In the seminar, we ask the key questions: What role does decolonial thought and feminism play in women’s protests and struggles all over the world today and if we are to replace efforts of integration and assimilation that has been the leading strategy of societies in the global North, what does decolonial feminism bring to the table?

The seminar includes perspectives that challenge a universal feminism, or what, with Françoise Verges’ terms, could be labelled 'white' feminism referring to a feminism that is blind to its own civilizing mission and masks its will to universalize an ideology stemming from one class, genre and race (Verges 2019). A feminism that has been taken hostage by politicians to legitimize immigration policies and initiatives that is directed towards religious and cultural minorities.

To think beyond homogenizing strategies, feminist scholars have offered different concepts and ideas such as living-in-difference and interculturality (Lugones 2010, Tlostanova et al. 2019), Anna Hickey-Moody proposes arts-based methodologies to facilitate ‘a togetherness’ in culturally and religiously diverse communities (Hickey-Moody and Wilcox 2019). Sabine Hark and Paula-Irene Villa’s account of the ‘Cologne’ event during which hundreds of women were sexually harassed on New Year’s Eve 2015 in Germany also seem to be an invitation to think on how to develop a future of difference that accept plural co-existences inspired by decolonial feminism (Hark and Villa 2020). 

Preliminary program

• 14.00-14.15 Welcome
• 14.15-15.15 Family stories as resources for a decolonial, culturally responsive pedagogy. Presentations by Anna-Hickey Moody (Melbourne) and Conversation with NN
• 15.15-15.30 Pause
• 15.30-16.30 Decolonial feminism in culturally diverse societies. Presentation by Sabine Hark (Berlin) and Conversation with Bontu Lucie Guschke
• 16.30-17.00 Open questions from the audience to all speakers/follow up by organizers

Culture Transformation seminar