Whose Knowledges? (Post-)Coloniality and the Art of Collective Empowerment

(Post-)colonial logics are inscribed in social and economic conditions, relationships, ways of life and identities. The prevailing heteronormative and patriarchal gender order was as well only enforced in the course of colonization: Previously existing gender orders were violently eradicated in colonized regions and reproduction was often enforced and instrumentalized in order to secure the next generation of workers. As an intersectional category of difference, gender in (post-)colonial societies is linked to orders of knowledge, the distribution of resources, agency, and resistance, as well as to logics of sexualized violence.

Reflecting on and critically questioning (post-)colonial gendered relations, engaging with other perspectives and experiences and furthering transformation is central to the postcolonial perspective.  Not only - but also - at the university, which has long contributed primarily to the production, establishment, and perpetuation of colonizing knowledge practices.

Resistant potentials were and are often attributed to pop culture and the arts - not least, however, to be able to use them as a calculable critical counterpart even where they refuse to represent hegemonic structures. Resistant knowledges exist alongside and interwoven with (post-)colonial logics, are passed on, transformed and recreated in other types of texts, oral traditions and rituals, symbols, and narratives. Often by those whose knowledge is not recognized as knowledge in the (post-)colonial gendered order. These were and are in particular Black women* and women* of color.

Artists and cultural practitioners have not only had some practice in escaping appropriation. They also have developed tools and strategies for creative and critical interventions that show ways of challenging and transforming colonizing knowledge practices as well as the institutions that (re-)produce them. Unlike the traditional narratives of the lone genius, this is often based on collective self-empowerment arising from engagement in, with, and for communities, based on mutual respect and recognition and with the aim of learning from and with each other.

With this in mind, in our CGColloquia series in the summer semester 2024 - which accompanies the Angela Davis Guest Professorship held by Grada Kilomba - we ask about the performativity of resistant knowledges:

How are resistant knowledges shared? With whom? What transformations can they propel, what obstacles need to be overcome, what dangers does sharing such knowledges entail? And who is actually addressed? Can embodied knowledges against (post-)colonial gender orders be generated in educational institutions rooted in hegemonic traditions such as academies and universities? What can we learn from and with artists?