“Inverting colonial worlds” application call
“Inverting colonial worlds” is an initiative between two Ph.D.’s of Durham’s Geography, Carlos Tornel, and Danae Kontou. Carlos’ focus lies on Latin American decolonial thought and the rise of political ontology shaping energy transitions. Danae is focusing on the colonial/Eurocentric/western understanding, depiction, representation, and imagination of the Arctic using creative methods and art practices. After long discussions and exchanges of ideas and books Danae and Carlos agreed they should write something together merging their theoretical interests from Carlos' side and Danae’s practical and methodological focuses. The idea of a paper expanded into a conference where the main purpose is to challenge themselves by trying to organize a non-traditional setting of exchanging ideas, knowledges, and discussions, building a hub of interaction and creative practices.
Why “Inverting Worlds”? During their long coffee breaks and discussions Carlos and Danae found out they have the same favorite map! The map is called “América Invertida”, often called “the UpsideDown Map”, and was made in 1943 with pen and ink drawing by the Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres García. This map depicts South America inverted in a minimalistic outline, a result falling under the constructive universalism theory, inspired by the traditional arts of indigenous south Americans. By this map, Torres manifested the “School of the South Sun”. It is a map with a high sociopolitical impact. Among the South Sun, this map includes the equatorial line, just below the latitude line of Montevideo, a fish, a symbol of life, and fecundity representing the physical and formal universe. A simplistic map that holds a lot of symbolisms, but also is a symbol of de-contextualization declaration. Maps are never transparent, neutral, or tools of passive spatial depictions. They are opaque, imaginative, and operational; they are ideas, mental constructions, and political statements able to make changes.
How do creative and art practices come together with theories of decoloniality?
As mentioned above art, symbolisms, and representations, can make a huge impact and may spark fruitful environments for creative brainstorming in a language more people can communicate with. Academic language, especially when spoken in English among international peers, can be unfriendly and alienating. In geography, creative practices have been formed through critical engagements within space/place/scapes via artistic expressions and practices. In geographical research, art can be used not only at the end phase of communication, but also at the planning of research, data collection and analysis, understanding and reforming knowledges, representation, and communication. Trying to protest against the dominant geographic (sometimes colonial) thought and the usual dry round-table discussion among intellectuals, we are proposing a symposium where the keynote is not a speech but a discussion, and the workshop a mixed hub of early career researchers, academics, artists in academia and academics who are using art in their research, related to the hot topic of decoloniality of knowledges.
Why the Americas? Indigenous scholars in the North and South have highlighted the way that liberal frameworks of justice can become problematic in their settings. Their work is in close dialogue with the decolonial turn in Latin America, which has not only expanded on this problematic view, but has also linked the emergence of modernity with capitalism and how this has been globally instituted through what Anibal Quijano called the Coloniality of Power. Drawing these ecologies and knowledges together, has initiated a fruitful dialogue in the Global South as to how to effectively contest the coloniality of knowledge. Specifically for geographers, this dialogue has also expanded a range of contributions and criticisms, over who gets to represent space and how, and what knowledges, forms of being, and over all, who counts in the production of space. Combining geographical knowledges, cartographic and landscape representations, extractivism and exploitation, and the situated knowledges of societies in movement as the main roots of discussion in this symposium, we are aiming to build an environment of open-ended presentations and discussions on the decoloniality of geographical knowledges on the Americas.
So, what will be the symposium’s form? Starting in the morning there is going to be a discussion among 4 invited keynote speakers and discussants. The presentations along with previous work of the speakers will be distributed in advance, so for the audience and participants to prepare questions, discussions, and statements if they feel like it. This discussion will be open to the public for anyone to join. After lunch, the second part of the symposium will be a hands-on workshop, consisting of 25 participants in total. With open questions formed in advance the participants will collectively discuss and brainstorm, build upon other’s opinions by using oral dialogue along with provided tools and materials provided to the room. At the end of the workshop the participants will have created a collective medium representing/communicating their discussions and ideas on the questions on decoloniality of knowledges in the Americas.
How to apply? Send us an email to inverting.worlds@gmail.com with a short statement/summary/abstract of who you are, and what are your academic interests/research area along with any material that represents your research. Audio, visuals, poems, photos, videos, maps, smells, songs, manifesta, draws, and whatever expresses you and your research are all welcome! Please, consider applying even if your main academic interest is not specifically lying on decoloniality of knowledge, or on the Americas. And please feel free to share this call with communities, peers, or other people who might find it interesting.
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