Description
This roundtable invites critical researchers and scholar-activists to collectively confront the entanglements of ongoing colonial relations with the severe challenges posed by the current political moment. A moment which is characterised by an intensification of the racial capitalist regime and its acceleration of capital accumulation, dispossession, mass colonisation, violence, and exploitation. Racial capitalism, first and foremost, is a process that makes different grievances and devastating realities of communities seem disconnected from each other.
We acknowledge that for many academics in European institutions, recent events – especially concerning Palestine – have strained our ability to act as critical voices for global decolonial justice, particularly in light of blatant institutional complicity with ongoing colonial violence and genocide.
Grounding our discussion in abolitionist pedagogies and creative methodologies, we will explore the intertwining themes of racial capitalism, settler-colonialism, the arms trade, and the rise of the far right through the lens of colonial violence – military, epistemic, and structural – as manifested in Palestine, SWANA, DRC Congo, at European borders, and within our own cities.
The roundtable moves beyond critique towards practical engagement to counter the coordinated attack on internationalist solidarity. Through collective reflection and creative dialogue, we will examine our positions as educators, researchers, and activists, and explore the complementarity, contradiction, and complicity inherent in our work within and beyond the academy.
Our goal is to develop emancipatory perspectives and tangible teaching tools rooted in a commitment to liberation and social justice. The hope is to take these themes forward to support our students and communities.
