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BLACK IN/VISIBILITIES CONTESTED
7th Biennial Afroeuropeans Network Conference
> SELECTED PANELS
Thematic Line / Decolonising Knowledge on Black Europe, African Diaspora and Africa
Afroeuropeans as subjects/objects of research
Sarah Demart / sarah.demart@usaintlouis.be
Sophie Withaeckx / sophie.withaeckx@vub.be
Language for paper submission: English
Short abstract
The growing interest in Black communities and individuals as object of research stands in sharp contrast to the conspicuous absence of Black scholars who carry the potential of structural change if they could act as subjects of research. How to undo the reality of research on Black communities that continues to be ‘about them but without them’?
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Black British Intellectuals
Daniel McNeil / daniel.mcneil@carleton.ca
Dhanveer Brah / dhanbrar@gmail.com
Language for paper submission: English
Short abstract
When invited to deliver keynotes and lectures in university campuses in the United States, Stuart Hall and his mentees were always already aware of the dangers of institutionalisation, the commodification of blackness and the commodification of entrepreneurial Black public intellectuals (Hall, 1992; Carby, 2000). This panel invites critical reflections about the translation, appropriation and misappropriation of Black British Cultural Studies by African American intellectuals. It unsettles the assumption that Black public intellectuals always already mean African American intellectuals with Ivy League credentials.
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Campaigning for remembrance: knowledge, memory and social movements
Camilla Hawthorn / camilla@ucsc.edu
Kwame Nimako / obee@telfort.nl
Marta Araújo / maraujoces@gmail.com
Languages for paper submission: English and Portuguese
Short abstract
This panel calls for proposals that engage with the relationship between academia, politics and society, and more specifically communications that analyse: knowledge production on race, history and memory; the contemporary politics of memorialization, with a focus on social movements; contrahegemonic accounts to national narratives on race and racism. We encourage interdisciplinary contributions that enhance the potential for learning from across the diverse historical and geographical contexts of European colonialism, as well as from the less evident links in the campaigns
for recognition by diverse populations.
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Can Decolonizing Knowledge Happen in the University?
Teju Adisa-Farrar / teju.adisa.farrar@gmail.com
Language for paper submission: English
Short abstract
The university is inherently exclusive and racist. The university continually delegitimizes work being done outside of its ivory tower unless it can be subsumed into theories that are often written with endemic racism, sexism, and elitism. Knowing of this reality, this panel will discuss and debate whether truly decolonizing knowledge can happen in a formal institution such as the university or a museum. It invites activists, scholars, creators, and artists to present work that focuses on decolonization both outside and inside the university with a critical analysis. Keeping in mind the article “Decolonization is not a metaphor” by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, this panel will think about what decolonizing epistemology mean and what are the spaces where it can best unfold.
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Decolonising knowledge: African and European linguistic (dis)encounters
Ana Raquel Matias / raquel_matias@iscte-iul.pt
Bernardino Tavares / bernardino.c.tavares@gmail.com
Paulo Feytor Pinto / paulofeytorpinto@gmail.com
Languages for paper submission: English and Portuguese
Short abstract
This panel discusses language attitudes, practices and regulation among black “communities” in Africa and Europe, focusing on African native languages and other varieties of pluricentric European languages, whose post-colonial and demographic relevance still lacks in-depth research.
Keywords: Linguistic Culture; Language Legitimacy; Language Racism.
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“All blacknesses are not created equal”: How White Discourse Affects Black Solidarity
Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken / abenedicty@ccny.cuny.edu
Mandisi Majavu / mandisi.majavu@mandela.ac.za
Language for paper submission: English
Short abstract
Many African immigrants and refugees residing in the West come from African countries where Black people are the dominant social group, and where anti-Black racism has not historically been an issue that they have had to struggle against. This panel seeks to explore and theorise ways in which Blacks who do not have ready access to the historical struggle against anti-Black racism identify, talk and challenge anti-Black racism in Western countries.
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Histories of Performing Blackness in Europe
Jeff Bowersox / j.bowersox@ucl.ac.uk
Robbie Aitken / r.aitken@shu.ac.uk
Eileen Ryan
Language for paper submission: English
Short abstract
This panel explores historical constructions of race by focusing on performances of “blackness" and looking at the lives and experiences of Black entertainers in Europe. Among other things, through looking at performers and performance we seek to reinsert the contributions of Black people into wider European historical narratives.
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Mapping Black Europe
Natasha A. Kelly / n.kelly@gmx.de
Olive Vassell / euromight@gmail.com
Language for paper submission: English
Short abstract
In this panel scholars and founders of beaneu.org, Natasha A. Kelly (Berlin) and Olive Vassell (London) invite papers that discuss the importance of digital media for the decolonization of knowledge and education on Black Europe. Their aim is to interrogate how online maps can be used to collect, preserve and curate the “unsung and unseen” contributions of Black Europeans and foster opportunities for exchange between each of these communities as well as between communities of varying ethnicities in Europe.
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Music and dance as forms of contesting hegemonic knowledge
and power for the African diaspora living in Europe
Frank Marcon / marconfrank@hotmail.com
Livia Jiménez Sedano / liviajs@hotmail.com
Redy Wilson Lima
Language for paper submission: English
Short abstract
This panel focuses on the way music and dance expressions that African and Afro-descendants living in Europe create and circulate through digital media constitute discourses that contest and challenge hegemonic ways of knowledge and power and how they are misrepresented and depoliticized in a context of structural inequalities.
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People of African Descent: sociabilities, representations, and sociopolitical and cultural dynamics
Apolo de Carvalho / afroapolo@gmail.com
Inocência Mata / mata.inocencia@gmail.com
Iolanda Évora / ioevora@gmail.com
Jessica Norales / jessifernandez05@gmail.com
Pedro Schacht / pereira.37@osu.edu
Sadiq Habib / sadik.habib@gmail.com
Languages for paper submission: English and Portuguese
Short abstract
Focusing on Europe but considering also global diasporic contexts, this panel problematizes sociohistorical and cultural uses of African descent, with their dynamics of affirmation and social enunciation, unveiling processes of resistance against colonial continuities establishing positions of subalternity and racialization.
Keywords: African Descent; People of African Descent; AfroPortuguese; AfroEuropean; Black Studies; Portugal.
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