NOTE: Conference programs will be available one week prior to the conference and will contain abstracts for all of the individual paper presentations and panel presentations.
Snacks and beverages will be available for conference attendees between sessions.
Please visit the registration table upon arrival.
Light breakfast items will be available.
This panel brings together interdisciplinary explorations of feminist and anticolonial narratives, emphasizing the power of storytelling to reclaim identities and resist historical erasures.
Panel Chair & Discussant: Sangeeta Ray, Faculty Director, The Center for Literary + Comparative Studies; Professor, English and Comparative Literature; Affiliate Faculty, Harriet Tubman Dept. of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Maryland
Panelists:
Since the 1994 genocide, global discussions about Rwanda have become increasingly polarized. For some, the government’s efforts to promote unity and reconciliation and combat “genocide ideology” are evidence of Paul Kagame’s visionary leadership. For many others, Rwanda’s post-genocide transformation has come at a cost (and is perhaps somewhat illusory). Critical scholars argue that the regime’s tight control over public discourse has led to a “rehearsed consensus” on sensitive topics (Ingelaere) and a “politicized epistemic space” for research (Purdeková)—though debates remain about the extent of the state’s power and the resilience of perspectives from below. In this roundtable, our goal is to revisit and further dissect these complexities of contemporary knowledge production in/on Rwanda, but in a way that might transcend the usual patterns of debate—for example, thinking beyond the binary of state repression and obedience/resistance or, in the realm of expression, of “public” vs. “hidden transcripts” (Scott). Moreover, given that it is non-Rwandans who still tend to dominate both the research landscape and the production of scholarship about Rwanda, we also wish to reflect on the politics of expertise in our field and the calls for a “pluralization” of voices within Rwanda Studies (Rutazibwa).
Roundtable Chair: Erin Mosely, Assistant Professor, History, University of Maryland
Participants:
While lunch will only be available for a limited group, we invite attendees to pack or bring their lunch for some lunchtime conversation with other attendees.
Conference attendees can visit one of the many dining options at Stamp Student Union for lunch. There is also a cafe on the first floor of H.J. Patterson (Samovar), as well as various other dining options near HJP and around campus.
We invite all conference attendees to enjoy the snacks and beverages available throughout the conference.
Moderator: Heba Ghannam, PhD Candidate, Anthropology; Adjunct Faculty, Critical Race and Gender Studies, American University
Presenters:
Moderator: Lahra Smith, Associate Professor and Director, African Studies, Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Presenters:
Keynote Speaker: Kwame Edwin Otu, Associate Professor, African Studies, Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Drawing on his recent work conducted among e-waste workers in Agbogbloshie and Sodom and Gomorrah, Dr. Otu's talk will illuminate how colonial configurations of power and dispossession are reproduced by the Ghanaian nation-state in its e-waste workers, who simultaneously embody and contend with the “slow violence” at the core of this postcolonial nation-state. These workers’ exposure to toxic fumes from burning obsolete technology paradoxically conceals and makes visible the necropolitical matrix that is the postcolonial nation-state. Thus, colonial inhalation articulates how the rhythms of breathing are adjudicated in this postcolonial nation-state. To this end, Dr. Otu's talk brings Frantz Fanon’s notion of “combat breathing” in conversation with the Ghanaian writer, Amu Djoleto’s novelization of the “vampire state” in his book Money Galore and ties these interventions with “Wasteman,” a song by the Ghanaian rapper, Black Sherif, to explain how the postcolony recalibrates logics of extraction and deposition.
Join us at the Global Crossroads Atrium (H.J. Patterson, 1st floor) for light refreshments.
Please visit the registration table upon arrival. Light breakfast items will be available.
Moderator: Rebecca Rubin Damari, Director of Research, National Foreign Language Center (NFLC); Co-Director, Professionals in Education Advancing Research and Language Learning (PEARLL), University of Maryland
Presenters:
Moderator: Sangeetha Madhavan, Professor and Chair, African American and Africana Studies; Professor, Sociology, University of Maryland
Presenters:
While lunch will only be available for a limited group, we invite attendees to pack or bring their lunch for some lunchtime conversation with other attendees.
Conference attendees can visit one of the many dining options at Stamp Student Union for lunch. There is also a cafe on the first floor of H.J. Patterson (Samovar), as well as various other dining options near HJP and around campus.
We invite all conference attendees to enjoy the snacks and beverages available throughout the conference.
Since the late 20th century, a new moral economy has emerged centered on the suffering, misfortune, and precarity of individuals and communities facing inequality, disease, displacement, and armed conflict. Anthropologist Didier Fassin broadly defines humanitarianism as “the deployment of moral sentiments in contemporary politics” (Fassin 2012:1). Anthropologists, political scientists, and other scholars have explored a range of humanitarian interventions from the perspectives of aid recipients and those implementing them to understand how life is lived under various forms of humanitarian governmentality. Although framed as altruistic, recent discussions emphasize the cynicism and opportunism these logics can foster. Africa looms large in these debates. Drawing on research in the Horn of Africa, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, and Kenya, this roundtable highlights the tensions between the promises of humanitarianism and its uneven, often contradictory realities.
Roundtable Chair: Cady Gonzalez, Assistant Professor, Anthropology, University of Maryland
Participants:
The search for ways to produce knowledge that promotes decolonial processes is a significant challenge for science. Much of the discussion centers on empowering local communities by fostering their independence without introducing subtle new forms of colonization, such as global agendas or Western epistemologies. Geography plays a key role in this debate, increasingly incorporating local voices into scientific knowledge production and spatial representation. This roundtable will explore the challenges and opportunities of decolonial geographical research. By sharing experiences from projects in conservation, health, and community development, it will examine how including local perspectives can promote decolonization. The discussion will address the limitations of research in making tangible impacts on local communities and the tensions between universal theories and local needs, which may perpetuate intellectual colonialism. Ethical and methodological challenges regarding the legitimacy of foreign research projects will also be considered.
Roundtable Chair: Juan Martin Dabezies, Associate Research Professor, Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland; Adjunct Professor, University of the Republic, Uruguay
Roundtable Discussant: Meredith Gore, Professor, Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland
Participants:
When Africans are in diaspora in the Americas, they encounter stigmas deeply rooted in the pre-established biopolitics of host societies. From Mexico to Canada, Africans in diaspora face challenges not only from local populations but also from their Black counterparts, leading to complex dynamics within the broader spectrum of racial identity. Many find themselves positioned as “blacker” than other people of color, subjected to a perception of inferiority based on their diasporic identity. This panel seeks to address these experiences, exploring how historical legacies and cultural narratives contribute to the construction of Black identities and the challenges faced by Afro-descendant communities in navigating their place within society.
Panel Chair: Samuel Josue Aguayo, PhD Student, Spanish Language and Literatures, University of Maryland - "The Meaning of the term Black: Origins in Colonial New Spain and Impacts on Contemporary Cultural Products in Mexico"
Panelists:
Join us at the Global Crossroads Atrium (H.J. Patterson, 1st floor) for light refreshments.
