IPCS Reading Group

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 14

Denise Ferreira da Silva (2022). Unpayable Debt, Berlin: Sternberg Press.
- Chapters TBC.

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.