Power, discourse and city trajectories

Examines social theory and contemporary human geography in the context of urban development. Covers theoretical debates in political ecology, the cultural turn in the economy, social relations and scale, space and place, and colonialism and post-colonialism

Katherine Mansfield as (post)colonial modernist

This talk covers the different ways in which Mansfield's life and work can be read through the double lens of post colonialism and modernism, representing two different positions that inform and intersect with each other in her work. The first half examines her early life and work in which she destabilises the dualities of gender, national identity and ethnicity in an encounter with the 'other' that includes the self as 'other', at a time when she was rejecting her origins. The second half covers the search Mansfield made in her later years to reemplace herself through memory and imagination within her homeland by reconstructing the world of her childhood as a form of life intercepted by death thus transcending the material dimension of her recreation

A Theory's Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space

This essay examines theoretical arguments surrounding the use of post-colonial theory as a way to fill in the epistemological lacuna in the studies of post-socialism. It reviews the various streams of this theoretical development and employs Edward Said’s notion of “traveling theory” to demonstrate that theoretical claims made by proponents and opponents of this particular comparative perspective are historically, socially, and geographically situated, although not fixed. Disciplinary, national, and institutional affiliations, instead of theoretical justifications, are identified as important factors in the propensity to accept or resist the introduction of post-colonial perspective on Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The essay concludes by acknowledging the potential usefulness as well as the limits of post-colonialism in the conceptualization of the post- socialist space

“The Many Languages of the Avant-Garde”: In conversation with Grzegorz Bral of Teatr Pieśń Kozła (Song of the Goat Theatre)

How to theorise and review avant-garde Shakespeare? Which theoretical paradigms should be applied when Shakespearean productions are multicultural and yet come from a specific locale? These and other many questions interrogating the language of performance in global avant-garde Shakespeare productions are put forward to Grzegorz Bral, the director of the Song of the Goat ensemble in the context of their evolving performance of Macbeth (2006/2008) and their Songs of Lear (2012)

Space, City and Post colonialism in the Poetic Discourse of the “Independent Writers of Pernambuco”

In Altas literaturas (High Literatures), Leyla Perrone Moisés reminds us that in the scope of Catholicism the canon acquired the meaning of a "list of saints recognized by the papal authority" which "by extension came to mean the set of literary authors recognized as masters of tradition" (1988, p. 61) .That, undoubtedly, guided the literary studies in Brazil until very recently. These studies ignored non-canonical literary works. In other words, the canonical thinking was oblivious to a rich literary production which was not in accordance with a colonialist view of the academic studies developed in our universities. In this work, we intend to study the literary production of some poets in Recife (Brazil), in the 1980s in relation to the established canon. We focus on the Movement, known as “Independent Writers of Pernambuco” aiming to bring to light a literary movement forgotten by Brazilian academic community.. Our study has a postcolonial perspectives we explore the need to pay attention to literary production by writers who do not always belong to “traditional canon” (Said, 2004). The poetical works of the movement we study may play a vital role in the context of Brazil and Pernambuco. By considering the emerging social responsibilities of writers and intellectuals in an ever more interdependent world, we suggest that studying the movement and its authors who are not much explored by Brazilian scholars we may be decolonizing the knowledge on literature in Brazil. Wetake into account the movement´s relations with Brazilian Northeastern culture and its program of action, dating from 1981, the beginning of the so-called "Lost Decade." The movement had an important voice against the most conservative and traditionalist criticism at that time. We believe that by studying the movement we are offering the opportunity to rethink our Brazilian and Pernambucan literary canon

Valentine Moghadam. Globalizing women: transnational feminist networks. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.

Valentine Moghadam has written a much-needed text outlining the work of transnational activists concerned with women’s rights worldwide. Moghadam informs the reader that in an era characterized by heightened globalization and a restructuring of the state, there is a critical mass of educated, employed, mobile, and politically conscious women around the world, responding to the gendered process of globalization

The making of English cricket cultures: Empire, globalization and (post) colonialism

The aim of this article is to understand how English cricket cultures have been made, negotiated and, ultimately, resisted in the context of (post) colonialism. I draw upon research undertaken with white and British Asian cricketers in Yorkshire to identify the place and significance of cricket within the everyday lives of British Asian communities. Over the last decade the number of British Asian cricketers progressing into the upper echelons of the game (mainly the English County Championship) has increased. Many within the game (mainly white people) have used these figures to argue that English cricket is now 'colour blind'. However, I argue that representation is not the equivalent to acceptance and integration, and present evidence to suggest that racial prejudice and discrimination, not to mention inaccurate and essentialized cultural stereotypes of British Asian cricketers, remain firmly and routinely embedded in aspects of the sport at all levels. I argue that the ability of British Asians to resist the hegemonic structures of white 'Englishness', by asserting their own distinctive post-colonial identities in cricket, is paramount to their everyday negotiations of power and racism. © 2011 Taylor & Francis

Beyond collective violence: capturing context and complexity in Palestinian diasporic resistance

Approximately 50 percent of the world’s Palestinians reside in the diaspora, territorially disconnected from occupied Palestine, but no less part of a population so often associated with political resistance. This article asks: how do Palestinians living in the UK express resistance to the military occupation of their homeland? In what ways are such expressions of resistance shaped by social processes specific to such a context? It makes the case for a more nuanced analysis of resistance amongst Palestinians living in the UK, framed by understandings of (post)colonialism. Through a qualitative analysis of ethnographic interviews with Palestinians residing in Manchester and Edinburgh in 2013, I begin by outlining a postcolonial context in the UK characterized by an Orientalism that Palestinians are forced to negotiate. I then spotlight ‘storytelling’ as an important instance of everyday resistance within (post)colonial settings, suggesting that storytelling might allow Palestinians to negotiate their resistance against the various constraints of life in the UK. The findings challenge notions of ‘violence’ and collectivity traditionally associated with Palestinian resistance, pointing towards a need to reconceptualize everyday diasporic resistance in light of often complex, context-specific interactions