Discussing Decolonisation: Cultural Production as Resistance (including short film screening)

Culture has proved to be the very foundation of the liberation movement. Only societies which preserve their culture are able to mobilize and organize themselves and fight against foreign domination. Whatever ideological or idealistic forms it takes, culture is essential to the historical process. ― Amilcar Cabral, 1972 

From West Africa to the Caribbean, Palestine to the Pacific Islands, cultural production has always been at the heart of anti-colonial liberation movements and ongoing struggles for freedom, justice and self-determination.

This event will explore cultural production as a means of resistance through a screening of Ciara Lacy’s 2021 short film This is the Way We Rise, which we will discuss alongside poetry by Marshallese writer, performer and educator, Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner, and Chicana poet and activist, Lorna Dee Cervantes. 

Using prompts to ignite the conversation, we will consider how these and other cultural producers mobilise a range of techniques to navigate colonial histories and reimagine collective futures in the face of ever-accelerating climate breakdown, militarisation and the ongoing decimation of indigenous lands and oceans.

We will also explore how these works resonate with decolonial and ecofeminist scholarship on Native and Indigenous storytelling (e.g. the work of Chamoro scholar, Tiara R. Na’puti), as well as academic research around filmmaking and the concept of ‘visual sovereignty’ (e.g. Raheja, 2013). 

Further info:

From Emmy-nominated filmmaker, Ciara Leina`ala Lacy, This is the Way We Rise navigates the intersecting concerns of land defence and indigenous sovereignty through the words and poetry of fellow Native Hawaiian, Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio. The film serves as an intervention, challenging the mediated imagery of both indigeneity and of climate and ecological activism, and centring the voices of a community most imminently threatened by climate crisis.  

Born in the Marshall Islands, but raised in Hawai’i, Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner’s creative practice explores the storytelling traditions of Pacific Islanders and how they intersect with evolving issues threatening the islands and their communities. Her work focuses on the impacts of climate change and the legacy of U.S. nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands, connecting the long history of colonialism in the Pacific with twentieth-century US imperialism. With her 2011 poem, ‘Tell them’, she addresses readers and viewers directly, issuing an urgent call to action to the imperial core whilst centring Marshallese culture, history and prospective futures on the island. 

One of the leading figures of the Chicana/o movement, Lorna Dee Cervantes was born in San Francisco, California, to Mexican and Chumash ancestry. Her poetry collections include Emplumada; From the Cables of Genocide; Drive: The First Quartet; Ciento: 100 100-Word Love Poems; and Sueño: New Poems. From Drive: The First Quartet, her 2005 poem ‘Bananas’ traces the systemic violence of export fruit production and the military-industrial food regime, linking the ‘tomato-size tumours [that] bloom in the necks of pickers’ with the ‘nuclear payloads’ launched by the US into the Pacific atolls. 

No prior knowledge or preparation is required to participate in this session. Please just come ready to watch, read and engage in conversation with peers, colleagues and students from YSJ and beyond. This in-person only event is free and open to all.

Booking and contact details:

Please complete this short MS Form to book your place.

If you have any questions, please contact the event organisers: Lucy Potter (l.potter@yorksj.ac.uk), Laura Key (l.key@yorksj.ac.uk) and/or Lauren Stephenson (l.stephenson@yorksj.ac.uk).

References:

Cabral, A. ([1977] 2016). ‘The role of culture in the struggle for independence’, in Resistance and Decolonization. Translated by Dan Wood. Rowman & Littlefield International.

Raheja, M.H. (2013). ‘Reading Nanook’s Smile: Visual Sovereignty, Indigenous Revisions of Ethnography, and Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner’, in Marubbia, M.E. & Buffalohead, E.L. (eds.), Native Americans on Film. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.