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Call for Applications
Theme: Democracy, Slavery and the Decolonial Option
Type: 4th Annual Decolonial Summer School
Institution: University College Roosevelt
Center for Global Studies and the Humanities, Duke University
Location: Middelburg (Netherlands)
Date: 16.6.–1.7.2014
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Today, the idea of “democracy” that was globalized through European
imperial expansions is no longer the only way to conceive and
organize harmonic and convivial societies. The crisis of “western
democracy” demands closer examination and invites us to seriously
consider other conceptions to achieve peaceful futures. On the one
hand, the seminar will show the connections between “civilization and
unjustness” between “modernity and coloniality” in different domains
of life. On the other, we will take seriously the movements of
decolonial re-existence that are appearing across the planet.
We will show the historical connections between the transatlantic
slavery and current neoliberal forms of the devaluation of life. From
the start of Atlantic Slavery in the sixteen Century and the birth of
a world capitalist economy centered in the West, we have witnessed
the continuous growth of social unjustness. The racialization of
non-European populations and its repercussion on current racism, the
imposition of a colonial gender system, the increasing economic
inequalities, the commodification and destruction of nature and the
corporate control over water and food are tokens of the coloniality
that keeps on characterizing global (un)justness.
We will pay special attention to the democratic disconnect that we
are witnessing in the European “indignado/as” (Spain, Greece), North
Africa and Middle Eastern “intifadas,” US and Europe “occupy,” Turkey
and Brazilian “manifestations”, the uprisings in Eastern Europe,
feminist and indigenous social movements in Latin America.
Sumak Kawsay and the birth of plurinational states in Latin America,
Ubuntu in Africa, Confucian Constitutionalism in China, Shar’ia and
Umma in the Islamic world are all co-existing options aiming at
building harmonic social futures. They present alternatives to the
democratic lag that characterizes the hegemonic conception of
development and the neoliberal forms of governance.
Designed for advanced undergraduate and graduate students (PhD and
MA) from all disciplinary backgrounds, we will encourage participants
interested in creating “working groups” that will continue decolonial
research agendas after the end of the seminar. The working groups
would develop “reports” and “activities” that may take the form of
traditional paper, video-documentary, web-page, artistic creation,
museum exhibitions, community work or other initiatives connected to
the participant’s interests.
Organizers:
Walter Mignolo (Duke University) & Rolando Vázquez (UCR)
Guest Faculty (tbc):
Jean Casimir (Haiti; State University of Haiti)
Maria Lugones (Argentina/US; State University of New York)
Fabian Barba (Ecuador; Busy Rocks)
Patrice Naiambana (Sierra Leone; Tribal Soul)
Jeanette Ehlers (Denmark)
Patricia Kaersenhout (The Netherlands/Suriname)
Alanna Lockward (Dominican Republic/ Germany; Art Labour Archives)
Ovidiu Tichindeleanu (Rumania; IDEA Magazine)
Register at the Utrecht Summer School Website
http://utrechtsummerschool.nl
This Year we have no deadline admission will be on a rolling basis
until the course is full.
If you have questions please email us at:
decolonial...@ucr.nl
Decolonial Summer School:
http://decolonialsummerschool.wordpress.com
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