A Program of Total Disorder: Decolonizing Europe

4th Berlin Southern Theory Lecture by Françoise Vergès

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?

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).

Discussants: Fernanda Beigel (CONICET-Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza-Argentina) and Henrike Kohpeiß (Freie Universität Berlin)

Welcome, Introduction and Moderation: Alexis von Poser (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), Abdoulaye Sounaye (Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient), Sandra Calkins (Freie Universität Berlin) 

The annual Berlin Southern Theory Lecture foregrounds southern theory and epistemology. It honors diverse starting points and relations – "from", "with" and "for"– forms of theorizing whose trajectories often depart from dominant Euro-American traditions. Thereby, this lecture series redresses lingering postcolonial asymmetries and aims to decenter and diversify theoretical debates in the social sciences and the humanities. Information on previous lectures can be found here.

This lecture is 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).

A recording of the lecture will be available on ZMO's YouTube channel in early January.

 

Programm PDF