Trace - Becomings

There are lines that are not boundaries but invitations: faint impressions in the understory where feet, wind, and memory have passed; the thin filamentary shimmer of relation that binds beings to the worlds they co-create. Trace emerges in this terrain — not as a monument, but as a gesture. A tender pressure of articulation. A movement in the grain. A subtle drift of meaning across the bark of experience.

To speak of trace is to speak of what trails behind and what reaches forward at once. A line of trees spiralling along a ridgeline, bending to conditions that shape their becoming, and shaping in return the conditions that allow others to breathe. Here, every branch is an archive of environmental negotiation; every ring a record of encounter. Trace honours such intra-active inscriptions: the marks made by living-with, acting-with, worlding-with.

This journal is not conceived as a container for certainty, nor a ledger of authority. Instead, Trace arises from the possibility that meaning is always on the move — like the ocean that wears mountains to stones, stones to pebbles, pebbles to sand. What seems definitive dissolves, and what dissolves coheres anew. This erosive refinement is neither loss nor diminishment; it is the slow, soft craft of the world shaping its own readability. In this spirit, Trace attends to the ongoing, the unfinished, the emergent.

Our commitment is not to a doctrine but to an orientation: a leaning-towards that recognises how every act — as simple as a fingertip gliding across paper, as decisive as a sword slicing air before it meets its mark — leaves impressions that ripple beyond intention. Gestures matter. Cuts matter. Each is an agential inflection of possibility. The world is written in such gestures, in the micro-scores of relation that accumulate into ecological, political, ethical consequence.

Thus, Trace invites contributors to sense the subtleties of their own movements: thought as gesture, writing as gesture, worlding as gesture. Not as expressions of an isolated self, but as intra-actions within the wider choreography of existence. As Barad reminds us, there are no singular origins — only entanglements. Writing here is approached not as expression ex nihilo, but as diffraction: a bending of forces and stories through one another, generating patterns that illuminate the complexity of being-with.

But Trace does not shy away from the sharp edges of the world. To follow a trace is also to acknowledge the cuts — the violences, the exclusions, the erasures — that leave their own inscriptions on land and life. The line of trees spiralling toward the horizon may also mark the boundary of cleared ground. The pebble’s smoothness may tell of relentless abrasion. The sword’s stroke may echo the long histories of harm and resistance. To read a trace is to stay with complexity, not to soften it.

This journal therefore commits to eco-psycho-social justice as a horizon of responsibility. Not as slogan, but as practice: a continual process of noticing how worlds are shaped by material and discursive forces, and of leaning into possibilities that nourish collective flourishing. Every contribution — scholarly, narrative, poetic, visual — becomes an engagement with the ethical textures of becoming. Each trace is an opportunity to world otherwise.

Yet Trace is not a place of despair, nor mere critique. It is, above all, a space for wonder. Trees spiral not because they seek perfection, but because they follow the currents of sun, wind, and soil. Pebbles shine not because they were carved by some divine instrument, but because time and tide insisted on their becoming. Wonder arises when attention meets relation — when perception softens enough to notice the shimmer of meaning in what might otherwise be overlooked.

This wonder is not neutral; it has political consequence. To wonder is to refuse numbness. To wonder is to remain open. To wonder is to be moved. And to be moved is to recognise the possibilities for movement — for altering trajectories, redistributing energies, reimagining the relations that hold futures together. In this sense, wonder is a radical pedagogy: a quiet insurgency against the reduction of life to metrics, categories, and prescriptive narratives.

Trace is therefore an offering to writers, thinkers, makers, and readers who sense the world as an unfolding conversation. Here, contributions are not judged on their alignment with established forms, but on their capacity to open pathways for shared becoming. Essays may spiral like treelines rather than march in straight lines. Analyses may polish ideas like pebbles, revealing unexpected surfaces. Stories may strike with the precision of a sword’s arc — not to harm, but to reveal the pattern of the gesture that made the cut.

Our editorial philosophy is simple:
Let the work trace its own way.
Let meaning emerge from relation, not prescription.
Let the journal be an ecosystem rather than an edifice.

In this ecology, each submission is part of a wider patterning. No single piece claims authority. Instead, contributions diffract through one another, generating resonances and tensions that enrich the field. The journal becomes a living archive of gestures exchanged across time — a place where ideas can breathe, shift, and spiral in response to one another.

We envision Trace not as a location but as a movement: a drift of attention, a ribbon of meaning, a subtle pressure toward attunement. Readers are invited not merely to consume content but to participate in its unfolding — to sense how each word might alter the patterns of their own perception, how each image might align or unsettle the contours of understanding.

Ultimately, Trace exists because worlds are always in the making. Because every gesture participates in this making. Because the smallest mark — the lightest indentation in soft earth — can reroute the flow of water, thought, or possibility. Because becoming is a shared endeavour, and no trace exists alone.

This journal is an invitation to follow the lines, sense the spirals, attend to the refinements, and honour the wonder inherent in each encounter.
To notice the traces already shaping us.
To leave traces that sustain the worlds to come.
To walk the path that is being formed even as it is walked.

Welcome to TRÆCE — a journal of relational becoming.

If you wish to collaborate on this adventure, please feel free to be in contact.