In this (the first part of a) two-part workspace, a collective of interdisciplinary scholars will... more In this (the first part of a) two-part workspace, a collective of interdisciplinary scholars will come together to deliberate on and practice new modes of communicative praxis in academic conference/workshops. This workspace builds upon energies to decolonize university spaces, including during a previous workshop, Setting Forth At Dawn: A Workshop on the Geopolitics and Practices of Academic Writing, held in May 2016 at Jimma University in Jimma, Ethiopia.
In traditional academic conferences, scholars are subject to rigid time and space controls that often privilege more positivist and axiomatic research topics and knowledge(s). These academic spaces often reaffirm a spatial and metaphysical distancing between the “audience” (learners) and the “presenter” (the knower). This enforced distancing can re-privilege and re-center the “presenter.” This re-privileging can be particularly problematic for scholars whose works contribute to projects of decolonizing and/or are critical of the relationship(s) between knowledge and power. Moreover, traditional conference modes of communicative praxis can de-privilege (a) hesitancy, (b) the expression of multiple subjectivities, and (c) highly transdisciplinary scholarships. This is perhaps more acute for emerging, independent, and non-affiliated scholars, whom have yet to achieve the renown, prestige, and/or job security of tenured and highly published scholars. In such settings, scholars attempt transformative expressions through clandestine and often dis-unified formulas, oftentimes at the fringes of academic conferences.
Through guided discussions, interactive and embodied sessions, we will address the structural and epistemological legacies of colonialism within our universities as we continue to foster the energies of decolonization, with an attention to concrete practices of decolonization.
Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography - Royal Geographical Society (w/ IBG) Annual Plenary 2021, 2022
Colonial epistemes persist in studies of African geographies. We argue that colonial continuities... more Colonial epistemes persist in studies of African geographies. We argue that colonial continuities are revealed in (a) the status of human geography within African higher education; (b) the marginalization of Africa (particularly beyond Southern Africa) within the discipline of human geography; and (c) erasures of the functions of racialization in African societies. These are compounded by the relative marginalization of African knowledge within decolonial thought, including decolonial geographies and the disunities between the subfields of black geographies and African geographies. To challenge some of these dynamics, we introduce the concept of defiant scholarship in Africa, a form of scholarship that seeks to work against and outside of dominant grammars and prevailing registers and which draws from a powerful and extensive intellectual tradition across the African continent. Working from Walter Rodney's ‘guerrilla intellectuals’ and drawing on Walter Mignolo's ‘epistemic disobedience’, defiant scholarship cultivates those ways of thinking and those practices that are external to, in opposition to, and/or unconventional to the coloniality of knowledge. We ask what it means for our scholarship to be disobedient to colonial and capitalist epistemes, and, in so doing, we sketch the contours of an African geographies subdiscipline that is anti-racist, decolonial, and in active conversation with black geographies. The result of our engagement is a call for a reinvigoration of African geographies as we currently know and practice them.
In this (the first part of a) two-part workspace, a collective of interdisciplinary scholars will... more In this (the first part of a) two-part workspace, a collective of interdisciplinary scholars will come together to deliberate on and practice new modes of communicative praxis in academic conference/workshops. This workspace builds upon energies to decolonize university spaces, including during a previous workshop, Setting Forth At Dawn: A Workshop on the Geopolitics and Practices of Academic Writing, held in May 2016 at Jimma University in Jimma, Ethiopia.
In traditional academic conferences, scholars are subject to rigid time and space controls that often privilege more positivist and axiomatic research topics and knowledge(s). These academic spaces often reaffirm a spatial and metaphysical distancing between the “audience” (learners) and the “presenter” (the knower). This enforced distancing can re-privilege and re-center the “presenter.” This re-privileging can be particularly problematic for scholars whose works contribute to projects of decolonizing and/or are critical of the relationship(s) between knowledge and power. Moreover, traditional conference modes of communicative praxis can de-privilege (a) hesitancy, (b) the expression of multiple subjectivities, and (c) highly transdisciplinary scholarships. This is perhaps more acute for emerging, independent, and non-affiliated scholars, whom have yet to achieve the renown, prestige, and/or job security of tenured and highly published scholars. In such settings, scholars attempt transformative expressions through clandestine and often dis-unified formulas, oftentimes at the fringes of academic conferences.
Through guided discussions, interactive and embodied sessions, we will address the structural and epistemological legacies of colonialism within our universities as we continue to foster the energies of decolonization, with an attention to concrete practices of decolonization.
Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography - Royal Geographical Society (w/ IBG) Annual Plenary 2021, 2022
Colonial epistemes persist in studies of African geographies. We argue that colonial continuities... more Colonial epistemes persist in studies of African geographies. We argue that colonial continuities are revealed in (a) the status of human geography within African higher education; (b) the marginalization of Africa (particularly beyond Southern Africa) within the discipline of human geography; and (c) erasures of the functions of racialization in African societies. These are compounded by the relative marginalization of African knowledge within decolonial thought, including decolonial geographies and the disunities between the subfields of black geographies and African geographies. To challenge some of these dynamics, we introduce the concept of defiant scholarship in Africa, a form of scholarship that seeks to work against and outside of dominant grammars and prevailing registers and which draws from a powerful and extensive intellectual tradition across the African continent. Working from Walter Rodney's ‘guerrilla intellectuals’ and drawing on Walter Mignolo's ‘epistemic disobedience’, defiant scholarship cultivates those ways of thinking and those practices that are external to, in opposition to, and/or unconventional to the coloniality of knowledge. We ask what it means for our scholarship to be disobedient to colonial and capitalist epistemes, and, in so doing, we sketch the contours of an African geographies subdiscipline that is anti-racist, decolonial, and in active conversation with black geographies. The result of our engagement is a call for a reinvigoration of African geographies as we currently know and practice them.
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Workshops Co-Organised by F. Daley
In traditional academic conferences, scholars are subject to rigid time and space controls that often privilege more positivist and axiomatic research topics and knowledge(s). These academic spaces often reaffirm a spatial and metaphysical distancing between the “audience” (learners) and the “presenter” (the knower). This enforced distancing can re-privilege and re-center the “presenter.” This re-privileging can be particularly problematic for scholars whose works contribute to projects of decolonizing and/or are critical of the relationship(s) between knowledge and power. Moreover, traditional conference modes of communicative praxis can de-privilege (a) hesitancy, (b) the expression of multiple subjectivities, and (c) highly transdisciplinary scholarships. This is perhaps more acute for emerging, independent, and non-affiliated scholars, whom have yet to achieve the renown, prestige, and/or job security of tenured and highly published scholars. In such settings, scholars attempt transformative expressions through clandestine and often dis-unified formulas, oftentimes at the fringes of academic conferences.
Through guided discussions, interactive and embodied sessions, we will address the structural and epistemological legacies of colonialism within our universities as we continue to foster the energies of decolonization, with an attention to concrete practices of decolonization.
Articles by F. Daley
In traditional academic conferences, scholars are subject to rigid time and space controls that often privilege more positivist and axiomatic research topics and knowledge(s). These academic spaces often reaffirm a spatial and metaphysical distancing between the “audience” (learners) and the “presenter” (the knower). This enforced distancing can re-privilege and re-center the “presenter.” This re-privileging can be particularly problematic for scholars whose works contribute to projects of decolonizing and/or are critical of the relationship(s) between knowledge and power. Moreover, traditional conference modes of communicative praxis can de-privilege (a) hesitancy, (b) the expression of multiple subjectivities, and (c) highly transdisciplinary scholarships. This is perhaps more acute for emerging, independent, and non-affiliated scholars, whom have yet to achieve the renown, prestige, and/or job security of tenured and highly published scholars. In such settings, scholars attempt transformative expressions through clandestine and often dis-unified formulas, oftentimes at the fringes of academic conferences.
Through guided discussions, interactive and embodied sessions, we will address the structural and epistemological legacies of colonialism within our universities as we continue to foster the energies of decolonization, with an attention to concrete practices of decolonization.