WHAT ABOUT THE MARGINS?
Seminar
19 June, 2024
Lectures:
➞ Andreja Mesarič: Claiming a European identity from the margins: Race in Slovene nation-building
➞ anna řičář libánská: Representation of Native Americans in the Czechoslovak Magazine "Mladý svět" (Young World) between 1959 - 1989
➞ Kvet Nguyen: Leftover bodies
Screnning of Denis Kozerawski & Peter Kašpar's short film Kambium1942
Discussion: Andreja Mesarič, anna řičář libánská, Kvet Nguyen and Denis Kozerawski (without videodocumentation)
Moderated by curator Iva Kovač
Andreja Mesarič is an anthropologist whose work traverses academia and practice. Her most recent research focuses on 19th-century Slovene encounters with Africa and Africans, and how they shaped emerging nationalisms' investment in whiteness. Her previous research explored Muslim women’s engagement with Islam in contemporary Bosnia-Herzegovina and its broader context of Habsburg colonial legacies, Communist gender reform, and transnational revitalisation of Muslim piety. She has also worked as a researcher and practitioner in the non-profit sector, specialising in gender and migration. Currently, she works on new project development for the Czech NGO People in Need.
. . . . . . . .
East Central Europe (ECE) and South East Europe (SEE), historically subordinated to different empires until the beginning of the 20th century, have been affected by the history of colonialism (albeit in the form of economic exploitation rather than participating in political partitioning) and coloniality (as a mindset created by the social relations promoted through the history of colonialism). As a result, they have been part of the global relations created through this history. Since the end of state socialism and the accession of many of these states to the EU (that is, those in the process of pre-accession agreements), the dominant political positions in most of these states are aligned with the EU or the West.
The seminar introduced academic and artistic research to present different cases in the long history of othering in/of these European peripheries. Andreja Mesarič and anna ričář libánská focused on historical cases that helped solidify racist stereotypes in European peripheries. By focusing on her research on the Slovene catholic mission in Sudan in the 19th century, anthropologist Andreja Mesarič disclosed early cases of the construction of whiteness in Slovenia. Moving closer to contemporaneity, anna ričář libánská, a researcher in the field of Ibero-American Studies, looked at the creation of the image of the Native Americans in the Czech (popular) culture and their representations in Czech imagination between 1948 and 1989. Kvet Nguyen, artist exhibiting in the Looking-A-Way exhibition, presented artistic research focused on the visual representation of the Vietnamese community in Slovakia through official records and the private archives of the community members, thereby revealing some differences in representation during state socialism and after. The short film Kambium1942, directed by artist Denis Kozerawski, reveals historical connections with the global colonial order through the exploitation of raw materials from Slovakia that were used in the colonial efforts while focusing on persisting discrimination of the Roma community in the region to this day.
sk.tranzit.org
.........
The seminar took place in the framework of the exhibition LOOKING A - WAY: OTHERING IN/OF THE (SEMI)PERIPHERY, which was prepared in collaboration with the City of Women Association.
.........
ERSTE Foundation is main partner of tranzit. // Supported using public funding by the Slovak Arts Council. // Media partners: Artalk.info, Flash Art CZ & SK, Kapitál, GoOut.net
11 июл 2024
