First Reading of the Fall term: Beyond the Coloniality of Gender

 

 

At our first meeting of the fall term, we discussed Alex Adamson's paper "Coloniality of Gender: María Lugones, Sylvia Wynter, Decolonial Feminism, and Trans and Intersex Liberation". Below are some of the questions and ideas that were discussed in our meeting:

 

·       Feminist scholarship in general has a history of FGM critiques, and these debates are tied to womanhood and girlhood in deeply racialized ways, whereas intersex mutilation is not talked about and not conceived of as racialized.
intersex mutilation is not talked about and not conceived of as racialized. 
·       Refreshing to see discussion of policy, institutions; decolonial feminism is often abstract and doesn’t engage with specific political events or what can we do in terms of action. Adamson’s paper offers a distinct move that doesn’t happen very often. 
abstract and doesn’t engage with specific political events or what can we do in
terms of action. Adamson’s paper offers a distinct move that doesn’t happen very often.
that doesn’t happen very often.  
·       Is the author’s critique author about a specific trend of intersex activism? How much of intersex activism is more like a liberal white activism, or is it drawing or working or trying to create solidarity or coalitions? Which ways does intersex activism and scholarship work with intersection of racism and coloniality?
·       Why would the West be outraged by the mutilation? This is an issue of private property: how can you mutilate our bodies? Propertization, part of the issue that the West thinks that this is hurting them, more about property. Political economy of reproduction. Seeing mutilation in this vein.  
·       We can think of reproduction as an economy, yes there is surrogacy, black and brown bodies are the center of surrogacy. How the West reacts to any FGM intervention: “Oh we have to stop this barbaric mechanism”, is also a way to say I can do it and you can’t.  
·       In both cases the body is taken as property in intervention. In one case is denounced. In the other, normalizing bodies and normalizing society that generates a type of economy. It is an industry. This industry cannot be fully separated from productive economy.
·       Language of mutilation interesting. Thrown around to deny trans healthcare and surgery.  
·       Intersex as a dislocating point in the conversation. Wynter would say there is a criticism of practices outside of their culture but there has to be a dislocating point and the article finds these. Western feminism not culturally aware of mutilation of becoming gender, important to track this history.
·       What do we make of the monstrosity concept?  White reclamation, monstrosity means different things to racialized people. There is an ambiguity here.  Fanon: overdetermination from the outside and his existence is constructed as an other, doesn’t use monster, savage, animality.  White scholars take a race-blind approach to taking up monstrous. If you are engaging decolonial theory there is a responsibility to address the ways in which racialized people are not down for this. 
·       For Wynter, there is a danger when we are trying to create other conceptions of human and we bring over dominant conception.  She is challenging us to rethink the human and think new genres of the human.  Important not to give on reconceptualizing the human but being aware of the limitations of the Western conceptions and how it might rear its head. Wynter’s project encourages this type of rethinking.  

Post- Conference Notes: Feminist Afterlives of Colonialism

The two-day conference on the Feminist Afterlives of Colonialism can be humbly stated to be the beginning of a plural ongoing conversation of many kinds, and therefore a success of a kind, in our own understanding of things. We have attempted careful deliberations so as not to fall into the trap of rudimentary academic speculation of a solely Western-centric evaluative process of this conference; we, therefore, witness it as a space, a place rather, that enabled bodies of varied determinants to bring their utmost concerns to the table. We were precisely moved by the affective navigation, of what moved us and brought us here together, to have a transnational conversation, amidst a politics of visible differences. The conference illuminated a wide range of concerns and issues from a decolonial feminist perspective across geographical spatial locations.
We engaged with varied analyses on decolonial, postcolonial, and anti-colonial feminist themes borrowed but not restricted to literary traditions, class, caste, race, queerness, and themes of anti-blackness, to name a few. In total, we have had about six panels running conversations over the course of two days. Both days included a keynote talk which was stimulating and inspiring, added with a workshop that moved us all to reflect on our own embodied praxis of liberation. You are advised to peruse through the program schedule to learn more about the topics and panels in detail. Intentionally divided by robust critiques and varied lenses to promote a rich and authentic ongoing conversation between varied strands among de/postcolonial feminisms across the global south, the conference could perhaps be seen as a tiny but courageous step towards an intentional unification amongst the varied liberatory forces, practices, and strands of emerging feminist scholarship in de/postcolonial thought.

It would only be right to admit at this point that such a conversation is wide, exhaustive, dynamic, and must be an ongoing endeavor. In short, it is a process that is waxing, waning, and shaping each day as we live in a world of profound political, social, and legal change. And so in spite of our trials and tribulations to gather and invite a wide range of speakers and participants, we still must have surely lacked representation of some kind or/and have had epistemic limitations. Primarily organized as a Summer Reading Group with a few Philosophy grad students, housed at the Philosophy Department of the University of Oregon in the May of 2020 (the pandemic summers to be precise), that eventually turned into an inter-disciplinary research interest group over the course of years, named as the Decolonial Philosophies Collaboratory, the motivation to weave fluid conversations, confront limitations, encounter contradictions across emerging philosophical thought amongst decolonial, postcolonial and indigenous thought through genuine conversations remains one of the strengths of our collaboratory. It is with a similar vision, of the same possibility in authentic and difficult conversations, a polylogue of sorts, that the crafting and efforts of putting together this conference started. 

The survival of the research interest group over the years and then the birth of the conference would not have been possible without the continued love and support we have received from our community members, colleagues, and professors at UO (and across); well-wishers and like-minded allies who have given their careful attention and time to matters big, small and delicate. Above all, we would like to extend our heartfelt thanks and gratitude to our keynote speakers, Breny Mendoza, and Layla Brown, our amazing workshop leaders, Shariana Ferrer Núñez and Zoán Dávila Roldán, from La Colectiva Feminista en Construcción, Puerto Rico, and all our conference participants (present virtually and in-person) who made this conversation truly enlightening, flowing, full of political hope, steeped in a spirit of solidarity and mutual learning. A special thanks to UO community members, colleagues, 
professors, volunteers, and friends who made the event an actuality, a breathing reality, through their in-person and virtual presence and solidarity --- the continued labor of love, showing up, and simply being there counts for projects of the periphery. Indeed, it would be quite a task to name each one of you but we would like to mention how we really appreciate with much gratitude each of your careful extensions of warmth, hope, love, camaraderie, and support. After all, it is such an extension that makes us rise together in political hope for the projects that we so dearly pin to our tender hearts. 

We are hoping to keep the collaboration alive and the conversations going on in some form or the other. We look forward to your support, solidarity, and love, in some way or the other! Please note that you are very much welcome to reach out to us at 𝚍𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚒𝚊𝚕𝚙𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚘𝚜𝚘𝚙𝚑𝚒𝚎𝚜@𝚐𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚕.𝚌𝚘𝚖 should you have a paper, an idea, or a book that is out, which you would like to share, and read along with like-minded folks. We do have our rest days and summer is off for us all (rest is resistance 😊), but we will reply to you and would love to keep the conversation brewing. 

The University of Oregon where the conference took place is located on Kalapuya Ilihi, the traditional indigenous homeland of the Kalapuya people. Following treaties between 1851 and 1855, the Kalapuya people were dispossessed of their indigenous homeland by the United States government and forcibly removed to the Coast Reservation in Western Oregon. Today, descendants are citizens of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Community of Oregon and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians of Oregon, and continue to make important contributions in their communities, at UO, and across the land we now know as Oregon. In this regard, we are forever indebted to the indigenous homelands for allowing us the possibility of conversation in this place, to transcend and stir critiques of varied systems of oppression. We do believe something will come out of weaving resistance, transnationally in solidarity.

We would also like to extend a formal acknowledgment and thank you note to our sponsors at UO without whom the coming together of this platform would not have been possible & conceivable, materially speaking. Our list of sponsors includes UO College of Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Association, Oregon Humanities Center, Williams Foundation Grant, New Junior Faculty Award Funding, Graduate Studies (DEI), Center for the Study of Women in Society, School of Global Studies and Languages, Philosophy Department, Romance Languages Department, Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, Department of Geography, Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies Department.


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"Once we recognize what it is we are feeling, once we recognize we can feel deeply, love deeply, can feel joy, then we will demand that all parts of our lives produce that kind of joy"-- Audrey Lorde

To end the post-conference note, let me just digress from the formality of academic tonality and gestures for a bit. Allow me to share a language and form that mentions how it felt like for those two days!💜 Here is a note that I had written for my friends at the collaboratory(which I am asked to share). I am sharing some pictures too, that perhaps shall do a bit of justice to the joy that our bodies were illuminated with. For a bit, in those afternoons and evenings.

(𝚜𝚊𝚛𝚏𝚊𝚛𝚘𝚜𝚑ī 𝚔ī 𝚝𝚊𝚖𝚊𝚗𝚗ā 𝚋𝚢 𝙱𝚒𝚜𝚖𝚒𝚕 𝙰𝚣𝚒𝚖𝚊𝚋𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚕)
अब तेरी हिम्मत का चरचा ग़ैर की महफ़िल में है 
"It’s been a week. I have waited to let the dust settle lest I be accused of the poet’s faint heart amongst the scholars. But I am still basking in all that love we made with each other, to each other, through infinite words of wisdom, collective meandering, and deep listening. I am still soaking in the unsaid gestures of warmth, looking back at four years of knitting, day/night long musings, and finally the two days of intense political loitering, a bridge of south-south solidarity. I am still stealing hope from the closet we happen to have built. The keys I tenderly keep — I visit my temple now and then. Bodies whispering the sacred elixir to other bodies on how to be alive and be in unison —- there was perhaps never any other way around it. Or at least I haven’t known any better. Lending utterly devious hope — what else is politics in grim somber times? Perhaps recalling how to kneel together to pray; resistance is a queer prayer of the chosen few. If only one can see how commune of bodies often soar in divine alacrity to disobey!"

Program for the conference: Feminist Afterlives of Colonialism

 The Decolonial Philosophies Collaboratory invites the academic community to the international hybrid conference titled, Feminist Afterlives of Colonialism. This event will be a two-day interdisciplinary conference related to critical feminist approaches to the afterlives of colonialism. The conference will be held at the Browsing room, Knight Library, University of Oregon on Friday May 12th and Saturday, May 13th. You can register to the Zoom option here: Meeting Registration - Zoom Our conference will have scholars and activists from different countries, sharing their work both in person and remotely. We invite you to be part of this hopeful decolonial feminist conversation! 

We are excited to share the program of the conference: 

 

     

 

We will post more information about our upcoming conference soon. For now, please see the flyer for some information, including the QR code that allows you to attend our conference via Zoom. If you have any questions, please email us at decolonialphilosophies@gmail.com .

Deadline Extended: Call for Papers for Our Upcoming Conference

 

Happy new year! We have a few announcements to make:

1. We have extended the deadline for submissions to our upcoming conference to January 30, 2023 at 11:59PM PST.

2. We also would like to announce that we have some limited travel funding available. If you would like to be considered for travel funding, please mention your interest in your submission.

3. Finally, we are pleased to announce that our keynote speaker will be Breny Mendoza (California State University). Additionally, our conference will include a workshop led by La Colectiva Feminista en Construcción from Puerto Rico.

We are looking forward to seeing you in Oregon soon!

Our Upcoming Conference: Call For Papers

CALL FOR PAPERS

Decolonial Philosophies Collaboratory

 

Feminist Afterlives of Colonialism

 

May 12-13, 2023

University of Oregon

 

 

 

Feminist Afterlives of Colonialism is a two-day, interdisciplinary conference on the topic of critical feminist approaches to the coloniality of gender that will be held at the University of Oregon on May 12th - 13th, 2023. 

 

As we navigate the myriad crises and possibilities interspersed throughout the world and our many worlds, we find ourselves embedded in experiences and movements of life, resistance, and re-existence marked by the history of colonialism. We are breathing, and struggling to breathe, in the afterlife(s) of colonialism. The idea is inspired by African-American thinker Saidiya Hartman’s concept of the “afterlife of slavery”, the continuation of the devaluation of Black life born out of slavery into the present—an insight that was expanded in relationship with decolonial thought by Rocío Zambrana’s reinterpretation of coloniality as the “afterlife of slavery”. To name or enunciate, “the afterlife of colonialism,” that is, to trace and struggle against the reproduction of racial, colonial and gender hierarchies and violences, requires a particular commitment to decolonial and feminist thought and praxis. 

 

The goal of this conference is to facilitate conversations regarding the history of colonialism and its afterlives between decolonial, postcolonial, anti-colonial, and indigenous scholarship that will support liberatory initiatives to reimagine and build pathways for decolonization and networks of solidarity across different geopolitical spaces.

 

Interestingly, there has been an overemphasis on particular interpretations of doing 'decolonial thinking’ that tend not to include theorists working in the Global South, outside of academic departments, and outside the United States, as well as within marginalized communities within the United States. This conference will underscore the importance of broadening the definition of decolonial thought within philosophy and other disciplines such as (but not limited to) art, anthropology, sociology, geography, political economy, and literary studies; as well as questioning the categories of “women” and “feminism” within Western feminist philosophy. 

Feminist Afterlives of Colonialism will provide like-minded scholars and activists working on issues of the Global South to connect, inquire, and form much-needed scope for intellectual and creative allyship and provide space for crafting networks of solidarity.

We invite scholars and activists who have done work on critical approaches to the intersectionality of gender and coloniality to present papers, prepare workshops and share their work and knowledge from their disciplines and lived experiences. Zoom options will be considered for scholars and activists who cannot travel to the University of Oregon. Please indicate in the submission of the proposal if the modality is in-person or remote. 

 

We welcome papers and workshop proposals on the following topics: 

·       Decolonial methods and/or pedagogies

·       Modern Colonial Gender System or Coloniality of Gender

·       Global South feminisms

·       Bodies, embodiment, affectivity

·       Solidarity and coalition (transnational)

·       Borders, geographies, temporalities

·       Language, writing, (in)visibility

·       Resistance and re-existence

·       Prison Abolition, Captivity, Fugitivity, and Marronage 

·       Disability Justice, Crip Theory, and Care Work

·       Feminism and decolonization struggles

·       Intersections of decolonial feminism with trans feminism 

·       Feminist critiques to imperialism, capitalism, and racial capitalism

·       Feminist activism in the Global South and decolonial feminist praxis

·       Critique to the category “women” from decolonial(s) feminism and the Global South feminism

 

Submission Instructions:

For paper presentation proposals:	For panel proposals:	For workshop proposals:
1.      Paper presentations will be 20 minutes long. 2.     Send a pdf of your paper title and abstract (350 – 500 words).  3.     Include relevant Personal Identifying Information (i.e., name, email, title, institutional affiliation, organization, etc.) in the submission email and NOT in the abstract document. 4.     Please specify if the modality of the presentation will be in-person or remote (Zoom).	1.      Panels are made up of 3 to 4 members and will be given a total of 75 minutes to present.  2.     The chair of the panel will submit a pdf document of the panel title and abstract (350 – 500 words). 3.     Each panelist will also provide their individual abstracts (~200 words) in the same pdf document as the panel abstract. 4.     Please include the relevant Personal Identifying Information (i.e., name email, title, institutional affiliation, organization, etc.) of each panelist in the submission email and NOT in the abstract document.  5.     Please specify if the modality of the presentation will be in-person or hybrid (i.e., some panelists in-person, some remote).	1.      Workshops will be 60 minutes long. 2.     Send a pdf of your workshop abstract (350 – 500 words) which includes the title, topic of the workshop, the planned activities, and an explanation of contribution to the conference’s subject-matter(s).  3.     Include relevant Personal Identifying Information (i.e., name, email, title, institutional affiliation, organization, etc.) in the submission email and NOT in the abstract document. 4.    Workshop presentations will be expected to be held in-person.

 

Send submissions to decolonialphilosophies@gmail.com with “Feminist Afterlives” as the subject. We will only consider one proposal per submission.

The deadline for submissions is January 15^th, 2023, at 11:59pm PST.

 Participants will receive an email with our decision by February 28^th, 2023. 

We look forward to reading your submissions. If you have any questions regarding the submission process, the conference proper, or would like to express concerns regarding accessibility and accommodations, please reach out to the email provided above. If accepted to the conference and able to attend in-person, please begin to make the relevant travel preparations with your sponsoring institution or organization. We will be announcing our keynote speaker(s) soon. 

 

 

Sincerely,

The Decolonial Philosophies Collaboratory,  University of Oregon

 

In collaboration with,

The University of Oregon Department of Philosophy 

The Center for the Study of Women in Society at the University of Oregon

The Oregon Humanities Center 

Decolonial Speakers Series: Third Speaker

  The Decolonial Philosophies Collaborative invites the graduate community and faculty of the University of Oregon to be part of a conversation with our third and last speaker of the Spring Speakers Series. 

Zoom link: https://uoregon.zoom.us/j/93921490913?pwd=dVlaTVpIOVhydC9kcmpHVVZJUStXUT09