Discussing Decolonisation – Guest Lecture by Dr Luke de Noronha at YSJ London

The fourth event in our 2024/25 Discussing Decolonisation series will be a guest lecture by Dr Luke de Noronha at the YSJ London Campus and livestreamed via MS Teams. More details below. 

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Abstract:

This talk explores some of the key challenges for the analysis of race, racism and the postcolonial today. The global right is obsessed with immigration, demography, birth rates, and national decline, scanning the border for signs of contamination and promising greatness through ethnic and national coherence and order. But this raises challenging questions about the relationship between nationalism and racism and the best ways to historicise and theorise their articulation – especially given that the forces of ultra-nationalism and postliberal authoritarianism connect, borrow and sustain one another in ways which disorient those attentive to white supremacy (Israel and India; Philippines and Hungary). As new poles of capitalist overdevelopment emerge, and inequalities within nation states widen, privilege and wealth are no longer so neatly colour coded – the racial does not sit within either international relations, scientific debate, or culture as it did in the 1930s or the late 19^th Century. To develop lively accounts of race and racism, we need to avoid thinking in anachronistic geographies, and develop a certain curiosity and openness as to how new economic forces, digital technologies, and cultures of nationalism might be categorising and producing individuals and groups in new ways. This talk offers one opening in that direction, prising open a set of questions about the best ways to approach racism in confounding times.

Speaker bio:

Luke de Noronha is an academic and writer working at the Sarah Parker Remond Centre at University College London (UCL). He has written widely on the politics of immigration, racism and deportation, and has produced a podcast called Deportation Discs. He grew up in Manchester and now lives in London.

Booking info:

Booking for this event, and all events in our series, is available via Eventbrite.