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***** Apologies for cross-posting *****
*Decolonizing Communicative Praxis with ‘Words that Remake Life’[1]*
*A Two-Part Workspace*
9 -10 April 2017
Clark University
In this two-part work*space,* a collective of transdisciplinary and
interdisciplinary scholars will come together to deliberate on and practice
new modes of communicative praxis in academic conference/workshops. This
workspace builds upon energies to decolonize university spaces, including
during a previous workshop organized by members of our collective, *Setting
Forth At Dawn* <http://roape.net/2016/07/23/setting-forth-dawn-workshop/>*:
A Workshop on the Geopolitics and Practices of Academic Writing*, held in
May 2016 at Jimma University in Jimma, Ethiopia.
*Workspace Setting*
Scholarships from across, within, and outside disciplines have asserted the
need to *move *and* extend beyond *limited and limiting modes of knowing
crafted and maintained under the auspices of colonial “modernity
<http://www.spacesofcommoning.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/MIGNOLO_walter__modernologies_eng.pdf>
*.*” Enrique Dussel <http://enriquedussel.com/> proposes *modernity*
<http://enriquedussel.com/txt/Transmodernity%20and%20Interculturality.pdf> as
an alternate being in the world, with “trans” meaning beyond, while Walter
Mignolo <http://waltermignolo.com/> encourages us to de-link
<http://waltermignolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/WMignolo_Delinking.pdf>
from
modernity through increasingly conscious bio- and geo-political
scholarships. Horace Campbell
<https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/psc/Campbell,_Horace_G_/> prompts us to think
and be through African fractal expressions
<http://www.pambazuka.org/governance/fractals-and-benoit-mandelbrot-lessons-society>
that
honor geometrically balanced forms of knowing. More recently, major
scholarly associations have made calls for decolonization within conference
frameworks and proceedings.
In short, much of the efforts to decolonize knowledge have importantly been
directed at
• *What *knowledge(s) are destroyed/expressed/cultivated/canonized and
*how,*
• *Who* expresses knowledge(s), and
• *Methodologies* through which we know.
Less sustained attention has, as of yet, been given to the *direct
decolonization of academic conferences and workshops, *during which
scholars transmit and communicate knowledge(s).
Traditional conference modes can suppress expressions of dissimilar modes
of knowing and communicating. In traditional academic conferences, scholars
are subject to rigid time and space controls that often privilege more
positivist and axiomatic research topics and knowledge(s). These academic
spaces often reaffirm a spatial and metaphysical distancing between the
“audience” (learners) and the “presenter” (the knower). This enforced
distancing can re-privilege and re-center the “presenter.” This
re-privileging can be particularly problematic for scholars whose works
contribute to projects of decolonizing and/or are critical of the
relationship(s) between knowledge and power. Moreover, traditional
conference modes of communicative praxis can de-privilege (a) hesitancy,
(b) the expression of multiple subjectivities, and (c) highly
transdisciplinary scholarships. This is perhaps more acute for emerging,
independent, and non-affiliated scholars, whom have yet to achieve the
renown, prestige, and/or job security of tenured and highly published
scholars. In such settings, scholars attempt transformative expressions
through clandestine and often dis-unified formulas, oftentimes at the
fringes of academic conferences.
*So, how to effect transformations of this academic format?*
Scholar-intellectual-activist-artist/feminist-queer-Indigenous-postcolonial-decolonial
collectives and non-collectives have started to seek rearrangements of the
conference-style knowledge-sharing paradigms (there are, for example,
several important annual summer schools
<https://transnationaldecolonialinstitute.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/2014-decolonial-summer-school-middelburg.pdf>
, institutes
<https://antipodefoundation.org/institute-for-the-geographies-of-justice/>
and workshop-ing collectives that seek to decolonize colonial features of
knowledge-sharing—ADERN
<http://www.din.today/sabelo-j-ndlovu-gatsheni-we-needed-to-shift-the-geography-of-knowledge-as-well-as-the-biography-of-knowledge/>
in
South Africa and CPD-BISA <https://cpdbisa.wordpress.com/> in the UK, for
example). We week to build upon ongoing energies and efforts in this area.
*Decolonizing communicative praxis.* This entails *re*thinking through
deliberately post-colonial, self-conscious, and relational creative
*communicative
praxis, *with an attention to the ways in which our intellectual projects,
much like our corporeal selves, are already/always entangled within dynamic
topographies of power. Mignolo
<http://waltermignolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/epistemicdisobedience-2.pdf>
asserts,
“…it is not enough to change the content of the conversation…it is of the
essence to change the *terms *of the conversation.”
Drawing from ongoing efforts already underway to further challenge the
modes of academic expression—including narrative, storytelling, poetry,
prose, film, dance, music, theatre, and arts-based—we seek to be
experiential in our workspace. Through guided discussions, interactive and
embodied sessions (to be proposed by you!), a film screening, critical
readings, and the creation and circulation of 5-minute experiential videos
or podcasts of participants’ thoughts at the conclusion of our first
workspace, we will address the structural and epistemological legacies of
colonialism within our universities (as we continue to foster the energies
of decolonization, with an attention to *concrete* practices of
decolonization).
*Decolonizing time.* Drawing motivation from the potentials of slow
scholarship <http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0896920513489892>
alongside
recognition of the need to decolonize time
<https://www.amazon.com/Decolonizing-Time-Critical-Political-Practice/dp/1137364645>
in
neoliberalized life spaces, this workspace is self-consciously *s-l-o-w*,
with time for unstructured exchanges and with an appreciation for
experimentation and evolving knowledge(s). We extend the time of our
workspace to a supplementary gathering during late 2017.
*Expressions of Interest*
We will come together to reflect on our collective experiences of
decolonization as *critical practice in academic work(shop)spaces *and to
think through and implement novel forms of communicative praxis. We seek to
foster meaningful conversations across paradigms and between traditions of
knowledge that "*politicize* and *amplify*
<http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/doifinder/view/10.1057/9780230111813>*"*
knowledge(s).
We seek to create space for (a) reclamation projects that continue to
re-define, (b) critical interrogations that unsettle the workspace itself
as occurring on Hassanamisco and Pocasset Wapanoag land, as well as (c)
critiques of pervasive forms of “epistemicide
<http://fakoamerica.typepad.com/files/francis-nyamnjoh_response-to-responses.pdf>;”
those forced destructions of ways of knowing as well as intellectual
property thefts, cognitive and epistemic disappearing(s), and cultural
misappropriations.
Toward these ends, we invite expressions of interest to collaborate in the
creation of this workspace. Given the experiential format of the workspace,
we encourage ideas and expressions of interest that demonstrate high levels
of creativity and transdisciplinarity. Such expressions should be
approximately 200 words. They will emphasize *how*—politically, ethically,
and practically—we can decolonize academic workspaces in projects to
decolonize epistemologies. Please be sure to concretely describe the
activity/discussion/project that you would be interested in
(co)facilitating.
If you cannot be present in person, if you choose not to fly out of respect
for our environment, or if you are geopolitically restricted by the
passport of your country of origin, please note that virtual, simulated,
and other forms of non-physical attendance are conceivable and encouraged.
Ideas and expressions of interest should be sent to
[log in to unmask] Prospective participants will be notified
on a *rolling
basis* until the cut-off date of 15 February 2017.
A few small grants are available to subsidize partial travel expenses.
Please indicate in your email correspondence if you would like to be
considered. Adjunct, independent, and/or non-affiliated scholars will be
given priority consideration. There are no registration costs.
The evening sessions will be family-friendly and children’s attendance is
encouraged. Conveners will work with participants to arrange childcare
during the day.
The workspace begins at 3:30pm on 9 April and concludes at 6pm on 10 April.
*Collaborators and Conveners*
• Odomaro Mubangizi
<http://www.foresightfordevelopment.org/profile/dr-odomaro-mubangizi>, Dean
of the Philosophy Department at the Capuchin Franciscan Institute of
Philosophy and Theology in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
• Amber Murrey <https://www2.clarku.edu/faculty/facultybio.cfm?id=1102>,
Visiting Assistant Professor of International Development and Social Change
at Clark University
• Patrice Nganang
<http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/cscl/people/patrice%20nganang.html>,
Professor of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at Stony Brook
University. Dr. Nganang’s book, *Temps de Chien*, was awarded the Prix
Marguerite Yourcenar (for Francophone writers living in the USA) in 2001
and the Grand Prix Littéraire de l'Afrique Noire (leading literary award
for African Francophone writers) in 2002
• Patricia Daley <http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/staff/pdaley.html>, Professor
of Geography & the Environment at the University of Oxford
• Jude Fernando,
<https://www2.clarku.edu/faculty/facultybio.cfm?id=473> Associate
Professor of International Development and Social Change at Clark University
• Dianne Rocheleau
<https://www2.clarku.edu/faculty/facultybio.cfm?id=329>, Professor of
Geography at Clark University
• Patricia (Pat) Noxolo
<http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/gees/people/profile.aspx?ReferenceId=76132>,
Lecturer in Human Geography at University of Birmingham
• Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni
<http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/index/hrsj-bio-ndlovu'>, Head of Archie Mafeje
Research Institute (AMRI) at the University of South Africa (UNISA). Note:
Dr. Ndlovu-Gatsheni will participate virtually during the first part of the
workspace from South Africa but will be present in-person for the second
part
• Fekadu Tolossa <https://www.ju.edu.et/clg/node/78>, Head of
Department, Development Studies, Jimma University
• Takiyah Harper <http://polisci.uconn.edu/person/takiyah-harper/>, PhD
Candidate, Political Science, University of Connecticut
*Support for the Workspace*
This project is funded by *Human Geography—A New Radical Journal*
<https://hugeog.com/> and International Development, Community & Environment
<http://www2.clarku.edu/departments/international-development-community-environment/>
(IDCE)
at Clark University. We are presently seeking additional funding and will
make updates if further funding becomes available. We hope to publish
reflections and thoughts (in some form) in the journal, *Human Geography—A
New Radical Journal.*
[1] “Words that remake life” is a line in Patrice Nganang’s 1995 poem, *(The
Wrath of God)* in Elobi: Poems
<https://www.guernicamag.com/from_four_square_poems/>*. *
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