Tentative Program
(check back closer to the convergence for a more final version)
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota
October 6-8, 2017
Please register for the convergence via this form
(The opening plenary does not require registration, but we ask for registration to participate in the rest of the convergence.)
For lodging info see this page.
To download a PDF version of this program, click here.
Friday, October 6, 2017
location: Cowles Auditorium, Humphrey School, University of Minnesota-West Bank campus
2:00pm-5:00pm – Abolition Collective Meeting
(closed event)
6:00pm-8:00pm – Plenary Panel Event
Nick Estes (Kul Wicasa Sicangu Tintonwan) holds a BA and MA in history from the University of South Dakota and is currently a PhD candidate in American Studies at the University of New Mexico. Born and raised along the Mni Sose (Missouri River), much of Estes’ previous research focused on the river’s environmental history and politics of the Pick-Sloan dams, federal Indian policy, South Dakota political history, and the Oceti Sakowin (The Seven Council Fires or “The Great Sioux Nation”). Historian by training, he also incorporates critical Indigenous studies, oral history, decolonization methodologies, settler colonial theory, affect theory, and new materialism into his current research. Estes’ work interrogates the political economy of the northern Great Plains, the politics of property, land tenure, resource extraction, border town violence, Indigenous internationalism, Lakota treaties and history, and human rights.
Ricardo Levins Morales describes himself as a “healer and trickster organizer disguised as an artist.” He was born into the anti-colonial movement in his native Puerto Rico and was drawn into activism in Chicago when his family moved there in 1967. He left high school early and worked in various industries, and over time began to use his art as part of his activism. This activism has included support work for the Black Panthers and Young Lords to participating in or acting in solidarity with farmers, environmental, labor, racial justice and peace movements. Increasingly he has come to see his art and organizing practices as means to address individual, collective and historical trauma. He co-leads workshops on trauma and resilience for organizers as well as trainings on creative organizing, social justice strategy and sustainable activism, and mentors and supports young activists. His art has won numerous awards but the greatest affirmation is the uses to which is has been put by grassroots movements and communities.
K-Sue Park is the Critical Race Studies Fellow at the UCLA School of Law. Previously, she was a legal aid attorney on the Texas-Mexico border, where she specialized in investigating predatory mortgage lending and providing foreclosure and eviction defense. She holds a JD from Harvard Law School and received her Ph.D from the Department of Rhetoric at UC Berkeley. Her research focuses on the history of dispossession, displacement, real estate creation and development in North America. Her dissertation, entitled “If Your World Was Built on Dispossession: Strategies of Conquest by Settlement in America,” gives an account of the early development of racial capitalism in America by examining the legal tools that white settlers developed to dispossess indigenous peoples of land and expand the real property markets that produced colonial wealth. Her article, “Mortgages, Money and the Conquest of America,” appeared in the Fall 2016 issue of Law and Social Inquiry.
*And an additional speaker who has written and organized on the topic.
Evening – Convergence Reception
Everyone welcome. More information coming soon!
Saturday, October 7, 2017
Division of Indian Work, 1001 E. Lake St., Minneapolis
8:00am-8:45am – BREAKFAST and REGISTRATION
8:45am-9:15am – Opening Ceremony led by Jim Thunderhawk
9:15am-10:30am – SESSION I
Abolitionist Strategies in Brazil and the US to Counter Police/Penal Terror against Anti-Racist Activists,
Debora Maria: The mother of a black youth killed by the police and founder of Maes de Maio (Mothers of May) a coalition against police violence in Brazil. (*skype*); Jalil Muntaquim: Former member of the BPP/BLA, political prisoner, author, prison educator and activist; Mumia Abu-Jamal/EMAJ: Political prisoner, author, activist. (*invited via skype*); Co-facilitators: Jaime Alves, AC/CUNY-Staten Island; Dina Alves, Catholic University of Sao Paulo; and Joy James, AC/Williams
Radical Fronterizas: Pláticas of Surviving and Resisting the Borderlands
Cynthia Bejarano, Judith Flores Carmona, and Manal Hamzeh
Mino bimaadiziwin under the border: A spatial analysis of Indigenous time and movement between the US and Canada
Elsa Hoover, Algonquin Anishinaabe artist-architect/writer
Gender and Sexuality
- LGBTQ Migrant Returnees Creating Survival Strategies in Mexico, Sandibel Borges, Assistant Professor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
- Transfeminismo, or a Transnational Critique of Masculinity, Ana Baginski, UC Irvine
- “Empty Lands” to “Empty Signifiers”: Nativism, Race, Gender, and National Populism, Jasmine Noelle Yarish, Abolition Collective
Abolition, Decolonizaition and the Politics of Pleasure & Play
- Black Pleasure as a Political Project, Jallicia Jolly, Abolition Collective
- A Field of Dreamers: Place, Space, and Belonging in Toronto’s Recreational Softball Leagues, Craig Fortier & Colin Hastings, Abolition Collective
- The Rent is Too Damn High: Place-making as politic, Scz, Abolition Collective
- Race, Colonialism, and the Politics of Indian Sports Names and Mascots, Kevin Bruyneel, Abolition Collective
10:30am-10:45am – BREAK
10:45am-12:45pm – SESSION II
State Violence Beyond Borders: U.S., Israel, and Tactics of Control
Jewish Voice for Peace (Twin Cities) and Palestinian Youth Movement
Speaking Our Truths, Mapping Our Stories: Cartography and Decolonial Activism
Annita Lucchesi, Southern Cheyenne scholar and PhD student in the Critical Cultural, Social, & Political Thought at the University of Lethbridge
Abolitionist Strategy and Vision
Critical Resistance – Oakland Chapter
Ain’t No Justice…It’s Just Us: Transformative Justice & Community Accountability 101
Lena Palacios, Abolition Collective member and Assistant Professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, University of Minnesota
Demilitarize! An Asian American Proposal for Decolonization
Juliana Hu Pegues, Anh-Thu Pham, Eunha Wood, RadAzns Collective
12:45pm-2:05pm – LUNCH
2:05pm-3:20pm SESSION III
Abolition and the Carceral State
- “Mass Incarceration” as Misnomer, Dylan Rodríguez, Abolition Collective, University of California Riverside and Critical Resistance
- “we are going further, past reform, to wonder”: Notes on an Abolitionist Reentry Praxis, Renée M. Byrd, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Humboldt State University
- Lessons of Border Imperialism and Penal Abolition: Democracy, the Rule of Law, and Other Utopias, Michael J. Coyle, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, California State University, Chico
Coming to this Location: A Police-Free Minneapolis
MPD 150
Toward Decolonizing the Community College: Radical Educators and Student Activists Building Abolitionist Objectives, Diablo Valley College: Albert Ponce Ph.D. (Abolition Collective), Frank Ortega Ph.D., Newin Orante Ed.D., Hassam Jawaid, and Miranda Konoplisky,
Feminist Economics Yoga (for Abolishing Imperialism), Cassie Thornton, The Feminist Economics Department
Health
- Imperial Medicine: A Settler Colonialist Critique of the US Health Care System, Anthony Jimenez Doctoral Candidate, Department of Sociology University of Minnesota
- The Clinic as Border Checkpoint: The Institutional Intersections of Health and Immigration Enforcement in Arizona, Erin Hoekstra, Abolition Collective/University of Minnesota
3:20pm-3:40pm – BREAK
3:40pm-4:55pm – SESSION IV
Dream Justice – Keeping A Radical Imagination Under Trump
Keno Evol – Black Table Arts
Humanitarian Intervention in the Borderlands
- Abolitionist Care in the Militarized Borderlands, China Medel, Ph.D., University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
- Demilitarizing the Imagination: No More Deaths, Reporting Human Rights Abuses and Shifting the Conversation along the US-Mexico Border, John Washington, freelance journalist
- Border as Crisis: Sovereignty And Boundary-Making Practices In The American Immigration Crisis Of 2014, Samuel Law, University of Chicago and Ana Montgomery
- “Undocumented: The Architecture of Migrant Detention by ting chak”, Nicole at Adastra Comix
Racism, Colonialism, and Borders in US Midwifery
Wičáŋȟpi Iyótaŋ Wiŋ, Certified Professional Midwife, Granite Falls, MN; Tehmina Islam,
Certified Professional Midwife, Madison, WI; Perla Fierro Web designer, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico and Former client, Maternidad La Luz, El Paso; Annie Menzel, Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, UW-Madison
Radical Pedagogy: Race, Anti-Colonialism, and the Politics of Teaching in US Universities
Kevin Bruyneel, Babson College and Jaskiran Dhillon, The New School
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Division of Indian Work, 1001 E. Lake St., Minneapolis
8:00am-8:45am – BREAKFAST and REGISTRATION
8:45am-9:15am – Opening Ceremony led by Nancy Bordeaux
9:15am-10:30am – SESSION I
International
- Spectacles of the State: Imperial Borders on Birthright Israel, Sophia Goodfriend, University of Chicago/Students for Justice in Palenstine/Jewish Voice for Peace
- Schengen Agreement in Africa: Rethinking the ECOWAS Protocol on Free Movement, Okunade Samuel Kehinde, doctoral candidate in the Department of Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies, University of Kwazulu-Natal Pietermaritzburg
- No Borders in France and UK, Tasha, Calais Migrant Solidarity
- Australia’s Carceral Colonialism and Its International Impacts, Charandev Singh
Racial Capitalism
- “It’ll Be Worse Than BP”: Resisting State Policy through Coastal Knowledges in Southeast Louisiana’s Commercial Fisheries, Simi Kang, Coastal Project Coordinator, Coastal Communities Consulting, Visiting Adjunct Professor, Bard Early College in New Orleans and Ph.D. Candidate, Feminist Studies, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
- Listening to Black Lives Matter: “Racial Capitalism” as a Challenge to Critiques of “Neoliberalism,” Siddhant Issar, PhD student in Political Science, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
- “Jap Internment on Indian Land”: The Role of Archives in Separating Japanese American World War II Incarceration and Its Infringements On Native Sovereignty, Hana Maruyama, PhD student in American Studies, University of Minnesota
The Poetics of Abolition
Phanuel Antwi, Assistant Professor of English, University of British Columbia, in dialogue with Max Haiven, Canada Research Chair in Culture, Media and Social Justice, Lakehead University
Feminist Anti-Militarization in Colombia
Carol Rojas, Witness for Peace
10:30am-10:45am – BREAK
10:45am-12:00am – SESSION II
Knowledge and Abolition
- Pirate Radio for Abolition, Jake Nussbaum, artist and activist based in New York
- Undoing campus borders: student activism at the University of Kentucky, Rory Barron and Araby Smyth
Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief
Cindy Milstein is the author of Anarchism and Its Aspirations, co-author of Paths toward Utopia: Graphic Explorations of Everyday Anarchism, and editor of the anthology Taking Sides: Revolutionary Solidarity and the Poverty of Liberalism
Storytelling to Abolish Immigration Detention from the Inside-Out
Soros Justice Fellow Tina Shull and Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC)
Feminism and Reproductive Justice
- Building Feminist International Solidarities, Gwenola Ricordeau
- Reproductive Futures: The “Digital Pill” and/as Ideology, Anastasia Kārkliņa, Doctoral Student, Graduate Program in Literature, Duke University
- Anarchist Parenting, Julia Walker, Industrial Workers of the World
12:00am-1:20pm – LUNCH
1:20pm-2:35pm – CLOSING ASSEMBLY
Call for Proposals:
Abolish Border Imperialism!
a weekend convergence for working towards abolition and decolonization
October 6-8, 2017 – Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota
[Ver abajo para traducción al español // Tradução em português abaixo]
Resurgent border imperialism is producing a new round of repressions, deportations, and bans. It is emboldening white fascism and militarizing walls. From the reservation to the city, Indigenous peoples, immigrants, women, workers, queer and trans folks, Black and brown communities are facing criminalization, exploitation, deportation, incarceration, harassment, and violence. The organizing collective of Abolition: a journal of insurgent politics invites your proposals for a multi-faceted, multi-group convergence in the Twin Cities (Dakota Territories) this fall!
What is Border Imperialism? Today, North American countries exercise their power through actions and policies not just by building walls, but by extending the border deep into the heart of the nation-state. In urban or rural spaces, in private and state-run prisons, in detention centers and on tribal land, the US, Canada, and Mexico control and police marginalized groups and people at the border and away from it, building on their colonial origins through new expressions of violence.
In response to border imperialism many in North America say: This is not us! We are nations of immigrants! But abolitionists and decolonialists know the nation-state has always been rotten to its core, built on genocide and slavery. We want something beyond inclusion. We cry out: No ban on stolen land! Slaves were not immigrants!
Across our communities and territories, we know that justice does not come from ballot boxes, but from the streets, in our communities, within prison walls, on the land, in social spaces, and in public squares. We want something besides “more justice”: We want an abolitionist and decolonial alternative, one that not only negates the violence of border imperialism, but strives to create new and better worlds. To do so, we seek to learn from each other as we fight back. How can we strategize, coordinate, and build movements toward the abolition of border imperialism? How can we decolonize the border? How can we destroy the borders and colonialism we have in ourselves and our communities?
We call on artists, organizers, migrants, former prisoners and their families, workers, collectives, radicals, hacktivists, and scholars to come together and bring your tools, imaginations, experiences, energies, strategies, and creativity to the 4th annual Abolition & Decolonization convergence. Let’s strategize, coordinate, build relationships, and learn from each other!
This gathering continues a set of conversations already being held in organizing spaces across the continent. It is guided by the following question: how do we abolish border imperialism? For example,
Practically, How can activists build bridges between new migrant communities and those with longer histories in North America? How do we make connections between Black liberation movements and Indigenous fights for sovereignty? How do we organize our own communities without undermining other struggles?
Conceptually, How do we effectively coordinate across our various movements without erasing and excluding the struggles of Indigenous communities who don’t primarily experience North America/Turtle Island as a ‘land of immigrants’?
Our vision is for a multi-day gathering of radical anti-racists, feminists, Indigenous peoples, Black people and people of color, Muslim and other faith-based organizers, queer and trans folks, anti-colonial and decolonizing movements, carceral abolitionists, and all anti-authoritarians. We aim to learn from recent successes in the fight against oppression and for new and better worlds. Held in the Twin Cities (Dakota Territories), events will be led by grassroots organizers and educators from Minnesota and beyond. All events will be accessible, with translation provided, and there will be a sliding scale registration fee from $0 to $100.
We seek your proposals for: Multi-session themed tracks, individual sessions or presentations, workshops, trainings, skillshares, roundtable discussions, spaces for creating, collaborating, and caring, and art interventions in multiple media.
Please submit your proposal(s) (no more than 250 words) to: [email protected]
We will review and respond to all proposals submitted by July 15, 2017. (We’ll consider late proposals if time and space permit.)
If you have any questions or comments, please email: [email protected]
(The image above is from the Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Colonial Columbus Day March – San Francisco, 2012 – photo by Steve Rhodes.)
About Us
This event is organized by the collective behind Abolition: A Journal of Insurgent Politics (more info at abolitionjournal.org) in collaboration with community groups in the Twin Cities. The collective members belong to grassroots anti-oppression movements across the U.S. and Canada. Following three “mini-conferences” at the Western Political Science Association Conference, Abolition is rejecting the traditional academic conference format. We want our independent event, by bringing together activists, educators, and community members, to fight the colonialist ways educational institutions hoard resources for learning.
About the Location:
The choice of the Twin Cities, Minnesota for this convergence points to our hopes for the conference. Located in Mnisota Makoce, homeland of the Dakota people and near Bdote (‘where two waters meet’), where the Haha Tanka (‘river of the waterfall’) or Wakpa Tanka (‘big river’ or Mississippi River) and the Mnisota Wakpa (‘Minnesota River’) come together, it is a central place for Dakota spirituality and anti-colonial/abolitionist history. In recent years, the area has been the site of multiple insurgencies including, but not limited to: Black-led efforts to shut down the Mall of America to protest police brutality; young people staging walkouts and teach-ins against racialized state violence in their schools and against youth incarceration; immigrant-led efforts to demand living wages; the abolition of the state’s deportation regime and its interrelated ‘anti-radicalization’ project targeting the primarily Muslim East African immigrant and refugee communities; and efforts within and beyond the University of Minnesota (the state’s flagship) to demand a reallocation of resources for abolitionist and decolonial study. A day’s drive from the Oceti Sakowin camp at Standing Rock, many of these movements have contributed to the struggle against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, sending both material resources and people power. We are particularly excited that our convergence corresponds with the 150th Anniversary of the Founding of the Minneapolis Police Department, giving us a chance to join in learning about how the things we fight against today came to be.
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Convocatoria para propuestas:
¡Abolir el imperialismo de la frontera!
Una convergencia de esfuerzos hacia la abolición y descolonización
Octubre 6-8, 2017 – Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota
El resurgente imperialismo fronterizo está produciendo una nueva ronda de represiones y deportaciones. Está también revitalizando el fascismo blanco y militarizando la vida. Los pueblos indígenas, los/las inmigrantes, las mujeres, los/las trabajadores/trabajadoras, las gentes queer y trans, las comunidades negras y marrones están sometidas a la criminalización, la explotación, la deportación, el encarcelamiento, el acoso y la violencia. El colectivo organizador de Abolition: una revista insurgente le invita a enviarnos su propuesta para la 4ª edición anual de Convergencias: Abolición y Descolonización, este otoño en Minneapolis-Saint Paul!
¿Qué es el imperialismo fronterizo? Hoy en día, los países de Norte América ejercen su poder mediante acciones y políticas no sólo construyendo muros, sino extendiendo la frontera en el corazón del Estado-nación. En los espacios urbanos o rurales, en las prisiones privadas y estatales, en los centros de detención y en los territórios afro-indígenas, Estados Unidos, Canadá y México controlan y vigilan a los grupos marginados y a las personas en la frontera y más allá de ella, producindo nuevas expresiones de violencia. En respuesta al imperialismo fronterizo muchos en América del Norte dicen: ¡Esto no somos nosotros! ¡Somos naciones de inmigrantes! Pero los/las abolicionistas y los/las decolonistas saben que el Estado-nación siempre ha estado corrompido en su núcleo, construido sobre el genocidio y la esclavitud. Queremos algo más allá de la inclusión. Nosotros clamamos: ¡Ninguna restricción sobre la tierra robada! ¡Los esclavos no eran inmigrantes!
Sabemos que la justicia no proviene de las urnas, sino de las calles, de nuestras comunidades, desde las prisiones, de la tierra, de los espacios sociales y de las plazas públicas. Queremos algo más que “más justicia”: Queremos una alternativa abolicionista y decolonial, que no sólo niegue la violencia del imperialismo fronterizo, sino que se esfuerce por crear nuevos y mejores mundos. Para eso, buscamos aprender juntos mientras luchamos. ¿Cómo podemos diseñar estrategias, coordinar y construir movimientos hacia la abolición del imperialismo fronterizo? ¿Cómo podemos descolonizar la frontera? ¿Cómo podemos destruir las fronteras y el colonialismo que tenemos en nosotros mismos y en nuestras comunidades? Invitamos a los artistas, organizadores, emigrantes, ex prisioneros y sus familias, trabajadores, colectivos, radicales, hacktivistas y eruditos a reunirse y aportar sus herramientas, imaginaciones, experiencias, energías, estrategias y creatividad a la 4ª edición anual de Convergencias: Abolición y Descolonización. ¡Hagamos estratégias, coordinemos, construyamos relaciones y aprendamos unos de otros!
El encuentro es parte de una serie de conversaciones que ya se están organizando en todo el continente. Se orienta por la siguiente pregunta: ¿cómo abolimos el imperialismo fronterizo? Por ejemplo:
De modo práctico, ¿cómo pueden los activistas construir puentes entre las nuevas comunidades de migrantes y aquellas con historias más largas en América del Norte? ¿Cómo hacemos conexiones entre los movimientos de liberación de los negros y las luchas indígenas por la soberanía? ¿Cómo organizamos nuestras propias comunidades sin ignorar otras luchas?
Conceptualmente, ¿cómo coordinamos efectivamente nuestros diversos movimientos sin borrar y excluir las luchas de las comunidades indígenas que no experimentan en princípio América del Norte / Isla Tortuga como una “tierra de inmigrantes”?
Nuestra ambición es organizar una reunión de varios días con activistas anti-racistas radicales, las feministas, los pueblos indígenas, las gentes negras, los/las musulmanes y otras organizaciones religiosas, la gente queer y trans, los movimientos anti-autoritários, anticoloniales, descolonizantes y abolicionistas. Nuestro objetivo es aprender de los recientes éxitos en la lucha contra la opresión y por nuevos y mejores mundos. Celebrada en las Ciudades Gemelas (Twin Cities/Territorios de Dakota), los eventos serán dirigidos por organizadores/as de base y educadores/as populares de Minnesota. Todos los eventos serán accesibles, con traducción proporcionada, y con una tarifa de registro flexible entre $ 0 y $ 100 dólares. Buscamos sus propuestas para: Multi-sesiones temáticas, presentaciones individuales, talleres, capacitaciones, mesas redondas, eventos alternativos para crear, colaborar y cuidar, e intervenciones artísticas en múltiples medios.
Envíe sus propuestas (no más de 250 palabras) a: [email protected]
Revisaremos y responderemos todas las propuestas presentadas hasta el dia 15 de Julio de 2017. (Consideraremos las propuestas tardías si el tiempo y el espacio lo permiten). Si tiene preguntas o comentarios, envíe un correo electrónico: [email protected]
Para más información, consulte nuestro sitio web: https://abolitionjournal.org/convergence/
Sobre nosotros Este evento es organizado por el colectivo Abolition: A Journal of Insurgent Politics (más información en abolitionjournal.org) en colaboración con grupos comunitários en Twin Cities. Los miembros colectivos pertenecen a movimientos anti-opresión en los Estados Unidos y Canadá. Después de tres “mini-conferencias” en la Western Political Science Association Conference, Abolition está rechazando el tradicional formato de conferencia académica. Queremos un evento independiente que pueda reunir activistas, educadores y miembros de la comunidad, para luchar también contra las maneras colonialistas que las instituciones educativas acumulan recursos.
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[Portuguese translation – thanks to Guilhotina.info]
Abolição do imperialismo fronteiriço!
– Procuram-se propostas para uma semana de convergências entre vários grupos rumo à abolição e descolonização |
De 6 de Outubro até dia 8 – Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota
«O ressurgente imperialismo fronteiriço está a produzir uma nova ronda de repressões, deportações e bloqueios. Está também a revitalizar o fascismo branco e a militarizar a vida. Desde a reserva até à cidade, pessoas indígenas, imigrantes, mulheres, trabalhadoras e trabalhadores, pessoas queer e trans, comunidades negras e castanhas estão a enfrentar criminalização, exploração, deportação, aprisionamento, assédio e violência. O colectivo organizador Abolition: uma revista de políticas insurgentes convida a propostas polivalentes, para uma convergência de grupos nas “Twin Cities” (Territórios em Dakota) este Outono.
O QUE É O IMPERIALISMO FRONTEIRIÇO?
Hoje, países da américa do norte exercem o seu poder através de acções e politicas, não apenas por construir muros, mas também ao expandirem a fronteira até ao coração do estado-nação. Em espaços rurais ou urbanos, em prisões privadas e geridas pelo Estado, nos EUA, Canada e México controlam e vigiam grupos marginalizados e pessoas nas fronteiras e além delas, construindo nas suas origens coloniais através de novas expressões de violência. Em resposta ao imperialismo fronteiriço várias pessoas na América do Norte dizem: Isto não somos nós! Somos nações de imigrantes! Mas abolicionistas e decolonialista sabem que o estado-nação sempre esteve podre no seu núcleo, construído sobre genocídios e escravatura. Nós queremos algo para lá da inclusão. Nós gritamos: Nenhuma restrição sobre a terra roubada! Escravos não eram imigrantes!
Ao longo das nossas comunidades e territórios, sabemos que justiça não vêm através das caixas de voto, mas pelas ruas, nas nossas comunidades, dentro das paredes das prisões, nos espaços sociais e praças públicas. Queremos algo mais do que “mais justiça”. Nós queremos uma alternativa abolicionista e descolonial, uma que não apenas negue a violência do imperialismo fronteiriço, mas procura criar novos e melhores mundos. Para isso, nós procuramos aprender de cada pessoa enquanto lutamos. Como podemos criar uma estratégia, coordenar e construir movimentos em direcção à abolição do imperialismo fronteiriço? Como podemos descolonizar a fronteira? Como podemos destruir as fronteiras e o colonialismo que temos em nós próprios/as e nas nossas comunidades?
Chamos artistas, organizadoras/es, migrantes, antigas presas/os e as suas famílias, trabalhadoras/es, coletivos, radicais, hacktivists e académicos para virem junts e que tragam as vossas ferramentas, imaginações, experiências, energias, estratégias e criatividades para a 4º Encontro anual Abolição e Descolonização. Vamos criar estratégias, coordenações, construir relações e aprender entre todas e todos!
Este encontro contínua uma serie de conversas que têm acontecido em espaços organizados ao longo do continente. É guiado pela seguinte pergunta: “ Como é que abolimos o imperialismo fronteiriço?
Por exemplo:
Na prática: Como podem activistas construir pontes entre novas comunidades migrantes e as comunidades com longas histórias na América do Norte? Como podemos fazer conexões entre movimentos de libertação negras/os e lutas indígenas por soberania? Como podemos organizar as nossas próprias comunidades sem enfraquecer outras lutas?
Conceptualmente: Como podemos coordenar efetivamente os vários movimentos sem apagar e excluir as lutas das comunidades indígenas que não experienciam primariamente América do Norte/Ilha da Tartaruga como uma ‘terra de imigrantes’?
A nossa visão é para um encontro de vários dias de antirracistas, feministas, pessoas indígenas, pessoas negras e pessoas de cor, Muçulmanas/os e outras organizações religiosas, pessoas queer e trans, movimentos anticoloniais e de descolonização, abolicionistas das prisões e todas as pessoas antiautoritárias. Ambicionamos aprender com os sucessos recentes das lutas contra a opressão e para novos e melhores mundos. Realizado nas cidades gémeas (Territórios de Dakota) eventos vão ser guiados por organizações de base e educadoras/es populares de Minnesota e não só. Todos os eventos vão estar acessíveis com tradução. Vai também existir uma taxa de registo móvel que vai desde os 0$ até aos 100$.
Procuramos propostas para multi-sessões temáticas, sessões individuais ou apresentações, workshops, treinos, discussões de mesa redonda, espaços para criação, colaboração e cuidados e intervenções de ar em vários meios.
Por favor submetam as vossa proposta(s) (não mais de 250 palavras) para : [email protected]
Vamos rever e responder a todas as propostas submetidas até 15 de Julho de 2017. (Vamos considerar propostas tardias se o tempo e o espaço permitirem)
Se tens alguma questão ou comentário, por favor envia um e-mail para:[email protected]
Sobre Nós
Este evento é organizado pelo coletivo Abolition: Uma revista de políticas insurgentes (mais info em abolitionjournal.org), em colaboração com grupos comunitários nas cidades gémeas. Membros do colectivo pertencem a movimentos anti opressão ao longo dos EU e Canada. Seguindo três “miniconferências” na conferência da Associação de Ciência Política Ocidental, Abolition está a rejeitar o formato tradicional de conferências académicas. Queremos o nosso evento independente, ao trazer em conjunto activistas, educadoras/es e membros da comunidade, para combater as maneiras coloniais monopolizam recursos para aprendizagem.
Acerca do local:
A escolha das cidades gémeas, Minnesota para esta convergência aponta para as nossas esperanças nesta conferência. Localizada Mnisota Makoce, terra das pessoas de Dakota e perto de Bdote (‘onde as duas águas encontram-se’) onde o Haha Tanka (‘rio da cascata’) ou Wakpa Tanka (‘grande rio’, ou rio do Mississippi) e o Mnisota Wakpa (‘Rio Minnesota’) se encontram, é o lugar central para a espiritualidade Dakota e história anticolonial/abolicionista.
Recentemente, esta área foi o ponto de múltiplas insurgências incluindo, mas não limitado a : esforços do movimento negro para fechar o centro comercial da América para protestas contra a violência policial, jovens em greves contra a violência racial por parte do estado nas suas escolas e contra os aprisionamentos; esforços das comunidades imigrantes para exigir salários dignos; A abolição do regime de deportação do Estado e o seu projecto inter-relacionado de “anti radicalização” dirigido às comunidades de imigrantes e refugiados, principalmente muçulmanos da África Oriental e esforços dentro e além da Universidade de Minnesota (a bandeira do Estado) para exigir uma realocação de recursos para o estudo abolicionista e descolonial.
A um dia de viagem do acampamento de Oceti Sakowin em Standing Rock, muitos destes movimentos contribuíram para a luta contra a construção do Dakota Access Pipeline, enviando recursos materiais e o poder de pessoas. Estamos particularmente animados que a nossa convergência corresponde ao 150º Aniversário da Fundação do Departamento de Polícia de Minneapolis, dando-nos a oportunidade de participar na aprendizagem sobre como as coisas que lutamos contra hoje, se tornaram assim.
Grafismo por Amanda Priebe»