This multidisciplinary and multimodal Special Issue of BC Studies focuses on the theme of relational technologies, those digital practices which are embodied, interactive, and situated, connecting us more deeply to each other, our stories, and to the places we inhabit. The issue includes scholarly articles, research notes, interviews, podcasts, games, divination cards, and other digital media that present and unfold relational technologies in the context of British Columbia.

In response to artificial intelligences, machine learning models, data-mining and algorithmic assumptions that impose colonial-capitalist paradigms of alienation on physical and digital territories, relational technologies nurture rhizomatic constellations of kinship among human and non-human partners (Lewis et al 2018). The territories currently called British Columbia are home to a multivocal ecology of communities and storytelling traditions that offer a rich and dynamic space from which to consider multimodal intersections of land, narrative, community, and technology.