[versión en español]

The Winter School "Anti-colonial Resistances and institutional racism" aims to provide a space for transnational and transdisciplinary debate on (anti-)racism and its diverse unfoldings in Latin American and European contexts, using participatory methodologies.

The main goal of the School is to offer the possibility of relating different contexts to reflect on and visualise everyday dynamics and institutionalised practices of racism in contemporary times. More specifically, the discussion seminars and participatory workshops propose, on the one hand, to broaden the debate on racism and anti-racism beyond reflections limited to national borders without, however, forging "new universalisms" disconnected from historical contexts; and, on the other hand, to offer participants the possibility to debate about essentializing conceptions and categories that end up hierarchizing and dehistoricizing the (re)production of racism as a structure of modern oppression that crosses and connects nation-states and supranational entities (e. g. the European Union).

We start from the realisation that the denial of racism as a system of oppression prevailing in today's democracies, whether it be in a Europe "without race", or in Latin America’s "racial democracy", still defines the political, media, academic and some social movements' discourses. Thus, the Winter School "Anti-colonial Resistances and institutional racism" will prioritize two axes of discussion: the academic production about the current dynamics of reproduction of racism and the struggles waged by social movements to fight racism. Thus, we intend the school to be a space of dialogue that refocuses the importance of the debates generated in and by the anti-racist movements regarding the demand for the centrality of the analytical and political categories of "race" and "racism", as well as the challenges presented by views from Afropessimism to Antiblackness in the understanding of the current dynamics of exclusion, violence and death as well as the denunciations of the regimes of denial.

The School will focus on the tensions that cross the relationship between academia and antiracist movements in order to generate reflections that challenge the racial narratives and logics that structure public policies (e.g. in the area of internal and urban security; in higher education), the norms and anti-discrimination legislation, the production of knowledge and political struggles. To this end, the School will operate from seminars in the morning and workshops in the afternoon that will be mediated by the team of researchers that make up the POLITICS research project. We intend that the debate arising from the exhibitions in the morning with guests with recognised experience in the discussion, may encourage reflection, criticism and pondering in the participatory workshops. We will also take the opportunity to present some preliminary results of the research under development in the POLITICS project.

The School eschews abstract debates and tries to approach the anti-racist struggle as a political project in open confrontation with colonial legacies and the current power structures installed in the logics of European modernity, paying special attention to the various ways in which anti-colonial resistance movements continue to be confronted today. To this end, the debate will be guided by three central axes:

• National narratives about racism (circumscribed within the nation state);
• Normality versus exceptionality of racism;
• Anti-colonial resistance and political anti-racism.

The proposal of the Winter School "Anticolonial Resistances and Institutional Racism" will have, therefore, as core themes: (post)colonialism, production of knowledge and social memory; grammars of human dignity and racial justice; struggles against institutional racism and decolonial thinking.

Thematic area(s) of the course: Antigypsyism/anti-Roma discrimination, antiblackness; Eurocentrism and knowledge production; racial status, legal struggles, resistance, police violence.
 

Responsible Researchers:

Silvia Maeso: srodrig@ces.uc.pt
Cayetano Fernandez: cayetanofernandez@ces.uc.pt
Danielle Pereira de Araújo: daniellearaujo@ces.uc.pt
Luana Coelho: luanacoelho@ces.uc.pt
Sebijan Fejzula: sebijanfejzula@ces.uc.pt

Target audience

With the aim of broadening the debate between the anti-racist social movement and the academy, the target audience for this Winter School is activists, members of anti-racist movements and/or organisations, researchers, students, professionals and others interested in discussing the current dynamics of the reproduction of racism and the struggles to combat it.

The Winter School will be free of charge, but those interested should register in advance and send an application. The selection will be made by the responsible researchers based on the interest and relevance of the candidates in relation to the objectives of the school, prioritizing an equitable participation of racialized people. The option for the free modality is justified by the choice of the target public, aiming to guarantee equal opportunities and access among different publics, considering the historical inequalities that are structured in the dynamics of racism.

Working languages: Portuguese and Spanish

Participants: maximum 25 people / Free registration | Lunch included: catering service by Sindicato de Manteros
 

[REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED]
 

Course organised under the project  POLITICS - The politics of anti-racism in Europe and Latin America knowledge production, decision-making and collective struggless  (funded by ERC; grant nº 725402- POLITICS- ERC- 2016- COG), in collaboration with Sindicato de Manteros de Madrid.

^{Contact: Malick Gueye, spokesperson for Sindicato de Manteros de Madrid, a collective formed in 2010 to fight racism and to achieve the decriminalisation of their livelihood, street vending.}

Day 1 (10 November):

9h30 | Introduction to the School

10h-13h | Seminar: João Vargas: Antiblackness and abolition (there will be translation in Spanish)

15h-19h | Workshop led by Silvia Maeso (themes: antiblackness and Antigypsyism/anti-Romanyism and police violence/state violence. The struggle in the field of law and the attack on the anti-racist struggle from the justice system, police institutions and the State).

Day 2 (11 November):

10h-13h | Seminar: Akwugo Emejulu: Unfeeling Solidarity: Untangling Emotions and Practical Action (there will be translation in Spanishl)

15h-19h | Workshop led by Danielle Araújo and Cayetano Fernandez (themes: production of knowledge, university, racism. The debate will take place through working groups that will discuss the struggles of social movements within and outside the university for political transformation in the context of teaching and knowledge production).

Day 3 (12 November):

10h-13h | Seminar: Houria Bouteldja: Antiracisme politique et organisation autonome (there will be translation in Spanishl)

15h-19h | Discussion group with antiracist movements in the Portuguese and Spanish context, moderated by Sebijan Fejzula (themes: ethno-racial data collection and censuses; antiracist public policies; transnational struggles and alliances; legal struggles).

Day 4 (13 November):

10h-19h | Field trip and discussion group coordinated by the Sindicato de Manteros de Madrid

(themes: maps of existence and resistance in the city; practices of resistance against institutional racism and police violence).

Total number of hours: 30 hours

Silvia Rodríguez Maeso (Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra)
PhD in Political Sociology. Principal Researcher at CES and member of the Research Group on Democracy, Citizenship and Law. She lectures in the PhD Programmes: "Democracy in the 21st Century" and "Human Rights in Contemporary Societies"; and Master "Roads to Democracy(ies)". Her interests have centred on the following areas: social theory, racism and anti-racism in European contexts;  Eurocentrism and Knowledge production; Truth Commissions in Latin American contexts.

João Vargas (University of California / San Diego)
PhD. and Professor of Anthropology at the University of California - Riverside. His publications include Catching Hell in the City of Angels (2006), Never Meant to Survive (2008), State of White Supremacy, co-edited by Moon-Kie Jung and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (2011), and The Denial of Antiblackness. Multiracial Redemption and Black Suffering (2018). His written work is the result of engaging individuals and collectives to combat gendered blackness. It draws on collaborative projects in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Salvador (in Brazil), and in Austin and Los Angeles (in the United States). The projects focus on and attempt to propose alternatives to the current dynamics of social death and early physical death from preventable causes. These dynamics include youth and adult imprisonment, repressive policing, punitive schooling, hyper-residential segregation, exposure to environmental hazards, and blocked access to health care and welfare. By exploring the possibility and terms of collaboration between black and non-black people, the projects aim to contribute to imagining and practicing worlds where black lives are possible.

Danielle Pereira de Araújo (Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra)
PhD student in Political Science from University of Campinas São Paulo, where developed her thesis on the process of implementation of affirmative policies in Public Higher Education Institutions in the state of S. Paulo. Master's degree in Political Science, where she concluded her dissertation which mainly includes the following themes: election campaign financing, elections, political configurations in the Northeast, Workers' Party. She holds a degree in Social Sciences from the Federal University of Ceará..

Luana Xavier Pinto Coelho (Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra)
Luana is a junior researcher at the project POLITICS: The politics of anti-racism in Europe and Latin America: knowledge production, decision-making and collective struggles, coordinated by Silvia Maeso. She is current PhD student at the Program "Human Rights in Contemporary Societies"(CES/IIIUC). She has a bachelor in Law and a master in Urban Development and International Cooperation
(IUG-UPMF, Grenoble/ France and TUD, Darmstadt/Germany).

Cayetano Fernández  (Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra)
Cayetano is a junior researcher at Center for Social Studies (CES), currently integrated in the project POLITICS - The politics of anti-racism in Europe and Latin America: knowledge production, decision-making and collective struggles, particularly in the research stream "Cultures of Scholarship and State Universities: the study of racism and (post) colonialism in higher education". In collaboration with the University of Granada (Spain) and other entities he has been working in several researches.

Sebijan Fejzula  (Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra)
I have developed my research interest in the areas of Gender Studies, critical theories of race, with an interest in the contemporary visual representation of Romani women and its ideology. Currently, my interdisciplinary research work focusses on theorizing cases of racist police brutality as mechanisms for controlling and disciplining the “Other/non-human” body, in concrete, the historically rooted colonial power relations over the Roma body.

Houria Bouteldja
She is a founding member of the Parti des Indigènes de la république, a decolonial political member based in France. She has written several theoretical or strategic articles on decolonial feminism, racism, autonomy and political alliances, as well as articles on Zionism and state philosemitism. She is the author with Sadri Khiari of Nous sommes les indigènes de la république (Amsterdam Editions) and With Whites, Jews, and Us. Toward a Politics of Revolutionary Love (Semiotext(e)).

Akwugo Emejulu (University of Warwick)
Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, a co-editor of Politics, Groups and Identities and an inaugural winner of the Flax Foundation's Emma Goldman Prize. Her research interests include the political sociology of race, class and gender and women of colour’s grassroots activism in Europe and the United States. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies, Politics & Gender, Race & Class and the European Journal of Women’s Studies. Her co-authored book, Minority Women and Austerity: Survival and Resistance in France and Britain (2017, Policy Press) and Fugitive Feminism (2021, Silver books).

Malick Gueye (Sindicato de Manteros)
Malick has a long history of activism against racism and for migrants' rights and is a member and one of the spokespersons of the collective Manteros in Madrid. A collective formed in 2010 to fight racism and to achieve the decriminalisation of their livelihood, street vending.

SOS Racismo PT e ESP/Grupo Amiafro-Teatro Oprimido Lisboa/ Campanha Por Outra Lei da Nacionalidade, Portugal/ Kale Amenge, Sindicato de Manteros/ Colectivo Ayllu [participantes a ser confirmadxs]
Um dos objetivos da escola de Inverno é aprofundar o debate entre as agendas dos coletivos antirracistas e a produção académica. Para tal, realizar-se-á uma mesa redonda na qual serão convidados coletivos como o SOS Racismo de Espanha y Portugal (uma organização que tem vindo a desenvolver trabalho de advocacia e contencioso antirracista desde os anos 90), Kale Amenge (uma organização política decolonial romani que trabalha para construir o anti-racismo político e a autonomia dos movimentos racializados), Sindicato de Manteros (uma organização de vendedores de rua que enfrenta o racismo antinegro) ou Colectivo Ayllu (uma organização que reúne migrantes de Abya Yala para combater o racismo institucional e a supremacia branca); representantes da Campanha Por outra Lei da Nacionalidade em Portugal que tem lutado pela mudança política da legislação portuguesa sobre acesso à nacionalidade e aberto a discussão sobre lei e racismo; uma representante do grupo do teatro do Oprimido de Lisboa que trabalha com jovens negrxs de bairros da periferia de Lisboa.