#Decoloniality

[prole-log]

[jeremiasdorap]

[lilithism1848]

[dipperdesperado]

Notes on Solarpunk Beyond Eurocentrism

Crisis and collapse seem to be the currency of the present. 1st World societies, enveloped in the long shadow cast by prosperity, find themselves coming into open, naked conflict. Reality, or Eurocentricity¹? Reality says, ‘we can't have infinite growth on a finite planet!’ Eurocentrism laughs, walking away with delight. Rather than understanding “that which cannot be repaired is already broken,”² Eurocentricity tells us that we can pull and pull and pull, that a rudderless faith in extraction will somehow lead to balance. What happens if the world is bent until it breaks? All of our communities are at stake. This is “the clearest signal that there is something deeply wrong with the global system in its current form”³. We can see that somewhere along the line, someone fucked shit up. There's no other meaningful way to explain how we've gotten to where we're at. Eurocentricity is so prevalent that we even understand our technology on the scale of the “complex and special”, rather than “how a society copes with physical reality.”⁴ Solarpunk's focus on appropriate technology⁵ is a welcome corrective to the myopia of modernity⁶ and capitalism⁷. However, it is incomplete without an understanding of coloniality⁸.

If there are facets of coloniality that we need to address, they are the processes of (1) creating rigid taxonomies and categories for classifying the world⁹, and (2) creating hierarchies of power and value for the ways those things are classified. These two moves are embedded in the in-group/out-group exclusionary dynamics that coloniality needs to function, from the way that we privilege ‘humans’ over ‘non-humans’, ‘margins’ over ‘centers’, and the ‘visible’ over the ‘invisible’. This isn't just philosophical or for the sake of pontification. These presuppositions of knowledge, being, and meaning privilege Eurocentric assertions that see "other human beings’ ways of life [as] wrong and harming nature, [since] nature needs no human beings."¹⁰ If we are to move out of ecological calamity, ‘The Last Shall be First’ must be our operating system. By centering the margins (in the ontological and epistemological sense), we can actually end suffering, rather than outsourcing it. This has to take shape in such a way that engenders room for a polyculture of meaning, diametrically opposed to the hegemonic "monoculture of meaning"¹¹, beyond the ability to label any human based on what they "lack" as an "Other"¹².

This move to truly embody decoloniality has to critique modernity, capitalism, and coloniality. This is important to understand as “modernity organizes the world ontologically in terms of atomic, homogeneous, separable categories. Contemporary women of color and third-world women's critique of feminist universalism centers the claim that the intersection of race, class, sexuality, and gender exceeds the categories of modernity. If woman and black are terms for homogeneous, atomic, separable categories, then their intersection shows us the absence of black women rather than their presence. So, to see non-white women is to exceed "categorial" logic. [...] the modern, colonial, gender system [is] a lens through which to theorize further the oppressive logic of colonial modernity, its use of hierarchical dichotomies and categorial logic. [...] categorial, dichotomous, hierarchical logic [is] central to modern, colonial, capitalist thinking about race, gender, and sexuality.”¹³ We see that even in ostensibly postcolonial societies, "indigenous people who had already suffered from decades of colonial conservation policies, little changed with decolonization."¹⁴ This shows the depth at which we have to go to adequately respond to the social and ecological issues that are currently coming to a head.

This commitment isn't (principally) a moral or ethical one. One of the main reasons that we have to move towards a holistic decoloniality is because of the inability of coloniality to address the issues we're facing. "Indigenous leaders say [30x30, a worldwide conservation program] ignores generations of effective indigenous land management. [...] there was limited scientific attention paid to Indigenous stewardship."¹⁵ Unless we are willing to be radical, to grasp the roots of all the oppressive structures that we're facing, we will reproduce the things we are (ostensibly) trying to abolish in our (potentially unintentional) inability to critique coloniality onto-epistemically while proposing responses rooted in other ways of being. In the effort to try and correct the excesses of Eurocentricity, we see that Eurocentric modes of being like "nation-states [...] struggling to catch up with indigenous and other non-capitalist cultures’ understanding of the interdependence of life."¹⁶ This is not to exalt Indigenous, Black and 3rd/4th world onto-epistemes, to reify them beyond critique. It is to say that the Eurocentric onto-epistemic inability to see those modes as valid dampers the emancipatory potential extant in the world preventing the ability to reach the purported values of "progress" and "development". Eurocentric ideas have to play catch-up, and by their colonial and capitalist nature are unable to.

We have to problematize, to see as an issue, many of the foundational concepts might deploy as mired in Eurocentrism and coloniality. We can do this by (1) decolonizing what it means to be human by creating the space for Black, Indigenous and 3rd/4th worlders to self-determine and (2) "[take] non-humans seriously as persons[/beings] with agency [which] allows us to de-center humans, to notice how limited our field of sight becomes when fixated by the idea of the Anthropocene. Far from remaining a matter of theoretical discussion, non-humans [... ] influenc[e] social, political and legal realities."¹⁷ We have to bridge these two worlds: acknowledging the ways that the ideas of animality were defined along the bodies of Black people, how that relates to conceptions of humanity, and the care that we should have in highlighting the agency of non-human beings (both in the actual sense, and those who get denied humanity). This has to be done on the terms of those beings, as best as we can manage. If we are able to acknowledge that there are issues in modernity with how we taxonomize humans & how that relates to non-humans, for the sake of the biosphere, and we center those marginal and invisible beings, we can get a lot done.

I really want to impress the fact that not taking the trifecta of Eurocentrism¹⁸ seriously is resigning ourselves to doom. If we continue to build the cyberpunk future that we've been worried about for decades, the future of "urban decay, corporate power and globalization. The rise of zero tolerance policing, anxieties around health care and the psychological toll of the Cold ‘Forever war’ and the possibility of nuclear annihilation,"¹⁹ we resign ourselves, even in our imaginaries, to further our immiseration. We can use the 30 x 30 framework for conservation as a great example, where 200 countries were willing to accept it²⁰. This conservation framework reinforces the dichotomy between human/non-human²¹, assuming that top-down, bureaucratic processes of "management" are the answer to the problems that those very ideas created. The ironic thing is, even though this move would be woefully inadequate in addressing the issue of biodiversity loss or climate change²², we very likely won't even get to see it achieve protection of "30% of the world's land and water by 2030."²³ There's no meaningful accountability structure within the Eurocentric hegemony to do this. There is no room for living freely and honestly under these conditions.

"To see the coloniality is to see the powerful reduction of human beings to animals, to inferiors by nature, in a [piece-meal] understanding of reality that dichotomizes the human from nature, the human from the non-human, and thus imposes an ontology and a cosmology that, in its power and constitution, disallows all humanity, all possibility of understanding, all possibility of human communication, to dehumanized beings."²⁴ This is the double-edged sword of creating hierarchies and taxonomies around valid ways of being, knowing, and meaning. By operating along these lines, we end up in a situation where there is no meaningful way for anyone to truly reach the kinds of fulfillment that modernity is supposed to provide. Now, this is not to say that I'm personally going to cry very hard about colonizers dehumanizing themselves by dehumanizing me, but I think it's worthwhile to mention; we all benefit by tearing down Eurocentrism and building a new, multifaceted perspective that allows for mutualism between different ways of thinking about the world and our relations with/in it.

By creating these rigid categories of difference, there is an assumption of innateness that tends to become a part of it. If we are looking to dismantle coloniality, we have to situate ourselves in such a way that those seemingly subtle distinctions between differences in general²⁵ and the specific conception of colonial difference become visible. This allows us to see that "the epistemological fractures between the Eurocentric critique of Eurocentrism is distinguished from the critique of Eurocentrism anchored in the colonial difference."²⁶ Critiques of Eurocentrism that don't apprehend the imbrication of coloniality, capital, and modernity are left unaware at the meaningful distinctions that can be made between critique left incomplete and critique that gives us a way to move forward and build new relationalities.

I want to point back towards the phrase "The Last Shall Be First", which comes from Fanon (and the Bible). I understand this as resonant with the adage of centering the marginalized. If we truly believe that harmony and unity in life are worthwhile to work towards, the practical move to make is to, in every moment, work towards empowering those removed from power. By foregrounding those most negatively impacted by Eurocentrism through an understanding of intersectionality in material and onto-epistemological senses while spotlighting the "'decolonizers of the imaginary’, [which can be understood as] future generations, past generations, non-humans, and spiritual beings and concepts"²⁷, we can point ourselves towards more egalitarian and self-determining outcomes. We can compose and integrate efforts together, where cultural workers can do solarpunk art and organizers & community/affinity groups can build solarpunk sociality and architects can do solarpunk guerrilla urbanism and more, where collaboration becomes a space that starts to break down the borders between different ways of relating to the world. By problematizing the human "we", by understanding that while, ideally, abstractly we are including everyone, in practice, there are critical things missed that lead to the issues we purportedly want to face. We have to point towards a world where many fit.

As far as my specific commitments on the matter, I'm what I call an egoist. I've appropriated this term to mean that I find myself to be important (though not supremely so), to assert my onto-epistemology as valid, even though Eurocentric society was built at my (people’s) expense²⁸. I have hope, which I understand as the grounded counterpart to "faith" or "optimism", that things can change, that even if the world has to be broken down, that it can be, and a new, decolonial one can be built. In this space, I hope that every being is acknowledged on its own terms, to have the capacity for its "ego" to be fulfilled, roughly along the lines of the golden and platinum rules, depending on what makes sense given the situation²⁹. Solarpunk is very egoistic/anarchistic in my conception. Through horizontal power structures, we can minimize immiseration and foreground approaches to life that move our social activity towards the biosphere.

We can start working towards this, right now. Like, on some "you can go do the work after this" kind of thing. While we don't necessarily have a linear path forward, we can listen to ourselves and our desires, and experiment with doing things to fulfill them in the present, seeing them as springboards for further movement into the kind of spaces that we want to go. On a basic level, we can think about the ways that we are restricted by our needs due to alienation from self-determination, and devise plans to get those things, from food autonomy, to housing security, to social and cultural spaces. With this, I want us to be rooted in place--no White Flight ass culty commune shit. Our work should ground in locality and communality. If every being deserves the kind of world that solarpunk futures suggest, it makes no sense to leave if we have capacity³⁰ to stay. In a more egoist turn, I think places where we can practice what James Scott calls anarchist calisthenics³¹ are worthwhile endeavors; authority, as in authoritarian rule, is never legitimate. Whenever we can and have the desire to, we should rage against it. Hosting do it yourself (DIY) events are a good example of this. DIY events are usually music shows, but they can be parties or anything else, where you do it without "permission" from the state or authorities. They can happen "in a park, on a beach, deep in the forest, in a barn, under a bridge, in a parking lot, next to a pool, or at the top of a mountain. The event could be on wheels: in an RV, on the back of a truck, in a van. You could build a secret tree house. You could borrow a boat. You could find an abandoned or empty building and re-purpose it. If there’s no electricity and you need it for a PA, find a generator. If you don’t need electricity, use candles for lighting. If you would like to lessen the chance of police interference, acquire several buildings and move people from building to building during breaks. You could even take over a street."³²

If we're willing to commandeer space, the elusive element in much theorizing on change³³, we can start changing the paradigms. Rather than "fall[ing] back on [...] creat[ing] protected areas"³⁴ for the sake of reaching "biodiversity goals" and "ecological harmony", we can focus on land back, we can pull from knowledges in appropriate technology, traditional ecological knowledge, and the best that western science has to offer for being good partners with other beings in our communities. To horizontalize relationships between humans, breaking down barriers of political and socioeconomic varieties, we can put the last first and act as accomplices, supporting their needs and fighting alongside them. Any critiques that we have of the system should, within our capacities, be externalized, the (dialectical and logical³⁵) contradictions laid bare in the material world. If there is a public building that isn't being used for the public, we can commandeer it and turn it into a commons³⁶. Around these moves we can build or tie in networks of support and take seriously the militancy, strategy, and tactics required to defend that space. Or, we can be more fluid, moving from place to place, an occupation traveling band that swarms spaces, creates more solarpunk and communistic relations within, shares those tools and collaborates with folks more rooted in that space, and floats out as to remain flexible. Or, a ton of other possibilities, a ton of other ways to engage space. There are many ways to do it.

This is meant to be a conversation starter. I have a lot of love for solarpunk--you can see that from my writings. It is a really useful meta-frame for the narrative component of systems change. I also acknowledge the susceptibility that it has towards eco-modernism, crypto-scheming, and reactionary yearning to return to the "good old days", whether it's a time "before agriculture" or a time before industrialization". I hope that, through the works of 3rd and 4th worlders, and more material ties to prefigurative and insurgent practices vis a vis systems change, solarpunk can shake off the chains of Eurocentrism, towards a pluralistic decoloniality and anti/non-capitalism.

Notes

Eurocentricity/Eurocentrism is the cultural and philosophical constellation of worldviews that sees the ideas birthed from Europe and wedded to capitalism and coloniality as the only valid, worthwhile, and legible modes of knowledge, being/existence (especially as it relates to “humanity”/humanism), and meaning. Things like linear progressions of time, a fetish for scientific thought, and atomistic conceptions of the individual permeate Eurocentric thought.

XXIIVV — permacomputing

Beyond Extinction. Transition to post-capitalism is inevitable | by Nafeez Ahmed

Anthem of the Sun — Real Life

Appropriate technology is essentially what it sounds like; it looks at what technology would be appropriate, meaning that it would minimize ecological harm, to achieve specific needs/goals.

The advent of nation-statism, colonial empires, and industrial capital make up modernity. It is the “never-ending” historical period in which we find ourselves.

Capitalism is distinct, in all of its configurations, for the fact that it combines: (1)private, dictatorial authority over property, most notably of the means of production, (2) wage labor relations where those who don’t have productive private property need to work using someone else’s to survive, and (3) a focus on continual growth, which is seen as an unquestionable good.

Coloniality is the power structural relationships and ways in which society was chopped up and categorized, that, while originating during the eras of European Colonialism, still persist to this day.

Toward a Decolonial Feminism - Maria Lugones

How the world’s favorite conservation model was built on colonial violence

Decolonizers of the imaginary

Wynter Sylvia 1492 A New World View

Toward a Decolonial Feminism

How the world’s favorite conservation model was built on colonial violence

How the world’s favorite conservation model was built on colonial violence

Decolonizers of the imaginary

Decolonizers of the imaginary

Capitalism, coloniality, modernity

SOLARPUNK: Life in the future - Beyond the rusted chrome

How the world’s favorite conservation model was built on colonial violence

This is meant in an expansive sense, where colonized subjects and what is commonly referred to as nature is included

Eurocentric assumptions on what it means to "conserve" certain lands go against the very things that are done to preserve biodiversity. There is not a mechanism by which we can meaningfully protect lands from "on high", away from an intimate understanding rooted in place.

How the world’s favorite conservation model was built on colonial violence

Toward a Decolonial Feminism

I don't find issue with the concept of "difference". I am not my phone, or my mom, or my favorite animal. At the same time, we have to be able to separate the idea of difference from the idea of colonial difference, and understand the ways that material and social processes shape the ways that difference in general is constructed. Ossified understandings of difference, like "I am a man and men do X" are antithetical to liberatory change.

Toward a Decolonial Feminism

Decolonizers of the imaginary. Not that there's overlap here between acknowledging 3rd & 4th world folks ways of being and knowing and a flattening of the "nature-culture" dichotomy that is generally espoused in 'colonized imaginaries'

This system tells me to assimilate or to stop existing. I choose neither, and go towards full spectrum resistance and abolition.

The golden rule is treat people how you want to be treated. The platinum rule is treat people how they want to be treated. I think there's an innumerable number of options in this range, depending on how well we can understand what other beings need. By not pedestalizing any one being over the other while understanding the deep history and present, we can move towards that. I want to make it abundantly clear that we cannot just "jump" towards that moment, as things like reparations and land back need to happen. It's a yes and situation. We should understand that every being deserves what it wants as long as it doesn't systematically/power structurally prevent someone from doing the same. And to this end, there are certain, non-privileged/marginalized/invisibled beings that will have needs that reflect a different reality visavis self-determination.

I am not saying to stay in dangerous, toxic, harmful situations. I'm saying that changing the places you're already in has more radical potential, if you're specifically looking for that, than getting a commune established out of arms reach from society.

Anarchist Calisthenics, by James C. Scott

A DIY Guide to Creating Spaces

Anecdotally, it seems easier to imagine vastly different economic, political, and social systems, but it is harder to imagine different technologies, and even harder to imagine different ways of interacting with spatial-temporal dynamics. Much of politics is actually about space and how it is occupied, and we should lean into anarchic, decolonial takes on "geography", "urban planning", and "architecture" among other fields so we can really take seriously how we are addressing all the things we need to.

How the world’s favorite conservation model was built on colonial violence

Contradiction (logical): when a subject, object, or phenomena is said to have features or properties that can’t exist at the same time and be factual. For example, All apples are fruits. If someone were to say that some apples are not fruits, that is a logical contradiction, because there is no way to substantiate that claim through information, reasoning, or data. Logic is all about “internal” consistency, where the “internal” refers to the relation between the claims being made and the things being compared. Within the system of interest, in this case the “system” of fruit classifications, of which an apple is an element, the claims and conclusions should be supported by the characteristics of that system. Contradiction (dialectical): In dialectics (or a dialectical process), contradictions can take the shape of logical contradictions, (All X are Y → Some X are not Y | No X is Y → Some X are Y) but they only need to take the shape of tensions between elements in a system more broadly. It’s all about the relationship between elements.

What if We Cancel the Apocalypse

[philosophika]

Hi there friend, sorry it’s been a while, life has been busy. A question about AUs, since this is something I’m currently exploring:

If you were to create an Alternate Universe of your setting, what kind of setting would it be? What changes would you make for you characters to fit?

Hi Aqua (@aquadestinyswriting), thank you for this thought-provoking ask! And no worries <3 Life is life, and it gets us all! I'm always psyched to see you on my blog. To the moots, if you aren't familiar with the fantastic Aqua yet and/or you love the Titan Fighting Fantasy universe, go check out her Writeblr Masterpost for a complete overview of all her projects!

This is the question of the moment for The Sorcerer's Apprentice as I'm currently redesigning the universe. You couldn't have hit the nail more squarely on the head!! Previously, the story had been set in (1) a heavily UK-inspired high-fantasy macrocosm (á la Game of Thrones) and (2) a modern-day psychological horror version of a NYC Fifth Avenue apartment (á la Rosemary's Baby). In these previous universes, Valeriano and Altaluna were, respectively, a King and his heir, and an elderly socialite and his heir. However, since both these settings and their associated character roles eventually chafed against what I was looking to achieve with the story (aka. an exploration of the link between capitalism, colonialism, racism, and environmental disaster), I decided that this time I'd abandon all familiar formulas and rebuild the world from the ground up to highlight the broader social tensions that underlie Valeriano and Altaluna's relationship and, on a meta-narrative level, ensure that the aesthetics of the novel do not in any way reinforce or glorify the issues I'm attempting to criticize.

One of the biggest changes I've made in service of this goal is that I've taken the story completely out of the northern hemisphere. The geography, fauna & flora, religion and culture of the newly minted universe are all based on Colombia and Latin America more generally. In this way, I'm hoping that the novel itself will push back against the idea that our culture and environment are appealing, but only as the setting of a romantic weekend getaway or as the backdrop to a drug and/or human trafficking drama. I want to show that fantasy is possible here, too. That we can dream in our own terms. Furthermore, I want to undermine this general feeling that we (Colombians & Latin Americans more generally) have nothing to be proud of when compared to the US or countries in Europe. By highlighting and praising our architecture, food, natural diversity, and customs my aim is to chip away at that self-deprecating streak and all its associated myths (that we're poor because we're stupid, and lazy because we get too much sun) as much as I can. I would be really happy if my novel could help people see themselves and the world they live in, in a new more positive light...

Of course, this change in the setting/universe means changes for Valeriano and Altaluna as well. It would be tone-deaf to keep Valeriano as a King in a novel that is inspired by a region so heavily marked by the fight for independence from a monarchical society. For this reason, I'm leaning toward keeping the 'socialite' role he played in the Rosemary's Baby edition of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, with a few modifications. I'm actually thinking of using him to show how art can work to perpetuate colonial power (but more on that later! I still need to hash out some details). Similarly, Altaluna will be conserving her 'heir' role from the Rosemary's Baby edition, but with some of the more large-scale social movement/impact she had in the Game of Thrones rendition. If I can successfully adapt both Altaluna and Valeriano to this new universe, then their conflict should expand beyond a family drama into a commentary on the horrors colonialism enacts both on the oppressor and the oppressed (thank you, Discourse on Colonialism by Aime Cesaire for opening my eyes). If I'm really lucky, then maybe I'll be able to test possible solutions, like Babel by R.F. Kuang does (the solution there is violence, which is very Fanon adjacent).

Anyway, who knows. We'll see how it goes!

[careforacacia]

! $1,975 in 5 days !

acacia now has only 5 days until their rent is due, and there is still $1,975 to raise

10 people donating $198 or 20 people donating $99 or 25 people donating $79 shall get acacia to their goal

$800 / $2,775 due tuesday april 2

from acacia: i do not have, and have never had, a basic quality of life i have had the first four decades of my life taken from me by the harmful actions of others, and have had to endure living in severe poverty, painfully witnessing my life and my potential and go to waste every day, because i have never been deemed worthy of receiving basic needs and have been left to go without

i live with immeasurable grief and have to come to terms with not only the loss and destruction to my life but also the significant loss of my capacity, only ever being able to experience a mere shadow of what i was originally capable of; all of this because of harmful others who'll never know what i've lived through and shall never go without a day in their life

your donations and sharing support have the power to radically transform acacia's life, interrupt the cycles of oppression they are trapped in, end the suffering they are so familiar with, and provide them with an opportunity to move toward the life they deserve

acacia does not have the privilege of community, friends, connections, or people to help share, and they are also extremely isolated; they are relying on people who see this post here to either share or to contribute

please circulate these flyers in spaces where they are likely to receive donations and contribute if you have $1 or more of wealth to spare 🤍

care for acacia

$2,775 rent due tuesday april 2

raised: $800

acacia is relying solely on donated funds to meet each of their needs as they begin their recovery from a lifetime of harm, poverty + neglect; please give generously

severely marginalized multiply-disabled queer/trans/non-binary culturally oppressed extremely isolated

ko-fi: ko-fi.com/care4acacia paypal: @crayonbachs venmo: @delongashe cashapp: $MaskUpFightCovid

write care 🦩 [care + flamingo emoji] in the message

[redtail-lol]

Decolonization in America:

Hello people in my phone, I've heard of the decolonization movement and want to support it, but first I want to know more about it and what it would look like. Anyone can answer if they're knowledgeable about the movement but I'd especially like to hear from indigenous Americans. What I want to know is:

What would change legally? What would the government look like, if it changed?

How would life change for Americans living in colonial America, if it changes?

How long would decolonization take? Are there different routes? Which ones are most realistic, easiest, or least disruptive to the ordinary person's life?

How can white people in Colonial America best support the decolonization movement?

Thank you for answering!! I really want to learn about it

[xgenesisrei]

Very helpful insights and challenges posed in this article by Prof. Todd Johnson especially on the section about the Western face of evangelicalism. I have one point of clarification though with regard to this line:

"The gospel for all peoples is hampered by its overidentification with the West. Unreached peoples should encounter a global Jesus, not a Western Jesus."The gospel for all peoples is hampered by its overidentification with the West. Unreached peoples should encounter a global Jesus, not a Western Jesus."

On the contrary, I think, people will be better off encountering Jesus as a man born in the Middle-East, a very particular human being with a very particular culture and a language, and a very specific identification with the poor and the weak. A very particular person you can pin down in geography and history but whose significance is of global (even cosmic) proportions.

Yes, 'Jesus' needs to be de-Westernized, a very urgent task as Christianity continues to bloom (again) in the Majority world, and also because Christianity started off as a non-Western movement and has a rich non-Western roots. But undoing this Westernization by 'universalizing' him, like a 'free-floating cosmopolitan global human being' (not saying that this is what Prof. Todd implies), shall still bear the same 'colonial' problems borne by the 'Westernized white Jesus' propagated to the rest of the world.

And here is where, I think, a deep exploration of 'incarnation' can unlock the mystery of how people encounters Jesus in the very specific contours of their local context and culture. Those working in what has been called nowadays as 'insider movements' will have lots and lots to share on this.

-Rei Lemuel Crizaldo

[thinkingimages]

GOLDEN JUBILEE,19’, 16MM & 4K VIDEO, DCP, 2021

What is liberation when so much has already been taken? Who has come for more? "Golden Jubilee", the third film in a series of works about memory, diaspora and decoloniality, takes as its starting point scenes of the filmmaker’s father navigating a virtual rendering of their ancestral home in Goa, India, created using the same technologies of surveillance that mining companies use to map locations for iron ore in the region. A tool for extraction and exploitation becomes a method for preservation. The father, sparked by a memory of an encounter as a child, inhabits the voice of a spirit known locally as Devchar, whose task is to protect the workers, farmers, and the once communal lands of Goa. Protection from what the filmmaker asks? Sanzgiri’s signature blend of 16mm sequences, 3D renders, direct animation, and desktop aesthetics are vividly employed in this lush, and ghostly look at questions of heritage, culture, and the remnants of history.

preview

[raging-guanche]

you can't be antifa/decolono if you think canary islands are spain

[nibelmundo]

There is something else, though, to the status of a ‘victim by proxy’ – one of belonging to a sui generis ‘aristocracy of victimhood’ (that is, having a hereditary claim to sympathy and ethical indulgence owed to those who suffer). That status can be, and often is, brandished as a signed-in-advance and in blanco certificate of moral righteousness; whatever the offspring of the victims do must be morally proper (or at least ethically correct) as long as it can be shown that it was done in order to stave off the repetition of the lot visited on their ancestors; or as long as it can be shown to be psychologically understandable, nay ‘normal’, in view of the super-susceptibility of the hereditary bearers of victimhood to the threat of a new victimisation. The ancestors are pitied, but also blamed for allowing themselves to be led, like sheep, to the slaughter; how can one blame their descendants for sniffing out a future slaughterhouse in every suspicious-looking street or building or – more importantly still – for taking preventative measures to disempower the potential slaughterers? Those who need to be disempowered may be not be kith and kin of the perpetrators of the Holocaust, neither bodily nor spiritually, and may in no juridical or ethically sensible way be charged with responsibility for the ancestors’ perdition; it is, after all, the heredity of the ‘hereditary victims’, and not the continuity of their assumed victimisers, which makes the ‘connection’. Yet in a world haunted by the ghost of the Holocaust such assumed would-be persecutors are guilty in advance, guilty of being seen as inclined or able to engage in another genocide. They need commit no crime; standing accused or just being suspect, true to the message of Kafka’s The Trial, is already their crime, the only crime needed to cast them as criminals and to justify harsh preventative/punitive measures. The ethics of hereditary victimhood reverse the logic of the law: the accused remain criminals until they have proven their innocence – and since it is their prosecutors who conduct the hearings and decide the validity of the argument, they have only a slim chance of having their arguments accepted in court and every chance of staying guilty for a long time to come – whatever they do. Thus the status of hereditary victim may take the moral reprobation off the new victimisation – this time perpetrated in the name of erasing the hereditary stigma. We often say that violence breeds more violence; we remind ourselves much too rarely, though, that victimisation breeds more victimisation. Victims are not guaranteed to be morally superior to their victimisers, and seldom emerge from the victimisation morally ennobled. Martyrdom – whether lived in a real or a virtual reality – is not a warrant for saintliness. Memory of suffering does not assure the life-long dedication to the fight against inhumanity, cruelty and pain as such, wherever they happen and whoever are the sufferers.

Zygmunt Bauman, The Holocaust's Life as a Ghost (2000, 11-12)

[thenietzscheanwife]

“Women often emerge in the discourses of liberation as self masters par excellence, subjects that without pause remain steadfast in the face of danger. Yet they are also the weak links in the trajectories of national freedom - freedom that remains bound to new visions, performances, and embodiments of masculinity. If women are both instrumental and sacrificial in the creation of anti-colonial masculinities, this does not mark a paradox but signals instead a logic of anti-colonialism. Within this logic, bodies marked as feminine are abjured in the recuperation and transformation of masculine bodies in the act of liberation.”

Unthinking Mastery: Dehumanism & Decolonial Entanglements. Julietta Singh, p33.

[instereospace]

Native people, by definition, are intricately connected to the land. And there is no more indigenous native people than Palestinians. [Palestine] is at the intersection of continents. Even birds – 500 million birds – pass through Palestine on annual migrations from Africa to Eurasia. Humans also migrated through this country. So actually, those of you who are not African, you are Palestinian because you came through Palestine when you went out to Europe and other places. This juncture of continents also was important historically, because it was the first place that humans went from hunter-gatherer to agricultural communities. This happened about 12,000 years ago in a place called the ‘Fertile Crescent’, which includes Palestine. This is where we first domesticated things like wheat, lentils, barley, chickpeas… hummus, you must have had hummus. Even in the Bible it says “the land of milk and honey,” right? So it has never been a desert, so to speak – it's a very rich, beautiful country. 

They lived in relative harmony with nature for thousands of years. Scientists and archaeologists and so forth describe this area as the beginning of so-called ‘civilisation’. Because hunter-gatherer [communities] couldn't support a large number of people – they were mostly nomadic, running around to where they could find things to eat and drink and stuff like that. Whereas when we became agricultural communities – [when we] domesticated plants and animals – we settled down, so population could grow, and we could have things like villages and towns. And that's why we find, for example, Jericho is the oldest continuously inhabited town on Earth. In these 12,000 years, once we had agriculture we had time on our hands, so communities started inventing things like religions and art and music and law, and the alphabet was invented here. That's the beginning of civilisation. And we as Palestinians are very proud of being part of this history.  – Mazin

[kevin-ar-tuathal]

Caithfidh mé tús a chur leis an mblag seo ag pointe éicint 🤷

Bhí mé ag iarraidh blag Gaeilge tumblr a dhéanamh le fada an lá. Tá cion agam ar an suíomh seo as gan bacáil leis an lucht corparáideach (agus tá súil agam gur choíche a ngabhfaidh an muintir an tsuímh seo ina n-éadan! ✊), agus as a bheith chomh oscailte le chuile shórt beo - ó thaobh roinnte smaointe, cabhair, 7 eolais de, ó thaobh na ráiméise a mbainimid uilig taitneamh as 🤪 ar bhealach éicint - go hábhair fíor-thábhachtach, cosúil le sábháilteacht chollaíochta, cosaint ó fhoréigean gnéis, plé ar dhaonlathas 7 ar dhíchóilíneachas, idir eile.

Go bunúsach, creidim gurb í an áit is oiriúnaí le tús a chur le blag Gaeilge - ba mhaith liom spás a chruthú anseo ar son a leanas:

leideanna foghlamtha teanga a chur ar fáil 😛

an cultúr a bhaineann leis an teanga a roinnt🥳

Plé ar an nGaeltacht ☘️, ar an nGalltacht 🫖 agus ar Éirinn uilig 🥁

Canúintí uilig na Gaeilge 7 an Domhain Ghaelaigh a cheiliúradh 7 a chur chun cinn - ní hamháin na trí mhór-chanuintí (Corca Dhuibhne, Conamara, Gaoth Dobhair)

Na lipéidí cruinne a thabhairt ar chuile cheann acu (gan ainm na gcúigí ina n-aimsítear iad a thabhairt ar na trí mhór-chanúintí agus dearmad a dhéanamh ar gach canúint eile 😢)

Mo chuid smaointeoireachta féin 💟

So, fáilte romhaibh uilig a bhfuil fonn oraibh a bheith i dteangmháil leis an nGaeilge sa mbealach seo, nó a bhfuil suim acu ar a bhfuil ag an mblag seo le tairiscint 😁🤗🎉.

🫖☘️🌈🌹🌧️♟️🎊

I've been wanting to make an Irish-language Tumblr blog for AGES - I've an affection for this site for the longest time having not got involved with the corporate world (and I hope they never do!) and for creating an platform atmosphere that is so open for anything.

For sharing thoughts, help and information - from the fantastic fanatical bullshit we all enjoy in one way or another, to really serious topics, like sexual safety, protection from gender violence, discussions on democracy and decolonisation, amongst so many other things...

Basically, I think this site is the perfect place to start a blog for the Irish language, and here I'd like to create the space for:

Language learning tips 😛

Sharing the culture that belongs to this language 🥳

Talking about the Gaeltacht (Irish-language Ireland), the Galltacht (English-language Ireland) and Ireland in its entirety 🎊

Celebrating and promoting all the dialects of Irish and the rest of the Gaelic-speaking world - not just the three biggest dialects (Corca Dhuibhne, Conamara 7 Gaoth Dobhair)

Giving each dialect its proper label (not labelling the three big dialects with the province wherein they're found, and forgetting about the rest 😭)

My own thoughts 🤠

So here's a big Fáilte romhaibh to all ye who'd like to interact with #Irish in this way, or have an interest in what this blog has to offer 😁🤗🎉

Go raibh míle maith agaibh 🥳

[protoslacker]

As long as decolonial theory’s culturalist ban on universals is not itself challenged and overthrown, the material roots of colonialism and imperialism cannot be traced back historically and socially to their ultimate source: capitalism.

Neil Larsen at Jacobin, Reprinted from Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy. The Reactionary Jargon of Decoloniality

Cloaked in an impenetrable jargon, “decoloniality” dehistoricizes and culturalizes colonialism. It’s a political and intellectual dead end for socialists.

Review of The Politics of Decolonial Investigations by Walter D. Mignolo

I'm farirly ignorant and thin skinned, so negative reviews often rankle me. But, sometimes a scathing review can be thrilling. I found this critical review to be thought provoking.

[hotwraithbones]

{I qualify as NINE TOTAL REALITIES}

reading from In Residuum (forthcoming: kith books ‘23) (ft a counterparts shirt ❤️). pre-order ur copy meow 🔪🔪🔪