The special issue ‘Publishing after Progress’ brings together a series of reflections and discussions that illuminate the current state of scholarly publishing. It highlights the field’s ongoing commercial and technological consolidation, evolving under the rhetoric of internationalisation, excellence, and modern capitalist progress as an unequivocal benefit. The issue includes analyses of the wide-ranging geopolitical, epistemic, social, and cognitive effects of this evolution, marked by a focus on quantifiable outcomes, productivity- and visibility-driven metrics of success, and individual achievement. Beyond its diagnostic and analytical scope, ‘Publishing after Progress’ explores the tension between contemporary institutional expectations related to publishing (including research, writing, editing, reviewing, designing, and licensing) and how individuals and communities actually want to – or already do – engage in their work, based on their values, expertise, and understanding of their work’s needs in light of persistent inequalities in scholarship, scholarly publishing, as well as planetary crises and emergencies. The issue tentatively maps out emergent types of ‘resistant’ research, publishing, and scholarship, unveiling diverse and ongoing stories from activist, artistic, and academic authors. These contributors have begun to address the conflict between institutional expectations and their own situated visions of what their work requires in an increasingly troubled and troubling world. Collectively, the articles grapple with the possibility of a politics of engagement in publishing beyond a prevailing capitalist ethos of competition and individual performance evaluation – celebrated by many contemporary institutions as ‘progress’ – while practically facilitating spaces to experiment with what such politics could entail.