Labyrinth of Postcoloniality
2024-04-23
– 2024-04-23
09:30
– 11:00
- ONLINE
- English
We kindly invite you to a book seminar with Alima Bissenova during which we will discussed a book authored by her: Labyrinth of Postcoloniality. The meeting will be moderated by Zuzanna Bogumił.
The seminar will take place online, 23 April at 9:30am CET.
Please register in order to participate: https://uw-edu-pl.zoom.us/.../tJYpdeispzkrHtIWRp8GfF5Mcza...Author's bio:
Alima Bissenova is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Nazarbayev University. She specializes in urban anthropology, anthropology of Islam, postcolonial studies, and intellectual history. She has published her work in English and Russian in the journals Religion, State, and Society, Europe-Asia Studies, AB Imperio, Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, Sotsiologiya Vlasti.
Alima Bissenova is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Nazarbayev University. She specializes in urban anthropology, anthropology of Islam, postcolonial studies, and intellectual history. She has published her work in English and Russian in the journals Religion, State, and Society, Europe-Asia Studies, AB Imperio, Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, Sotsiologiya Vlasti.
About the book:
This collection is an attempt to form a new post-colonial agenda, in which we, seven Kazakhstani authors, are trying to rethink and theorize our current state from the position of our own locality and develop a “local” point of view on the most pressing issues of “our post-coloniality” - a point of view that would be pronouncedly local but, at the same time, global – connected with the universal post-colonial experience. We believe that the concept of “place” is very important for describing the states of coloniality and postcoloniality, as well as for describing the knowledge that we produce in this collection, knowledge that is socially and locally “situated”, to use Donna Haraway’s term . The connection with the place, on the one hand, shapes our position, and on the other hand, leaves its own unique imprint on the situation of post-coloniality that we describe. On the one hand, living in Kazakhstan, we, as citizens of a new state that was born after the collapse of the Soviet Union, are already in some way “post-colonial” - it would seem that we can articulate our own agenda for ourselves, we are given the freedom to represent ourselves at the international arena. However, on the other hand, we are very dependent on global markets, on regional military blocs and, no less important, we continue to be under pressure from the ideological structures and hierarchies of colonialism, both from the former metropole and from new metropolitan centers in Europe and North America. If we add to this economic (but not yet ideological) pressure from China, then we can say that because we are in such an inter-imperial post-colonial zone our subjectivity is limited. Perhaps it is precisely because of this limitation that the desire to “declare oneself” and formulate one’s own separate position is felt very strongly - we are just learning to “live for ourselves” and “understand ourselves” from the point of view of our own place and our own interests. We have long been the object of external modernization and industrialization projects, "learning" from advanced countries, gaining experience, including post-colonial experience. As the heroine of Aliya Kadyrova asks, sitting at one of the conferences on post-coloniality in Central Asia in Moscow: “How long can you talk about post-coloniality when you can live it here right now?” (Chapter V). Without exception, all of the authors of the collection really "live through" their own post-coloniality, while simultaneously reflecting on it. All seven authors of this collection have good research on this aspect of our culture, and it is time to present them to the interested reader - to contribute to the discussion about “our post-coloniality” and, perhaps, to find a way out of its labyrinths.
This collection is an attempt to form a new post-colonial agenda, in which we, seven Kazakhstani authors, are trying to rethink and theorize our current state from the position of our own locality and develop a “local” point of view on the most pressing issues of “our post-coloniality” - a point of view that would be pronouncedly local but, at the same time, global – connected with the universal post-colonial experience. We believe that the concept of “place” is very important for describing the states of coloniality and postcoloniality, as well as for describing the knowledge that we produce in this collection, knowledge that is socially and locally “situated”, to use Donna Haraway’s term . The connection with the place, on the one hand, shapes our position, and on the other hand, leaves its own unique imprint on the situation of post-coloniality that we describe. On the one hand, living in Kazakhstan, we, as citizens of a new state that was born after the collapse of the Soviet Union, are already in some way “post-colonial” - it would seem that we can articulate our own agenda for ourselves, we are given the freedom to represent ourselves at the international arena. However, on the other hand, we are very dependent on global markets, on regional military blocs and, no less important, we continue to be under pressure from the ideological structures and hierarchies of colonialism, both from the former metropole and from new metropolitan centers in Europe and North America. If we add to this economic (but not yet ideological) pressure from China, then we can say that because we are in such an inter-imperial post-colonial zone our subjectivity is limited. Perhaps it is precisely because of this limitation that the desire to “declare oneself” and formulate one’s own separate position is felt very strongly - we are just learning to “live for ourselves” and “understand ourselves” from the point of view of our own place and our own interests. We have long been the object of external modernization and industrialization projects, "learning" from advanced countries, gaining experience, including post-colonial experience. As the heroine of Aliya Kadyrova asks, sitting at one of the conferences on post-coloniality in Central Asia in Moscow: “How long can you talk about post-coloniality when you can live it here right now?” (Chapter V). Without exception, all of the authors of the collection really "live through" their own post-coloniality, while simultaneously reflecting on it. All seven authors of this collection have good research on this aspect of our culture, and it is time to present them to the interested reader - to contribute to the discussion about “our post-coloniality” and, perhaps, to find a way out of its labyrinths.
About the seminar series:
Series „Postcolonial perspectives–postdependance entanglements” is organized inframes of two researchprojects sponsored by the National Science Centre, Poland “Remembering Soviet repressions inthe post-multiple colonial RussianFar East”,no. 2020/39/B/HS6/02809 and SocialMemory and the Post-ImperialRussianHeritage inPolandno. 2021/41/B/HS3/00852.
Series „Postcolonial perspectives–postdependance entanglements” is organized inframes of two researchprojects sponsored by the National Science Centre, Poland “Remembering Soviet repressions inthe post-multiple colonial RussianFar East”,no. 2020/39/B/HS6/02809 and SocialMemory and the Post-ImperialRussianHeritage inPolandno. 2021/41/B/HS3/00852.
