Françoise Vergès

 'A Program of Total Disorder: Decolonizing Europe'

Event

Date:   15th December 2022, 6pm (Berlin, GMT+01:00)
Venue: Ethnologisches Museum
            Foyer of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in Dahlem
            Lansstraße 8, 14195 Berlin

Welcome, Introduction & Moderation: Alexis von Poser, Abdoulaye Sounaye and Sandra Calkins

Discussants: Fernanda Beigel and Henrike Kohpeiss

Abstract

What does it mean to decolonize Europe? Why is this struggle important? What would be a Decolonial Europe? Would it still be “Europe”? And then what would be its borders? Its foundations? Let us start with two quotes: Aimé Césaire “‘Europe’ is morally, spiritually indefensible” (Discourse on Colonialism, 1950) and Frantz Fanon “Decolonization, which sets out to change the order of the world, is, obviously, a program of complete disorder. But it cannot come as a result of magical practices, nor of a natural shock, nor of a friendly understanding” (The Wretched of the Earth, 1961). What is the content of the program? How do we realize this disorder?

Lecturer

Françoise Vergès is a writer, an antiracist Decolonial feminist activist and independent curator. Recent publications include: A Feminist Theory of Violence, 2022, A Decolonial Feminism (2021) and De la violence coloniale dans l’espace public (2021).

Organized by the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin and Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO). In cooperation with the Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Forschungscampus Dahlem and Co2libri. With support from the Berlin Center for Global Engagement (BCGE) within the Berlin University Alliance (BUA).