Decolonisation: not just a buzzword… Sharing practice and experience

Key information

Date
Time
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Venue
Faber Building, 23/24 Russell Square
Room
FG08

About this event

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED

CANCELLED

Due to unforeseen circumstances, this event has been cancelled. Apologies for inconvenience caused.

Description

In Autumn 2018/Spring 2019, Bhuchar Boulevard was invited to be resident on SOAS campus with a view to creating a new ‘headphone verbatim’ theatre piece that captured campus conversations around the ‘decolonising the curriculum’ debates.

Four collaborating artists; Sudha Bhuchar, Suman Bhuchar, Neela Doležalová & Kristine Landon-Smith were seen wandering in the corridors, common rooms and courtyard, carrying leaflets and recorders and inviting anyone from the SOAS community to contribute their voice about this contentious subject.

What they captured and learnt from listening to this material formed the evolving show, Decolonisation: not just a buzzword…

The team learnt that ‘decolonisation’ is not simple unified term but a concept understood in diverse ways.  At its heart it exposes contemporary racialised disadvantages & connects them to historical processes of colonialism. The deeply personal and political ‘lived experiences’ shared in the interviews ranged from debate around representation and reparation to reflexivity in pedagoy and went beyond the call to remove statues, repatriate artefacts and diversify reading lists.

This session kicks off the next phase of this project which aims to develop the piece and take it to wider audiences. Suman and Sudha Bhuchar will talk about the research process, ethical implications of capturing people ‘in their own words’ and the experience of bringing disparate dialogue on SOAS campus into a nuanced and urgent conversation which calls for collective action.

“It’s like a form of neglect, you go through school, and you never learn about why you ended up here. Like, no one was like ‘The reason you guys aren’t in Pakistan is because of this historical context.’”

“They speak French because they’re French. We speak French because we’re colonised”

Organiser: Bhuchar Boulevard in association with SOAS

Contact email: ssai@soas.ac.uk

Contact Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4390