Workshops

As a conference focused on decolonisation, we have made one of our missions to rethink the vertical and top-down structure of knowledge transmission commonly found in academic conferences. For this, one of our efforts is the promotion and facilitation of workshops and other similar activities, that would enable a more horizontal, proactive, and participatory way of sharing and generating knowledge.

We are very happy to announce that Ventana 4 will include five workshops, covering a wide range of topics, and using various strategies. All attendants to the conference are invited to participate of the workshops. Bear in mind that each workshop will have a cap for a maximum number of participants.

Registrations for each workshop will be open soon.

Workshop1:
Co-generating Indigenous and Decolonised Curricula
from the Ground: A case for the helping professions


Date: Wednesday 5th of October, 17:15 BST


Facilitators: Dr Priscalia Khosa 1, Dr Motlalepule Nathane-Taulela 2, Dr Thanduxolo Nomngcoyiya 3, Dr Mbongeni Sithole 4, Prof Veonna Goliath 1, Dr Nevashnee Perumal 1

1 Nelson Mandela University, 2 University of the Witwatersrand, 3 University of Fort Hare, 4 University of Kwazulu-Natal

Contact: priscalia@sun.ac.za


As a team of six social work academics from five different universities in South Africa, we are researching in an African Knowledge Production Incubators project that spans three years (2021-2023) entitled: DECOLONISING AND INDIGENISING THE SOCIAL WORK CURRICULUM BY CO CREATING AFRICAN KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION INCUBATORS AT HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS. This imbizo aims to provide academics, students, researchers and helping professionals a platform to engage, reflect and share their experiences of decolonising and indigenising their teaching, learning and practice within their work and study. In this participatory action imbizo,we shall first contextualise our work done in South Africa focusing on the following main project objective: To tell stories of our lived experiences of being an African. The next segment of the workshop will be based on a disruptive video about colonialism and higher education to prompt robust participant conversations linked to the following project objective: To share our experiences of coloniality in professional practice and in the curricula we teach as well as our own contribution to decolonial/indigenous knowledge production.The final segment will draw the main thrusts of the workshop to a logical conclusion and prompt further personal reflections among the participants in their own spaces. Our target audience would include academics in higher education, researchers, students and helping professionals in practice.


Modality: Hybrid (30 participants; 15 online, 15 in person)

Workshop 2:
Bodies in Interaction: An exploration of Postcolonialism and Postgender in the play Cloud 9, by Caryl Churchill


Date: Thursday 6th of October, 17:00 BST


Facilitator: Dra Katherina Walper G.

Universidad Austral de Chile

Contact: katherina.walper@gmail.com


Have you ever thought about how it is that we communicate with each other? Apart from speaking, what do we do with the rest of our bodies? Come to this workshop and we will explore this together!


This workshop will be a hands on-session (aka it will be participative and, hopefully, quite fun!)in which we will be working through the main themes in Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9 (1978): postcolonialism and post-gender.


First, the workshop will begin with an introduction to the role our bodies play in interaction. Second, we will explore the play, its relevance, and the themes it develops. The plot line and the characters will be introduced, as well as the innovative methods employed by Caryl Churchill in creating this play. What is most interesting about the play is not the language, the setting, or the context in which it is set, but the way Churchill expands the limits of playwriting. For example, female characters are played by men. (What does this mean for our bodies?) An African servant is played by a white actor (wait, what?), etc. Actors change characters from Act I to Act II. For example, the British WASP Male Coloniser in Act I, becomes a girl in Act II. Act I is set in colonial Britain, Act II is set in contemporary London where we explore the lives of the son and daughter of the coloniser. There is certainly a connection between each character switch and playwriting decision which we will explore together. Even more importantly for us, it is the bodies of such actors who embody these connections.


Second, the workshop will move on to a theatre improv session based on excerpts of the play. In order to connect with our bodies, a short activity will be done based on drama techniques (warm-up). Then, attendees will receive the scripts and will get together in groups to read different scenes aloud and to perform them. They will be given the chance to explore different ways of embodying their characters. They will need to ask themselves: how do I show others that I am a colonial administrator? How does a colonised African servant walk across the room? How does the gay son of the coloniser behave in the presence of his father? Etc. Accommodations will be done so that those attending online also have a chance to explore the characters together.


To finish, we will share our performances and attendees will share the decisions made in the groups. Together, we will uncover what this experience has meant for each one of us.


Modality: Hybrid (40 participants; 20 online, 20 in person)

Workshop 3:
Regionalization as Decolonialisation? Transitional Justice: beyond the ICC

Date: Wednesday 5th of October, 18:00 BST


Facilitator: Cath Collins

Ulster University and Universidad Diego Portales

Contact: cath.collins@mail.udp.cl


African states were, and still remain, the single largest regional bloc of states parties to the International Criminal Court, ICC. However relations have subsequently soured, with accusations of colonial and neocolonial bias levelled by some against the Court for a perceived excessively Africa-focused caseload. In 2014, some of the more disaffected states passed the Malabo Protocol, an African Union resolution that expresses the intention to set up a 'rival' or alternative regional criminal court to try international crimes in an 'African way'. Meanwhile in Latin America, where the ICC has no temporal jurisdiction over most mass crimes of the recent past, the regional Inter-American Court and Commission have played a key, exacting role in requiring member states to do more in truth, justice, reparations and prevention. Are these phenomena symptomatic of a growing regionalisation of transitional justice? Should Africa pursue its own, 'African' transitional justice for Africa; Latin America, idem, or is there scope or appetite for South-to-South collaborations beyond the search for autarchy? Are Africa's ICC dissenters engaged in a thinly-disguised search for impunity, and/or a principled rejection of colonial imposition?

Workshop 4:
Decolonising your perspective: using decolonisation as a tool to name the communities' needs on the ground


Date: Thursday 6th of October, 18:00 BST


Facilitators: Gozde Sekercioglu, Carolline Costa Querino

University of Sussex - Global Studies - Gender, Violence and Conflict (MA)
Contact: gozdesekercioglu@gmail.com


This workshop adopts an interdisciplinary method by combining participatory design with a decolonial framework. On the one hand, participatory design is a tool to identify the needs on the ground and influence the process with co-creation towards addressing the needs. On the other hand, the decolonial framework brings the possibilities of self-reflexive praxis to de-link the discourses of complex problems to the needs on the ground. The workshop starts with thinking about decolonisation and sharing the perspective of individual participants. Next, the participants play the roles of a facilitator, programme developer, donor, beneficiary, or local consultant in the development studies. The workshop ends with group discussions and observations taking place with collaborative analysis.


Modality: Hybrid (40 participants; 20 online, 20 in person);

Requirements: Technological devices that can be a smartphone, laptop, or tablet to use during the workshop.

Workshop 5:
The Joy of Un-discovering: Accessing Multiple Forms of Knowledges


Facilitators: Victoria Vargas, Patricia Lagos

School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds; School of Education, University of Nottingham

Contacts: fh16vevd@leeds.ac.uk ; patricia.lagos@nottingham.ac.uk


Epistemology is the theory of knowledge with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion. Epistemological theory states that there isn’t just one form of knowledge. However, Western scientific paradigm has been the main method for accessing knowledge in the last five centuries, undermining other forms of knowledges.


This workshop aims to establish a bridge between thinkers, practitioners, researchers and individuals from multiple disciplines and cultural backgrounds, to push the boundaries of our own forms of knowledge and rediscover new ones.


We invite you to be open to be vulnerable and reflect on the persistence of colonial structures by encouraging critical approaches and bridges of thoughts between different geographical and cultural spheres, across Europe, Latin America, and further. This is an invitation to encounter and link dialogues that emerge and discuss the different epistemic perspectives, to encounter and sustain each other.


Modality: Hybrid (30 participants; 15 online, 15 in person)