RCGA Student-Organized Conference: Bodies at Borders: The Lived Effects of Settler Colonialism

The Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs presents: the Seventh Annual Student-Organized Global Affairs Conference. This year, the annual conference takes the form of a summit, asking participants to engage critically with the material and be heavily involved in the discussions that take place. Scholars of bordering from various fields will come together to speak on bordering in terms of colonial and neocolonial states. The purpose of the summit is to explore the mechanisms by which borders are enforced, as well as to question how these borders affect populations across the globe. Two keynote speakers, Marie Cruz Soto of New York Unversity and Thomas Abowd of Tufts University, will speak to the issue of bordering as it relates to the regions of their expertise – Puerto Rico and Palestine, respectively. Audience members will have a chance to interact directly with experts – Middlebury professors scattered at tables around the room – to discuss the topics over dinner from Sabai Sabai. Later, a large group discussion will take place, led by Indigenous multi-media journalist and organizer Desiree Kane. All events are free and open to the public. For more information, contact rcga@middlebury.edu.

 Speaker bios:

 Marie Cruz Soto

Marie Cruz Soto (BA University of Puerto Rico, PhD University of Michigan) is interested in imperial interventions, colonial modernities and decolonizing imaginaries. She is particularly interested in the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, and in how militarized colonialism has shaped the Viequense community. Her work explores how the long history of dispossessions in the island has ensured a vulnerable and unruly population. Cruz Soto is also a peace activist who has participated in Viequense community initiatives, in the organization New York Solidarity with Vieques and in transnational networks of solidarity against U.S. military bases. She teaches at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University. Her courses delve into feminist and anti-colonial epistemologies, the workings of the U.S. Empire, struggles to narrate the past and claim places, community formations and the making and transgression of boundaries.

 Thomas Abowd

Thomas Abowd received his PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University. He has been active in scholarly and activist initiatives around anti-racism, anti-imperialism, and Palestine/Israel for more than 25 years. He teaches in the Colonialism Studies, American Studies, and Anthropology programs at Tufts University. Abowd is the author of Colonial Jerusalem: The Spatial Construction of Identity and Difference, 1948-2012 (Syracuse University Press, 2012). He has also recently published a piece in Social Text on Martin Buber, Edward Said, and the politics of binationalism. Abowd is currently working on a book project on neoliberal urban space and the water catastrophes in Flint and Detroit, Michigan.

 Desiree Kane

Desiree Kane is a Miwok woman, multi-media journalist, and political organizer. She is one of the founders and the Digital Content Editor/Director at Pollen Nation Magazine. Her documentary photography can be seen at the Beyond Standing Rock exhibit in the New Mexico Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, NM. She was Associate Producer, Camera Operator, and Investigative Journalist on the feature-length documentary film Akicita: The Battle of Standing Rock, which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Kane’s body of journalistic work ranges widely and is supplemented by experiences organizing for Indigenous rights and climate justice, as well as political causes such as activist group The People for Bernie Sanders, of which she served for years as Engagement Director.

Schedule

 4:30 p.m.             Opening remarks

4:45-5:45 p.m.   “Strategic Spaces, Disposable People: Imperial Imaginings and Colonial Unruliness from Vieques, Puerto Rico” by Marie Cruz Soto, Clinical Assistant Professor at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University

5:45 p.m.             Dinner served from Sabai Sabai

5:55-7:00 p.m.   Break-out discussions featuring Midd faculty members (30 minutes each)

7:00-8:00 p.m.   “Colonizing Jerusalem: The Racialization of Space in a City of Myth” by Thomas Abowd, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora at Tufts University

8:00 p.m.             Desserts and hot beverages provided

8:10-8:40 p.m.   Discussion with Indigenous journalist and organizer Desiree Kane

8:40 p.m.             Closing remarks