‘In Medias Res: Decolonial Interventions,’ Journal of International Womens Studies
2020, peer reviewed academic journal, Global
Role: Co-editor and co-author
Co-edited the Special Issue ‘In Medias Res: decolonial interventions’ of the International Journal of International Womens Studies with Dr Su-ming Khoo and Dr Sayan Dey.
“… It remains our shared belief that the dismantling of coloniality must be an interdisciplinary project, it must be quotidian, and it must be practical. Yet, any action, any intervention finds itself entangled and bundled back in with coloniality – the tenacious, ambiguous and contradictory aftermath of half a millennium of colonization and empire. ‘Decoloniality’ – that which must follow in the wake of political decolonization – concerns the extensive, overlapping and shared struggles against the coloniality of knowledge, power and being itself…”
Excerpt from the Editorial Introduction
Co-authored the closing article of the Special Issue with Su-ming Khoo on ‘Including the invisible middle of decoloniality.’
This article traces a conversation around how to theorise and approach the inclusion of experiences, concepts and bodies situated in the ‘invisible middle’ of decoloniality. If coloniality is an immense, lengthy process resulting in colonial/modern structures (Mignolo 2007) comprising the ‘colonial present’ (Gregory 2004), ‘decoloniality’ requires surfacing, baring and bringing to bear the invisibilities and erasures of bodies that exist and resist with, through and in spite of colonial extraction and appropriation.
We explore and connect different ideas of ‘being in the middle’ of decoloniality, paying particular attention to the notion of ‘the invisible middle’ in embodied practices of solidarity (Vered and Mason 2015, Moten and Harney 2013, Simpson 2013), and noting the similarities with the ‘included middle’ in transdisciplinary thought and practice (Khoo et al 2019; Nicolescu 2010; Gibbons and Nowotny 2001). The ‘invisible middle’ emerges in hidden-in-plain-sight, politically engaged affective orientations (Gregg and Seigworth 2010), while the ‘included middle’ is an axiomatic concept in transdisciplinary, transformative praxis. We discuss embodied and creative practices of art and ‘dance politics’ as jumping-off points for further thinking-with decolonial haunting. In particular, we think with feminist lenses like Ettinger’s ‘matrixial borderspace’ (2006), Barad’s ‘intra-actions’ (2007) and Rivera Cusicanqui’s motley ‘ch’ixi’ (2012), to surface affective entanglements and co-emergences of meaning that return to what really matters, moving beyond accounting-for-difference and towards accountability. In tracing our exchange, we respond to the call to orient thinking towards transformation, and for decoloniality to be ‘an engagement with difference that makes a difference to what was originally thought’ (Bhambra 2007, 880).
Abstract – full article found here
To access the complete Special Issue, Editorial Introduction and article – head to https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol21/iss7/