Son[i]a #303
Oyèrónké Oyèwùmi
The work of Professor Oyèrónké Oyèwùmi (b. Nigeria, 1957) examines the ways in which universalism in academia distorts our understanding of African cultures, especially in relation to race and gender: anatomical materiality, scientific visuality, and the emphasis on genitality result in an exaggeration of differences.
Professor Oyèwùmi looks at how this matrix was historically imposed on the culture and worldview of the Yoruba, whose language, for example, did not stipulate the existence of sons or daughters, wives or husband, and whose deities always display a fluid identity. Going beyond gender as an abstract cultural construct, Oyèwùmi begins to identify the space-time coordinates in which the construct emerged, and to recognise the impossibility of disentangling it from openly racist and colonial processes.
In this podcast, Professor Oyèrónké Oyèwùmi talks about age, seniority, and respect, about unscrupulousness and academia, dispossession and spirituality. She considers the oxymoron of the notion of “single mothers” from the point of view of Yoruba culture, and describes the process by which children choose their mothers before they are born. She also notes how observance of community practices from non-Western cultures may be a necessary step as we face the planetary challenges to come.
Anti-racism and anti-colonial resistance from the perspective of people of African descent
We talk to Karo Moret, Diego Falconí and Lucía Piedra Galarraga interculturality, multiculturality, and migrant sit-ins. They share ideas on cosmopolitics, the Hispanic world, atavisms, and Afrofuturism; on El Cid's beard, the Royal Spanish Academy, and taking academia to the street. They examine the ways in which a transvestite theory of childhood challenges the imaginaries embodied in literature and explore the legal loopholes and the counter-routes of knowledge that could allow us, collectively, to come together in the south.
Sethembile Msezane
Working from the foundations of historical narrative and its constructs, African knowledge systems, and a contemporary take on colonial wounds, South African artist Sethembile Msezane has an interdisciplinary practice that goes beyond critique. In this podcast, Sethembile talks about her rejection of modern throwaway culture, convinced that the history and experiences of ancestors contain clues and know-how that allow us to imagine different futures. She believes that good omens must enter through spirituality and dialogue with ancestors. Art is simply a tool.
Deleted scenes
We dig up some unreleased fragments of our conversation with Marie Hélène Pereira and Fatima Bintou Rassoul Sy—two key members of Raw Material Company—. We talk about connecting locally, about working with and empowering Afro communities, about keeping the archive alive, and about working with orality.
Raw Material Company
Based in Dakar, Senegal, Raw Material Company is an independent, collaborative centre that aims to foster critical thinking through artistic practice. In this conversation, Marie Hélène Pereira and Fatima Bintou Rassoul Sy—two key members of Raw Material Company—discuss a situated feminist and decolonial practice that focuses on doing rather than enunciating and categorizing. They share some of their experiences and talk about the strategies they use to create rich forms of dialogue and to negotiate the tensions and the ideological and economic constraints imposed through the still-colonial structures of the so-called global North.
Anti-racism and anti-colonial resistance from the perspective of people of African descent
We talk to Diego Falconí Travez, Lucía Piedra Galarraga and Karo Moret about slavery and love, the Caribbeanization of identities, and violence as a potential resource. They discuss affects, phobias, autophagies, and unsettling objects. And they examine the Latino world in relation to the mask of gay culture, coming out of the closet as a liberal promise, and resent(i)ment as a circular form that prevents memory from disappearing.
Anti-racism and anti-colonial resistance from the perspective of people of African descent
We talk with Lucía Piedra Galarraga, Diego Falconí Travez and Karo Moret from the Study Group on Afro/Black Ideas, Practices, and Activisms about altars, ekekos, nefandos, Saint Barbara, and Valdivia's Siamese twins. They turn their attention to the politics of hair, talk about sugar as the star product plying the Caribbean routes, and acknowledge the usefulness of ashes in proving the extermination of the ancient Andean sodomite communities.
Deleted scenes
We dig up some unreleased fragments of the interview with John Mason that we were unable to include the first time around.
John Mason
John Mason talks about the power of rituals and food as the impetus for resistance, identity, and memory, about the cultural transfers that take place in migratory movements, and about the history of the Yoruba people. In this podcast, Mason also defends the untold story of the role of women as inventors, and highlights the political, social and economic impact of certain spaces occupied by women, such as agriculture and education, as well pediatrics, geriatrics and affects.