“Bylaws are easily overlooked as technical, petty, or antiquated. Flynn and Hermer, however, urge us to take them seriously, revealing their powerful, dehumanizing and exclusionary effects. To fully understand the injustice of the unhoused, they insist, requires careful attention to the alchemy of the bylaw.”

Nicholas Blomley, Chair, Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University

The stories shared by the featured skin markers are contemporary and personal, yet united in situating tattooing as part of ongoing efforts to reclaim a larger web of traditional knowledge in the ongoing wake of colonialism. Although tattoos are organic and temporary, linked to the lifespan of the individual that wears them, the knowledge surrounding their creation is holistic and dispersed. 

Dr. Sharon Fortney, Klahoose First Nation, Sr. Curator of Indigenous Collections, Engagement and Repatriation at the Museum of Vancouver

“A gift for the young left.”

China Miéville, author of October: The Story of the Russian Revolution and A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto

“Clear, rigorous, and deeply grounded in both scholarship and practice, Lawless is an essential resource for anyone working to make abortion access real."

Diana Moreno, Advocacy Director, Profamilia