Lecture and Masterclass with Dr. Vanessa Agard-Jones (Assistant Professor, Anthropology, Columbia University). Respondent: Dr. Rivke Jaffe (Professor of Cities, Politics and Culture, University of Amsterdam).

Decolonial desire

In this lecture and seminar, we reflect upon the meaning of decolonization in Caribbean contexts where political sovereignty is not the anticipated nor desired outcome. As we consider bitter contests over the etiology of same-sex desire in the region and the consistent framing of gender transgression and same sex desire as colonial imposition, we explore the forms of political maneuver that make desire the terrain for proxy debates about sovereignty, freedom, and decolonial futures.

This event is organised in coöperation with Atria on initiative of the NWO funded project ‘Cultural Practices of Citizenship under fragmented Sovereignty: Gendered and Sexual Citizenship in Curaçao and Bonaire‘  and with the support of the Amsterdam Centre for Globalisation Studies, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis and Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis.

Vanessa Agard-Jones

Dr. Vanessa Agard-Jones is assistant professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, where she also serves on the Executive Council of the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality. She is affiliated with the Institute for Research in African American Studies. Her primary ethnographic research focuses on the intersections of sexual and environmental politics and their relationship to debates about sovereignty in the Caribbean. Her current book project, Body Burdens: Toxic Endurance and Decolonial Desire in the French Atlantic, uses ethnographic research to explore pesticides, sexual politics, and postcoloniality in Martinique.

Rivke Jaffe

Dr. Rivke Jaffe is Professor of Cities, Politics and Culture at the Centre for Urban Studies within the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research. Prior to joining the UvA, she held teaching and research positions at Leiden University, the University of the West Indies, and the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV). Her research focuses primarily on intersections of the urban and the political, and specifically on the spatialization and materialization of power, difference and inequality within cities.

Date and time

Lecture: Wed 6 June 2018, 16-18h
Masterclass on Thu 7 June 2018, 14-17h

Venue

Atria – Institute for Gender Equality and Women’s History, Vijzelstraat 20, Amsterdam. Both the lecture and masterclass will take place in Atria’s auditorium on the 2nd floor.

Credits

RMA Students can acquire 2 EC if they attend both the lecture and masterclass, complete the preparatory readings and write a short written assignment related to the topic of the masterclass.

Registration