Decolonial Ecology: Literary and Cultural Representations in the Global South

To think ecology from the perspective of colonially repressed ideas and practices is to deconstruct the epistemological hierarchy of environmental humanities. The workshop seeks to deepen the dialogue between ecology and decoloniality in the context of indigenous knowledges and practices of the Global South, examining how literary and cultural artists represent, interpret, and foreground their ancient, autochthonous, and local ecological practices.

The workshop seeks to deepen the dialogue between ecology and decoloniality in the context of indigenous knowledges and practices of the Global South, often epistemologically relegated as non-knowledge. The Global South is invoked here as a geographical marker of formerly colonised nations struggling with severe postcolonial and environmental crises, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, a systematic occlusion of their indigenous knowledge systems. The theme is a bold signpost to examine how literary and cultural artists, including writers, (oral) artists, filmmakers, (traditional) performers, musicians, among others, represent, interpret, and foreground their ancient, autochthonous, and local ecological practices. The theme also privileges the decolonial lessons that can be harnessed from such practices for planetary balance in the present time.
Scholars from Nigeria, India, Cameroon, Uganda, the Netherlands, and Germany will elucidate various aspects of the topic. Their presentations – centred on African and Asian literary and cultural productions – will discuss the entanglement of ecology and coloniality, but also how literary and cultural artists deploy neglected ecological ideas, practices, natures, as decolonial strategies. How, for instance, their representations of the ecology of indigenous communities serve as colonial counter-discourse in the face of universalised forms of western knowledge systems. To think ecology from the perspective of colonially repressed ideas and practices is to deconstruct the epistemological hierarchy of environmental humanities that tend to undermine how historical processes sometimes overdetermine environmentalism in the Global South. It is above all to decongest the ecological epistemic space of any neo-colonial ‘superior’ knowledge system disguised as universality in favour of a communal, pluriversal knowledge system.
The workshop is organised and chaired by Sule Emmanuel Egya, professor of African Literature and Environmental Humanities at Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University (Nigeria) and current Senior Fellow at the College for Social Sciences and Humanities.
The workshop addresses the following sub-themes:

• The coloniality of environmentalism in the Global South
• Indigenous ways of knowing and practices that shape nonhuman-human relations
• Strategies, positionalities, and subjectivities in the representations of indigenous ecology
• Representations of marginal natural-cultural practices in the Global South
• Different shades, ambivalences, and the North-South dialectics of decolonial ecology
• Coloniality, land sovereignty and sustainability in indigenous communities of the Global South

Event page with programme

Registration

The number of participants is limited. Please register by 21 July.

registration

Location

The workshop will take place at the College for Social Sciences and Humanities and online.

Programme

Event page