Merlyna Lim, founder and co-editor
Merlyna Lim is a scholar, author, and artist, and a Canada Research Professor at Carleton University. Born and raised in Dayeuhkolot, an industrial slum in Bandung, Indonesia, she is now based in Ottawa and works internationally across research, creative practice, and public scholarship. She founded and directs the ALiGN Media Lab, where she examines technology, power, and social justice through interdisciplinary and creative approaches. Among her notable publications are Social Media and Politics in Southeast Asia (2025), Hands: Medium and Massage (2020), Roots, Routes, Routers (2018), and Online Collective Action (2014). She was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists in 2016, won the 2017 Jackson’s Art International Urban Sketching Contest, and received the 2025 Heritage Ottawa Cullingham Grant.
Kathy Dobson, co-editor
Kathy Dobson is an award-winning journalist, author, and scholar based in Ottawa, Canada. Her work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, CBC, and numerous other national publications. She is the author of two memoirs, With a Closed Fist: Growing Up in Canada’s Toughest Neighbourhood and Kicking and Punching: Leaving Canada’s Toughest Neighbourhood (Véhicule Press), both of which have been taught in schools across Canada. Her writing is grounded in more than two decades of work with marginalized communities and a lifelong commitment to telling stories often left at the edges of public conversation. She holds a PhD in Communication and Media Studies and is currently Managing Editor of ALiGN Media Lab at Carleton University.
Annisa R Beta, co-editor
Annisa R. Beta is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Melbourne, working across Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and Australia. Her research explores how digital cultures, youth, movements, gender, and the politics of knowledge intersect in everyday life. She co-founded Anotasi and Jaringan Etnografi Terbuka/Open Ethnography Network (JET) to support inclusive, collaborative knowledge-making. Her first book, Pious Girls (Routledge, 2024), examines piety and political subjectivity in Indonesia. An Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) fellow and a founder of Critical Girlhood Studies, currently she is writing Empowerment Elsewhere, a monograph on young feminists and the idea of peripheral, hopeful spaces.