions and then you are straight into a series of 3 minute activities.