Celebrating three years in inter-action: RACE.ED third anniversary newsletter
This year RACE.ED brought forward global discussions on the historical and on-going legacies of race and colonialism in contemporary politics from Brazil, France, Palestine, Lebanon and Turtle Island, among other countries. In thinking between the Global South and Global North, we held conversations with an attentiveness towards global difference – in language, lexicon, political imaginings and ethics around social change. Our work in these past years has been shaped by intimate engagement woven with brilliant scholars, activists, practitioners and artists involved in anti-racist and anti-colonial work. As we laboured against the tides of liberal and fascist racial violence – working against mainstream and hollowed out approaches to decolonial and EDI frameworks to the material and epistemic violence of white supremacy, we tried to hold open and protect a critical space in the University to engage in racial literacy building and radical solidarity for social justice.
In this past year alone, RACE.ED took on difficult subjects from interdisciplinary lenses and intersectional approaches, discussing forms of historical and on-going state violence and oppression present in contemporary contexts such as Israeli apartheid, the British mandate era and the continued struggle for Palestinian land-based sovereignty, to quilombos in Brazil, anti-Muslim racism and Islamophobia in Lebanon and the UK, trans rights and gender equality, and pedagogical strategies for and by marginalised communities. We approached these subjects as interconnected political struggles and with a wider lens towards what anti-colonial liberation praxis means today.
Nevertheless, we did not do this work alone. The collaborative work with the networks and collectives across the university was the key to maintaining an active agenda in amplifying such debates. Within the University we thank the Centre for African Studies (CAS), Centre for Ethics and Critical Thought (CRITIQUE), Edinburgh Race Equality Network (EREN), Edinburgh University Students’ Association, GENDER.ED Network, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), Staff BAME Network, and Womxn of Colour Network to name a few. We extend deep gratitude towards our friends and colleagues for this incredible and often invisible set of labour. We look forward to future organising on conversations around race, racialisation, decoloniality, feminisms and queer politics/thematics.
RACE.ED is actively in dialogue with non-academic organisations and Higher Education Institutions in the UK and overseas. Crossing borders brings new light into the complex task of understanding processes of racialisation, racism and movements of anti-racist and anti-colonial liberation.
For these past three years, we have held strong as a young network in the University. We thank the contributions of this network who also served through an ethos of care and solidarity. A special and heartfelt thanks to our administrator Michaelagh Broadbent, who has been sharp and brilliant. Nasar Meer, previous RACE.ED lead, has been present in the making of our RACE.ED Network with invaluable contributions and support. To both of them, we send our sweet ‘farewell’ and wish only the best for what is on its way. Our esteemed colleagues have done the heavy lifting to make and keep this network alive. They will be missed as they embark on their new posts at the University of Glasgow.
A special thank you for the nominations for a CAHSS Recognition Award in the Exceptional Team Award category. We look forward to weaving various thoughts about decolonial and other-wise possibilities in the coming year; for more fruitful and generative conversations, whether it is difficult, radical, and-or joyful. We welcome it all with curious spirit.
For a happy third anniversary and many more to come, thank you all for making this one happen,
Katucha Bento and Shaira Vadasaria
Co-directors of RACE.ED Network