The next Permanent Seminar in Post-Colonial Studies will take place on December 11, at 3:30 pm, via Zoom. “The colonial past as a problem not closed in contemporary times. Mental decolonization as an intercultural possibility in times of resentment” is the theme of the session with the participation of Luís Lisboa, leader of the FUA-Frente Unitária Antifascista, and Pedro Schacht Pereira, professor at Ohio State University (USA).
The challenge of ethnocentrism by post-colonial criticism has called into question a series of concepts and corresponding structures that would give stability to the social world. The subsequent destabilization, still ongoing in many parts of the globe, decentralizes the discussion, looking at those who have always been considered subordinates, as protagonists, placing them on an equal footing with those who have always been at the centre of the world.
The process is ongoing, calling into question, among others, the idea of a museum, the statuary in the public space, and promoting discussions on structural racism, as well as gender issues. But it is also transversal in society, namely in the Portuguese, opposing a Luso-tropicalist vision, centred in Portugal, as a former colonizer country that promoted a “sweet colonization”, because it is different from other countries and that still endures, it is enough to pay attention to the contents related to that subject in the history manuals of secondary education. What comes to underline that the colonial past continues to be a problem not closed in contemporary times. How is the “other” represented?
This seminar also intends to look at the concept of “artivism”, little consensual in Social and Human Sciences, as a contribution to mental decolonization and intercultural possibility.
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