As academics and activists committed to anticolonial knowledges and practices, we have the responsibility, in whatever way we can, to counter the persistence of colonial/imperial frameworks. These tired frameworks render the emancipatory struggles of Palestinians and of all colonized peoples everywhere unintelligible and, therefore, impossible politically.
In this spirit, South/South Movement aims to foster open and critical conversations and provide a collective space to breathe, as we grapple with the very real questions and material conditions of undoing coloniality and what anti- or decolonization means in praxis beyond lofty and performative theorizing.
We are hosting a series of teach-ins and conversations for, and with knowledges from, Palestine to situate their long-standing struggles within a broader context of colonial histories, ongoing inter-imperial complicities, settler-colonial interests, and racialised violence. This series features academic and non-academic readings, documentary discussions, and open-format bonfire conversations.
We think of this series as our place to breathe and think together about solidarity, resistance, decolonization, and their limits. Equally important, the shared space we are claiming here is one of empathy. Bearing that in mind, we want to ensure our space is open for all while maintaining a dialogic approach to discussions where inflammatory or hate speech of any kind will not be tolerated.
Session 1: “Decolonization is not a metaphor” — a reading group discussion
- We will open with Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s ever powerful reminder NOT to metaphorize decolonization and rob its fundamental political intent: to regenerate Indigenous lives and lands back.
- You can access the text here.
- October 24, Tuesday, at 6:00pm CEST, via zoom
Session 2: Historicizing the Palestinian struggle for liberation — an intertextual documentary conversation
- “Scenes of the Occupation from Gaza” by Mustafa Abu Ali (1973)
- “Palestine 1920: The Other Side of the Palestinian Story” by Al Jazeera World Documentary (2022)
- “Roadmap to Apartheid” by Eron Davidson and Ana Nogueira (2012), as recommended by Beverly Guy-Sheftall at the “Black Feminist Writers and Palestine” event hosted by Black Women Radicals
- Please watch these documentaries at your own time before our meeting.
- To help contextualise our interpretation of Mustafa Abu Ali’s work as “a cinematically and politically subversive film,” we highly recommend reading Samirah Alkassim’s “Found Footage as Counter-ethnography: Scenes from the Occupation in Gaza and the Films of Basma Alsharif” (2023), especially pages 76–82. You can screen Scenes for free until October 21 on the Palestine Film Institute’s website or here.
- November 18, Saturday, at 6:00pm CET, via zoom
Session 3: “Taking the Land without the People” — a reading group discussion
- “Taking the Land without the People: The 1967 Story as Told by the Law” by Noura Erakat
- December 7, Thursday, at 6:00pm CET, via zoom
Session 4: Bonfire: Our struggles are deeply entangled, but…
- What does Palestine tell us about decolonial and anti-colonial struggles globally? How do we make sense of the breadths and limits to solidarity-building across different contexts?
- December 20, Wednesday, at 6:30pm CET, via zoom
Session 5: “Eyeless in Gaza: Blindly Oblivious to the Blindingly Obvious”: A conversation with Dr. Amir Ali
- 24 January 2024, 12:45 pm CET / 5:15 pm IST, via Zoom
Session 6: ICJ Roundtable: Israel v. South Africa and Beyond
- 29 February 2024, 19:00 CET, via zoom
- 6 March 2024, 18:00 CET, via zoom
- 26 March 2024, 18:00 CET, via zoom
Session 9: Bonfire: We will not stop, we will not rest, but and…?
- 29 May 2024, 18:00 CEST, via zoom
Session 10: The Palestine Laboratory: a discussion on the new tools of occupation based on Antony Loewenstein’s work
- 2 October 2024, 18:00 CEST, via zoom
Please email us at organize@southsouthmovement.org if you are interested in suggesting any materials, leading additional sessions, and supporting this series as co-organizers.
To join the series, please register here: