Against the Politics of Death: Breaking the Hold of State and Capital on Black and Indigenous Struggles

Against the Politics of Death: Breaking the Hold of State and Capital on Black and Indigenous Struggles
Date
Thu November 18th 2021, 12:00 - 1:30pm

Speaker(s): Anthony Dest (Lehman College-CUNY)

 
WORKSHOP EVENT
Against the Politics of Death: Breaking the Hold of State and Capital on Black and Indigenous Struggles

Join Concerning Violence: A Collaborative Research Group for our second workshop of the quarter with Dr. Anthony Dest (Lehman College - CUNY). This event will be held over Zoom. Kindly RSVP to receive a Zoom link.

Abstract: This workshop is based on my article, “‘Disenchanted with the State’: Confronting the Limits of Neoliberal Multiculturalism in Colombia,” which appeared in Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies in June 2020. The article explores why two distinct social movements – the Afro-Descendant Women’s Mobilization for the Care of Life and Ancestral Territories and the Liberation of Mother Earth Process – emerged in 2014 in response to the failure of multicultural rights to guarantee the conditions for their autonomy and self-determination. The article concludes with a meditation on the potential impasse of struggling in and against the state and capital. In this talk, I will discuss how my thinking about this supposed impasse has evolved, as well as the trajectory of each of the struggles since the writing of the article. I am currently building on the themes addressed in the article in my book manuscript tentatively titled Dissident Peace: An Ethnography of Struggle in Colombia.

Anthony Dest is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Lehman College at City University of New York (CUNY). Dr. Dest is committed to supporting movements for social justice and liberation. His teaching, research, and writing explores the contours of violence and racism in Latin America. He earned his PhD in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and his bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies and Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also holds a graduate certificate in Armed Conflict & Peace from La Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. His dissertation, After the War: Violence and Resistance in Colombia, was recognized as the Best Dissertation of 2019 by the Peace and Justice Studies Association. His research has received support from the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Inter-American Foundation, and the Fulbright Program.

Kindly RSVP to receive a Zoom link.

If you have any questions, contact Jameelah Morris <morrisji [at] stanford.edu (morrisji[at]stanford[dot]edu)>.

Warmly,

Graduate Coordinators of Concerning Violence
Noor Amr, Jameelah Morris, and Ruben Diaz Vasquez

ABOUT OUR WORKSHOP

Concerning Violence: A Collaborative Research Group, now in its sixth year, is a multi-year initiative to build a community of scholars that challenge the political, economic, ontological, and epistemic violence of coloniality and racial capitalism.

This year’s workshops will be organized around our 2021-2022 theme “Afterlives of Violence: Coloniality and Racial Capitalism in Global Perspective.” If you are interested in joining future workshops and readings groups, please contact Noor Amr at <namr [at] stanford.edu (namr[at]stanford[dot]edu)>.
SPONSORS

Our research group is generously supported by the Division of Literatures, Cultures and Languages and the Stanford Humanities Center, made possible by support from an anonymous donor, former Fellows, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.