PostRacial Trans-Modernities: Afro-European Relations, Mediterranean Trajectories and Intercultural Reciprocities
As border-spaces of Afro-European relations, the Mediterranean, the West African coast and the Cape of Good Hope have been contact zones between European and African cultures for a long time. The colonial and postcolonial relations between the imperial metropolises and the colonies, and, later, between post-imperial nation-states and postcolonial independent African nations have contributed to the growth of multicultural communities across Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Their creole characteristics and their intercultural heritages attest to the long history of Afro-European communities and cultures that have shaped Europe, parts of Africa and the Americas today. The migrants and refugees from former colonies and from other regions, who cross the Mediterranean and other borders to join these communities on the European continent contribute to their further development with their skills and knowledges; rather than a crisis, this project approaches this phenomenon as an opportunity for the further reinforcement of the intercultural, educational, scientific, economic and political exchanges between the two continents. The focus on post-racial practices is timely and urgent, as across the geographic areas that are covered by CIVIS we observe a widening of racial domination, processes of re-racialisation and the transformation of race into categories that legitimise further oppression and stigmatisation. This project proposes to become a platform in the CIVIS alliance for innovative collaborative research that will approach ‘PostRace’ as a methodological tool and as a basis in order to develop and disseminate antiracist discourses in a wide range of research, teaching and cultural practices that include, but are not limited to, interdisciplinary learning and research activities, intercultural artistic projects and exhibitions, cross-cultural performances and transnational research projects.
Co-ordinators: Dr. Mina Karavanta, Associate Professor & Dr, Stamatina Dimakopoulou, Assistant Professor, Department of English Language & Literature, School of Philosophy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
CIVIS Universities involved: Aix-Marseille Université (France), Universität Tübingen (Germany) , University of Rome La Sapienza (Italy)
CIVIS' African partner universities: Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (Senegal), Université de Sfax (Tunisia), University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)