IPCS READING GROUP 2022
Tuesdays 4.30 pm, February to June
Convened by Jasmine Barzani in 2022.
Starting as a space to foster community and discussion among IPCS members, friends and visiting fellows, our Reading Group reconvenes in late February 2022
In line with IPCS’ aim to address the challenges of the present, our reading group works through influential and contemporary texts on postcolonialism, settler colonialism, and decoloniality, together with other work essaying critical and creative approaches to theory, knowledge and politics. Guest convenors contribute to this project, bringing vital perspectives and experience to our sessions throughout the year.
Our in-person reading group meets regularly in the Phillip Darby Reading Room (or online during Naarm/Melbourne lockdowns!). Numbers may be limited given public health regulations when meeting at IPCS.
If you would like to participate please write to Jasmine Barzani or Carlos Morreo.
READING PROGRAM 2022
Session 1 – February 22
- Chelsea Watego (2021). Another Day in the Colony, University Queensland Press.
- Introduction, and
- Chapter 4: On Racial Violence, Victims, and Victors
- Critical Forum: On the Uses of Settler Colonial Studies (2021). Postcolonial Studies, 24:2, about 15 pages in total.
- Lorenzo Veracini (2021) Is settler colonial studies even useful?, Postcolonial Studies, 24:2, 270-277.
- Alice Te Punga Somerville ((Te Ātiawa/ Taranaki)) (2021) OMG settler colonial studies: response to Lorenzo Veracini: ‘Is Settler Colonial Studies Even Useful?’, Postcolonial Studies, 24:2, 278-282.
- J. Kēhaulani Kauanui (2021) False dilemmas and settler colonial studies: response to Lorenzo Veracini: ‘Is Settler Colonial Studies Even Useful?’, Postcolonial Studies, 24:2, 290-296.
Session 2 – March 8
- Chelsea Watego (2021). Another Day in the Colony, University Queensland Press.Chapter 5: Ambiguously Indigenous
- Chapter 6: Fuck Hope
- Conclusion, A final Word … On Joy
Session 3 – March 22
Critical Education & Self-Determination
Guest Convenor: Tasnim Sammak
- Bob Morgan (2019). “Beyond the Guest Paradigm: Eurocentric Education and Aboriginal Peoples in NSW”, Handbook of Indigenous Education.
- Curry Mallott (2021) “How Amílcar Cabral shaped Paulo Freire’s pedagogy”, Liberation School.
Supplementary
- Henry A Giroux (2010). “Rethinking Education as the Practice of Freedom: Paulo Freire and the Promise of Critical Pedagogy.” Policy Futures in Education 8, no. 6 : 715–21.
Session 4 – April 5
- Glen Sean Coulthard (2014). Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition, University of Minnesota Press.
- Introduction. Subjects of Empire, 1-24.
- The Politics of Recognition in Colonial Contexts, 25-50.
Session 5 – April 19
- Glen Sean Coulthard (2014). Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition, University of Minnesota Press.
- Chapter 5, “The Plunge into the Chasm of the Past: Fanon, Self-Recognition, and Decolonization”, p.131-150.
- Conclusion. Lessons from Idle No More: The Future of Indigenous Activism”, p. 151-180.
Session 6 – May 3
Decolonial Temporalities
Guest Convenor: Scheherazade Bloul
- Vergès, F. (2005) ‘Where to begin? ‘Le commencement’ in Peau noire, masques blanc and in creolisation’. In Black Skin, White Masks: New interdisciplinary essays, edited by Max Silverman. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 32-45.
- Abourahme, N. (2016). The productive ambivalences of post-revolutionary time: Discourse, aesthetics, and the political subject of the Palestinian present. In Time, Temporality and Violence in International Relations (pp. 129-156). Routledge.
- Tageldin, S. M. (2014). The Place of Africa, in Theory: Pan‐Africanism, Postcolonialism, Beyond. Journal of Historical Sociology, 27(3), 302-323.
Optional:
- Mbembe, A. (2011). Provincializing France? Public Culture, 23(1), 85-119.
Session 7 – May 17
Guest Convenor: Jack Kirne
Making Place in a Climate-Changed World
- Val Plumwood (2008). “Shadow Places and the Politics of Dwelling”, Australian Humanities Review.
- Frederic Neyrat (2018). The Unconstructable Earth: An Ecology of Separation. New York: Fordham University Press.
- Introduction: Reconstructing the Earth?
Session 8 – May 31
Critical Disability
Guest Convenor: Shakira Hussein & Pan Karanikolas
- Readings TBC.
Session 9 – June 21
Knowing at the Limits of Justice, Race and Critique
- Denise Ferreira da Silva, “An End to This World”, Texte Zur Kunst, 2019, 9 pages.
- Denise Ferreira da Silva, “Reading Scenes of Value Against the Arrow of Time”, Unpayable Debt, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2022, selection.
Optional
- Lecture: Unpayable Debt, A black feminist reading of the scenes of value.
- El-Taki et al, “The Value and Uses of Blackness: A Conversation with Denise Ferreira da Silva”, Periskop, 2021, 25, 7 pages
- Denise Ferreira da Silva (2013), “To Be Announced”, Social Text, 114:31, 43-62.
TBC
Academic Abolition (Online via Zoom)
Guest Convenors: Carol Que & Kaliyah Kingi
- Joy James, Idris Robinson, Shemon Salam, and Wendu Trevino (2021). “On the George Floyd Uprising & the Agency of Abolition“, Red May TV.
- Joy James (4 June 2021). “New Bones, Abolitionism, Communism, and Captive Maternals“, Verso Blog.
READING PROGRAM 2021
Convened by Eda Seyhan & Muhib Nabulsi in 2021.
August – December 2021
Session 1
#3August
- Mahmood Mamdani, Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2020.
- Introduction & Chapter 3: Settlers and Natives in Apartheid South Africa
- Optional audio – Welcome? Podcast, episode “Nubian Nostalgia: Part 1” https://welcomepodcast.wordpress.com/nubian-nostalgia/
Session 2
#17August
- Mahmood Mamdani, Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2020.
- Chapter 4: Sudan: Colonialism, Independence, and Secession – TBD
- Conclusion: Decolonizing the Political Community – TBD
Session 3
#31August
- Chi Chi Shi, Defining My Own Oppression: Neoliberalism and the Demands of Victimhood, Historical Materialism 26:2, 2018.
- Open discussion (current issues, questions of strategy/practice/activism, anything else that participants want to raise about their work or topics that have been previously discussed)
Session 4
#14September
- Nikki Moodie (2018), “Decolonising Race Theory: Place, survivance and sovereignty” in The Relationality of Race in Education Research, eds. G. Vass, J. Maxwell, S. Rudolph and K.N. Gulson, Routledge.
- Lilly Brown, Odette Kelada & Dianne Jones (2021) ‘While I knew I was raced, I didn’t think much of it’: the need for racial literacy in decolonising classrooms, Postcolonial Studies 24:1, 82-103.
Session 5
#28September
Guest convenor – Zuleika Arashiro on ‘Colonialism & Okinawa’
BREAK
Session 6
#26October
- Samir Amin, The Long Revolution of the Global South, NY: Monthly Review Press, 2019 – Prologue only
- Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2021) Revisiting Marxism and decolonisation through the legacy of Samir Amin, Review of African Political Economy 48:167, 50-65
- Open discussion
Session 7
#9November
- Brenna Bhandar, Colonial Lives of Property: Law, Land, and Racial Regimes of Ownership, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018.
- Introduction & Chapter 1: Use
Session 8
#23November
- Brenna Bhandar, Colonial Lives of Property: Law, Land, and Racial Regimes of Ownership, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018.
- Chapter 2: Propertied Abstractions & Chapter 3: Improvement
Session 9
#7December
Guest convenor – Lily Malham Spake on ‘Indigenous languages and discourses of ‘endangerment’’
Session 10
#21December
- Aileen Moreton-Robinson (2021), “Incommensurable sovereignties: Indigenous ontology matters”, in Routledge Handbook of Critical Indigenous Studies, ed. Brendan Hokowhitu, Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Linda Tuhiwai-Smith, Chris Andersen, Steve Larkin
- Audio: IGOV Indigenous Speaker Series – Dr. Audra Simpson’s “Mohawk Interruptus” https://youtu.be/FWzXHqGfH3U
- Open discussion
Program February – July 2021
Session 1
9 Feb and 16 Feb
- Anibal Quijano (2000). “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America”, Nepantla: Views from South 1.3, 533-580.
- Patrick Wolfe (2006), “Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native”, Journal of Genocide Research, 8:4, 387-409.
Session 2
23 Feb & 2 March
- Yin Paradies (2020), “Unsettling truths: modernity, (de)coloniality and Indigenous futures”, Postcolonial Studies, 23:4, 438-456.
- María Lugones (2007), “Heterosexualism and the Colonial / Modern Gender System”, Hypatia 22:1, 186-209.
Session 3
9 March & 16 March
- Introduction (p3-23) of Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000), Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. New Jersey: Princeton University Press
- Robbie Shiliam (2019), “From Ethiopia to Bandung with Fanon”, Bandung: Journal of the Global South, 6(2), 163-189
Session 4
23 March & 30 March
- Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000), Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. New Jersey: Princeton University Press – Read Chapter 1
- Juliette Singh (2018), Unthinking Mastery: Dehumanism and Decolonial Entanglements. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Read Chapter 1
Session 5
6 April & 13 April
- Alexis Shotwell (2016) Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times. University of Minnesota Press – Read Introduction & Conclusion.
- Clare Land (2015) Decolonizing Solidarity: Dilemmas and Directions for Supporters of Indigenous Struggles. Zed Books – Chapter TBC
Session 6
20 April & 27 April
Goolarabooloo Futures
Special session on Stephen Muecke and Paddy Roe’s The Children’s Country: Creation of a Goolarabooloo Future in North-West Australia (2020).
- Introduction, chapter 1, chapter 6, chapter 9 (and chapter 5 as additional)
Session 7
4 May & 11 May
Abolition & Decoloniality
Convenors: Jasmine Barzani & Eda Seyhan
- Dylan Rodríguez, “Abolition As Praxis Of Human Being: A Foreword”, 132 Harvard Law Review 1575
- Angela Davis (2003) Are Prisons Obsolete? Seven Stories Press – Chapter 6: Abolitionist Alternatives
- Skim/take a look at: Creative Interventions Toolkit: A Practical Guide to Stop Interpersonal Violence: Chapter 4F – Taking Accountability (available at: https://www.creative-interventions.org/tools/toolkit/)
Session 8
18 May & 25 May
Abolition & Decoloniality (cont.)
Convenors: Jasmine Barzani & Eda Seyhan
With guest speakers for discussion on ‘abolition in practice’
Session 9
1 June & 8 June
- Larissa Behrendt (2013), “Aboriginal Sovereignty: A Practical Roadmap”, in Sovereignty: Frontiers of Possibility, Edited by Julie Evans, Ann Genovese, Alexander Reilly, Patrick Wolfe, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 163-180.
- Adrian Little, ‘The Politics of Makarrata: Understanding Indigenous–Settler Relations in Australia’, Political Theory 48(1), 2020, pp 4–29.
Session 10
22 June / 29 June
The world is cumbia: the politics of creolisation
Moses Iten (Cumbia Cosmonauts / PhD Candidate, RMIT)
Creolisation is a phenomenon largely studied by scholars of linguistics and literature, but Martinican poet-philosopher Edouard Glissant has discussed music as a prominent example of ‘creolisation’. The session seeks to explore the nuances of defining cumbia as hybrid, mestiza (“mixed race”), or creolising, and to consider more broadly the place of music as a practice of decolonisation.
This week’s readings start with listening to (and watching) how the sound of Colombian cumbia has shifted from 1940s to the present day. Starting as a folk music recorded for export by the burgeoning Colombian music industry, to it becoming associated with urban ghettos across Latin America, and ultimately its circulation as a hip global club sound. This story is summarised in a short video documentary focused on the case of cumbia in Peru.
In addition to the audio files and short documentary video, we have two texts. A lecture on creolisation by Glissant himself, in which Glissant proposes that creolisation is applicable to the whole world beyond its usual Caribbean identification, and a critical and ethnomusicological history of cumbia as genre.
Itinerary
A listening and reading recommended itinerary might go like this: listen to some Cumbia, then watch the short doco, and finally do the readings:
- Versions of the song Cumbia Sampuesana (only need to listen to a bit of each video)
- 1940s Colombian folk music version by Conjunto Tipico Vallenato (featured in a Mexican film of the 1950s): https://youtu.be/AjGNMy-yneU
- 1990s Mexican sound system version by Sonido La Changa (song starts at 1:27): https://youtu.be/6NVFMOh2bUk
- 2000s Argentine ghetto cumbia version by Damas Gratis: https://youtu.be/8LBnl-49BKo
- 2010s Australian digital cumbia version by Cumbia Cosmonauts: https://youtu.be/hxRcxONwHDs?t=269
- ‘Making Digital Cumbia in Peru’ on YouTube. Video (7min18sec). Published 2014. https://youtu.be/6mZ3EY6-r2U
- D’Amico, Leonardo. ‘Cumbia Music in Colombia: Origins, Transformations, and Evolution of a Coastal Music Genre’ in Fernández L’Hoeste, Héctor and Pablo Vila (Edited by). 2013. Cumbia! Scenes of a Migrant Latin American Music Genre. Durham and London: Duke University Press. pp. 29-48.
- Glissant, Edouard. 2020. ‘Creolizations in the Caribbean and the Americas’ in Introduction to a Poetics of Diversity. Translated by Celia Britton. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. pp. 3-17
Session 11
6 July / 13 July
- Eve Tuck & K. Wayne Yang (2012), “Decolonization is not a metaphor”, Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1:1, 1-40.
- Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui (2012), “A Reflection on the Practices and Discourses of Decolonization.” South Atlantic Quarterly 111:1, 95-109.
Member Initiatives
See our other member-led initiatives for 2021.
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