TWAIL, s.e.a. & oceania affinity group + call for co-organizers
Our Third World Approaches to International Law returns this month. We are also pleased to announce our calls for co-organizers and for our affinity group on anti-colonial and anti-imperial currents in s.e.a. and oceania. Join us!
Session 3: Whose International Law Is It Anyway?
26 June 2024, 17:00 CEST, via zoom
Co-organized by Carolina Bertazolli and Rohit Sarma
After a hiatus, we return with another reading group session in our ‘Whose International Law is it Anyways’ series. This time around, we discuss B.S. Chimni’s text, ‘The Geopolitics of Refugee Studies: A view from the South’.
Through Chimni, we ask questions such as: What is the relationship between international law and politics? How does international law see refugees and refugee-generating events? How, if at all, does the global North exercise control over international law and international institutions? And how can we re-imagine international law and what would a ‘new new approach’ to international law look like?
This discussion series is open to all—academics, activists, and all of us in between.
Call for co-conveners and members: Anti-colonial & anti-imperial currents in s.e.a. & oceania
South/South Movement is convening an affinity group on anti-colonial and anti-imperial currents in southeast asia and oceania. Unapologetically, we intend to shift the site of knowledge and (geo)politics towards these geographies. Why? From our perspective, s.e.a. and oceania tend to be bypassed by the tide of “decolonising” discourses within the anglophone, eurocentric “global” academy today.
To trouble this tendency, this affinity group has two broad aims. On the one hand, we will engage epistemically with s.e.a. and oceanic struggles against colonial and imperial powers—from within and without, western and non-western, past and present. On the other hand, although we recognise s.e.a. and oceania remain submerged in colonial/imperial regimes of oppression, we refuse to dwell on this fact. Crucially, we will emphasise acts of anti-colonial and anti-imperial resistance in both discourse and practice, especially from below and beyond the “postcolonial” nation-state in this part of the world. While we may come from distinct geopolitical contexts, we strive to claim and build this space in the spirit of kapwa (Pilipino for being-with-others) and kōrerorero (Māori for dialoguing).
This affinity group welcomes students, academics, activists, artists, civil society organisers, and other fellow travellers from s.e.a., oceania, in the diaspora, and beyond. It is a mainstay hosted under the “Countering the Colonial” project at South/South Movement. Co-conveners so far include Antonio Salvador M. Alcazar III, Chu May Paing, Cindy Cao, Josh Makalintal, Andya Paz, Tin Alvarez, Joshua Babcock, and Anaïs Duong-Pedica.
Together, we will do:
reading circles
conference-organising in s.e.a. / oceania
co-editing slash co-writing
If you would like to co-convene or become a member of this affinity group, please sign up here. We are particularly keen to co-convene with fellow travellers with embodied knowledges from/in oceania. We are looking to launch this affinity group in September/October 2024.
Call for co-organizers
South/South Movement is expanding. Since 2021, our collective has covered quite a bit of ground despite being unfunded, independent, and precarious. Moving forward, we are keen to work with more co-organizers who share our intentions in questioning eurocentric and western-centric knowledge regimes in social and political studies.
At South/South, we take our co-organizers’ agency seriously and work on the basis of collaboration, co-partnership, and reciprocity. If you would like to join our core team and gain experience in co-organizing around topics and themes that matter to you, please consider volunteering for these specific roles (which are unpaid as we are an unfunded collective and maintain our independence through volunteering):
Event producer/s (You will help design, plan, execute, and deliver our community events.)
WordPress wizard/s (You will maintain and build our website.)
Social media buff (You will manage and grow our online presence on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky, ideally with a consistent style and tone.)
Graphic designer (You will create striking visual content for the collective.)
Community outreach lead (You will help grow our Substack newsletters and craft/edit our written content, including public statements.)
Writing workshops chair (You will take the lead on coordinating and facilitating our writing workshops.)
Until now, we have mostly tagged-team on these “invisible” labors depending on who has capacity and time in our collective. As we grow, we intend to sustain our organizing space more strategically by co-sharing tasks and responsibilities. Mindful of the next academic cycle, we are recruiting and onboarding co-organizers over the summer (northern hemisphere-wise). If you wish to help build our movement, please sign up by 30 June 2024.
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