Contestations over cultural memory on European colonialism affect the current understandings of the situation in Israel/Palestine. What histories are activated and/or made invisible when talking about Israel/Palestine, and how do they justify and allow for present possibilities, politics, and discourse? In this teach-in, the speakers will place the situation in Israel/Palestine and the current genocidal violence within the histories of European colonialism and will discuss how these histories define the present moment.

Speakers: 

‐       Nadira Omarjee is a decolonial feminist scholar, working between South Africa and the Netherlands and is a Researcher with the Identity, Diversity and Inclusion (IDI) Research Group in the Sociology Department at the VU University Amsterdam. Nadira’s scholarship focuses on the coloniality of gender and the ways in which we can achieve restorative justice and a healing-centred praxis through rethinking pedagogy with a particular focus on a decolonial feminist ethics of care rooted in uhuru and ubuntu.

‐       Sinan Çankaya is a writer and anthropologist, working at the VU University as an assistant professor at the Department of Public Administration and political science. His previous work focused on policing, racial profiling, and identity formation. Sinan is currently writing an essay on the racialization of Dutch Remembrance culture, particularly the memories of the Second World War. 

‐       Anne-Lot Hoek is an independent historian and researcher, author of the book De strijd om Bali and holds a PhD in colonial violence and state formation in Indonesia. She writes for Dutch news media and is doing research into colonial legacies in South Africa and Namibia.

‐       Sai Englert is an assistant professor in the Institute for Area Studies at Leiden University. His research focuses on the Israeli state, its changing relationship with the labour movement, and the consequences of the neoliberal transition. Sai also works on settler colonialism and settler labour movements more generally.

Chair: Rébecca Franco (UvA) 

Collaborations: In addition to ASCA, this event is organized in collaboration with the Colonialism and Its Afterlives: Seminar Series and Feminist and Transnational Sociology.