Shila Anaraki
'Becoming otherwise' through encounters within intimate spaces.
Encounters with people of different cultural backgrounds will be our entrance to tackle the idea of coming undone‘ - or ‘becoming otherwise’ as I tend to call it. Our starting point will be interview quotes from Brussels and Amsterdam inhabitants who opened their private homes to host homeless people on the move. The fragments I will share address the effects these experiences had on the lives of the hosts and offer fruitful insights to build on during our joint research.
I have a background in performing arts and arts pedagogy. Recently I received a master’s degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the KU Leuven (BE) where I now conduct a PhD study as part of ReROOT, a Horizon 2020 project on arrival infrastructures as sites of integration for recent newcomers. My investigation is located in Belgium and the Netherlands and examines socio-material and political practices in the context of informal sheltering by and for people on the move. On the one hand, I am interested in how encounters and practices in such contexts enable advocacy for basic rights and needs. Such political struggles often articulate through (mediatized) occupations, but also through less visible interactions and support networks. On the other hand, I investigate how these practices co-shape processes of governmentalization or urban technologies like neglect, destruction, deportations, evictions, illegalization, or criminalisation. An important aim of this study is to learn from innovative shelter-related practices, as they (potentially) allow to shift the way people live together in meaningful ways.
Naeem Inayatullah
We read and discuss texts which illustrate the ways in which we carry within us that which we critique in the world and the dangers with our propensity to desire to make changes and do good the world.
Naeem Inayatullah is professor of politics at Ithaca College in up-state New York. His research encompases the history of political economy, history of the Third World, economic theory, international relations theory and pedagogy. In his classroom, Naeem practices an approach he describes as Socratic collective improvisation. This approach is at once radical and reflexive, informed by Lacan and addressing the power inequalities that exist in the classroom.
"I am still the son of Punjabi farmers trying to find his voice and his way in the world. Trying to understand the miracle of his trajectory in this world. But there is also anger here. The anger of someone who believes the primary purpose of social theory is to ignore the obvious injustices of our world. We believe we are liberators. But really we are the cogs of Empire’s machine; double-agents who have lost the memory of being turned. This is what I have learned so far."
Full Bio: https://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/naeem
Writing: https://ithaca.academia.edu/naeeminayatullah
Books: https://naeeminayatullah.com/books
Gérald Kurdian
Gérald brings us back into our body, making lyrics and creating music out of all the things we discussed.
Gérald Kurdian aka GÆRALD (they/them) is a musician, performer and DJ based in Brussels and Paris. They studied visual arts at the ENSAPC before entering the contemporary dance program Ex.e.r.ce 07. Their oblique concerts, joining electronic music, performance art and documentary practices are since then regularly presented in Europe and abroad. In 2018, they initiated HOT BODIES OF THE FUTURE!, a series of musical and performative research projects (performances, queer-feminist choir workshops, inclusive parties, and more) around sexual revolutions. They are currently one of the artist-researchers of the ESACM’s research cooperative.
Panel Discussion
We invite 3-5 people from different collectives and have a discussion on the challenges: conflict situations, power dynamics, balance between individual and collective needs, failures, reparations. People discussing: tba.
