17-19 December 2020
Online.
Curated by The Global Contemporary researcher Angela Dimitrakaki working and the Research & Development team at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, this symposium was aimed at students and researchers engaged with decolonial critique.
Detail:
This world order is made manifest not just in global geopolitics but also in the micro-environments of urban spaces, defining formal and informal relationships that range from those between nation states to those between local communities. Generations of political militants, intellectuals and activists have engaged with these issues – issues that are only exacerbated today, during the pandemic, and in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008 which has demonstrated and worsened a number of other crises as the status quo of globalisation.
The symposium asked questions about the value of “western epistemologies” to the struggles of the subaltern, but what actually counts as a western epistemology, and what does this adjective – “western” – perhaps hide from view? What and who is “the South” today? Is there just one, or are there in fact a number of Souths that organise the hierarchy of the global division of labour and the struggles that are tied to it? And finally, what is solidarity in this context – is it a mere declaration of intent, or can it be sustained as a long-term sharing of transformative social objectives that resist the current state of affairs? The conference brought together a range of experiences and reflections to address these questions.
Contributors came from a range of disciplines and practices and include Athena Athanasiou, Marco Baravalle, Tings Chak, Yaiza Hernández Velázquez, Kevin Ochieng Okoth, Miguel Peres do Santos, Vijay Prashad, the group RAAD, Jonas Staal, Paolo Tavares, and Françoise Vergès whose new book on decolonial feminism was soon to be released in Ednglish. Information on the speakers and recordings of their papers can be found here: https://research-development.hetnieuweinstituut.nl/en/activities/coming-south-struggles-epistemologies-solidarity
Funded by Het Nieuwe Instituut.
