OPENING TALK

Deconstructing the Empire in Public Art Intervention, Teresa Pinheiro
Abstract: Whereas in 2020 all over the world Columbus statues were being decapitated and destroyed, in Portugal the stone on which the memory of the colonial empire is engraved suffered merely cracks. In a country that built its national narrative upon an almost religious concept of colonialism – of which colonial mystic and lusotropicalism were the main pillars –, iconoclasm could have been the expected reaction to the overwhelming and uncontested presence of monuments praising the colonial past in the public space. However, the iconoclasm failed to materialize. Instead of removal or destruction, contemporary artistic intervention attempts to deconstruct the imperial myth by means of critical appropriation of monuments. Based on empirical examples of Portuguese cities, the contribution will discuss the persisting continuity of the colonial monolith inherited from the Estado Novo propaganda in postcolonial Portugal and the way the monolith has been challenged by public art intervention in the past few decades. As I will argue, strategies of counter-monumentalizing the monuments and imbuing them with alternative memories may be more effective in coming to terms with a troubling past than removing them from the urban space.
Teresa Pinheiro: Professor of Iberian Studies at the Institut for European Studies and Historical Sciences, University of Chemnitz.

PANEL 1 – POSTCOLONIAL CONTINUITIES IN THE CENTER AND THE PERIPHERY A.

Colonial continuities and postcolonial discourse in Portugal, Viktoria Hohlfeld and Mathilde Honecker
Abstract: The colonial empire is an important reference point for Portuguese identity, even after the formal decolonization in the 1970s and the independence of the former colonies. The mystification of Portuguese colonialism has a lasting effect on the memory of the “golden age of discoveries”. Since the turn of the millennium, this narrative has been increasingly questioned, yet the former colonial power continues to have an impact today. The reproduction of colonial conditions is explained by using two examples: 1. the representation of colonial rule in the Portuguese school curriculum; 2. the economic relations in the “Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries” (Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa, CPLP). In monuments honoring individuals who actively promoted or benefited from colonization, hegemonic historiography manifests itself in the public sphere. But even or especially when colonial continuities are expressed in subtle ways, when they have been overwritten and forgotten, their exposure and scandalization is essential. Interventions disrupt the dominant narrative and enable the presence of marginalized perspectives on shared history. For activists, the goal of decolonizing space and society is accompanied by a reflection on their own coloniality. How do decolonial aspirations are expressed in Portuguese society, what development has the (post)colonialism discourse taken since the Carnation Revolution?
Viktoria Hohlfeld & Mathilde Honecker: Bachelor’s students of European Studies, University of Chemnitz.

Postcolonial effervescence in Lisbon: Brazilian migration and lived urbanity, Simone Frangella
Abstract: Brazilian migration to Portugal is a phenomenon in continuous movement since the late 1980s, and over time this migratory flow has been diversifying in terms of its migration purposes, levels of labor qualification, gender, documentation situations, but also in its lived experiences in Portuguese cities. Taking Lisbon as a locus of ethnographic research, this presentation will reflect on, on the one hand, how discourses and practices associated with the postcolonial context are perceived and experienced by these diverse flows of Brazilian migrants and, on the other hand, how issues of memory and the colonial past are articulated by the latter in order to challenge already established imaginaries or to interact with it in order to construct a place of their own.
Simone Frangella: Researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon.

Negotiating the colonial legacy in Lisbon’s street names after the 1974 Revolution, Joe Green
Abstract: This presentation will look at how the street names of Lisbon, the former capital of the Portuguese Empire, changed after it ceased to serve this function. One of the ways in which the Estado Novo dictatorship promoted its ideals was through street names, meaning that entire city sections were named after so-called explorers, Portugal’s colonies, and combatants in the Colonial War. This presentation will detail some of the ways in which this legacy was negotiated following the dictatorship’s overthrow, and to what extent the process of decolonization – a central tenet of the revolution – has been represented. As Lisbon’s Toponymy Commission has tended towards retaining existing names, many of the Estado Novo’s street names have remained in place. Which memories, then, continue to be projected through the names of Lisbon’s streets, and how have official bodies responded to calls for change, from the period of Portugal’s democratization up to today?
Joe Green: PhD candidate at the Institute for European Studies and Historical Sciences, University of Chemnitz.

Panel 2 – POSTCOLONIAL CONTINUITIES IN THE CENTER AND THE PERIPHERY B.

Demands of the Mapuche community in the Social Outburst in Chile – 2019, Gabriela Miranda
Abstract: „This dream is a dream of our ancestors, this dream is coming true, it is possible (..) to re-found this Chile and establish a new relationship between the Mapuche people, the original nations and all the nations that make up this country“ (Elisa ‘Loncón). These were the words of the president of the Constituent Assembly: Elisa Loncón, at President’s Gabriel Boric investiture ceremony. Loncón is a key figure in the defense of Mapuche rights. Her activism and other movements such as, the student and feminist movement gave rise to massive demonstrations between October 2019 and March 2020 that were named „Estallido social“. The demands of the demonstrators were diverse, ranging from: the recognition of the rights of native peoples to obtaining greater access to education and the reduction of pension funds (AFPs). At this juncture the Mapuche communities presented their proposals and demands to the Chilean government and their participation received widespread popular support. Two years after the social outburst, the community faces new governmental authorities and find themselves in the midst of a new constitutional assembly. Here the question arises: How can the new political constitution guarantee the human and land rights that the indigenous communities deserve and demand?
Gabriela Miranda: Master’s student in Latin American Studies,  University of Jena.

The social outburst of the popular insurrection: the anti-colonial struggle of the excluded for “democracy”, Felipe Castro
Abstract: My contribution consists in presenting in broad outline the case of the social outburst in Colombia, since the end of 2019 and extending until 2021, despite the interruptions due to the pandemic. These mobilizations are characterized by a historical accumulation of rejection of the uninterrupted state violence, a social discontent with the neoliberal economic measures of the outgoing government and several social demands for justice and recognition of excluded groups by the Colombian political system, with emphasis on two important social movements that converge in the protests, because they have a common origin in the Cauca region in southwestern Colombia: The resistance of the Afro-descendant groups of the Colombian Pacific and the Indigenous Minga, which brings together diverse indigenous groups with far-reaching environmental and political demands. I consider that this process has important contributions to articulate an anti-racist and anti-colonial struggle in the current context, not only because of the actions they undertook during the protests (coordinated collective interventions, toppling of statues, divergent spaces for socialization, etc.), but also because they have become in recent decades two political forces with great convening capacity to mobilize the civilian population, due to their slogans, demands and political horizon.
Felipe Castro: PhD candidate at the Institute of Romance Studies, University of Jena.

Aesthetic activism in Ecuador´s contemporary Kichwa literature, Jordy Pacheco
Abstract: In the mid-1970s, an important Kichwa cultural movement was born in Ecuador due, in part, to a violent system shaped by racism. Almost fifty years later, in October 2019 and June 2022, Ecuador’s indigenous movement led intense protests against the governments in power for 11 and 18 days, respectively. Both mobilizations were the product of unsustainable social injustice and were, likewise, shaped by racism and coloniality. Like the other arts, literature can serve as a force for social change. Without ignoring the plurality of voices and themes present in Ecuador’s contemporary Kichwa literature, this investigation focuses on the insurgent and denunciatory dimension of literature. Through selected poems and excerpts from semi-structured interviews conducted with Kichwa writers in 2021 and 2022, it gives an account of the aesthetic activism present in this literature and its commitment to the mother tongue, to the Kichwa culture and to the processes of indigenous peoples´ resistance. It also addresses the risk(s) of encapsulating such processes in the discourse of decoloniality.
Jordy Pacheco: PhD candidate at the Institute of Romance Studies, University of Jena.

PANEL 3 – MIGRANT MEMORIES AND PARTICIPATION A: ART AND DECOLONIZATION

The Gesture and the Stone, Leonor Rosas
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the possibilities of inscribing an antiracist and decolonial counter-narrative in the public space and memorial landscape of Lisbon. Some questions need to be asked. Who is represented in the space of this city? And who is silenced by the dominant narratives in the space? Padrão dos Descobrimentos, Praça do Império, Mosteiro dos Jerónimos or Bairro das Colónias are some of the traces of the imperial past that remain alive in Lisbon. The public space – monuments, statues, memorials and museums – is still white, masculine and imperial. What to do with it? Tear down statues, change street names, or contextualize? How can the decolonization of our cities be accomplished? What paths have been traced?
Leonor Rosas: Anthropologist and member of the Municipal Assembly, Lisbon.

Drafting artistic and collaborative methodologies for an expanded field for the monument, Márcio Carvalho
Abstract: My presentation aims to draft an expanded field for the monument, crafted by artistic and collaborative methodologies with the following purposes: breaking with the underlying hierarchy in which visitors to the monument are forced to play the part of a reverent spectator in front of the monument’s message being conveyed; giving the memorial activity the status of a social, discursive, and cultural practice where public participation can guarantee that memory and history remain a creative, ephemeral, continuous, and unfinished process.
Márcio Carvalho: Artist, works on participatory projects in different countries.

Coexisting cultural identities, perspectives and their representations, Dzifa Peters
Abstract: My presentation will examine intercultural visualities, as well as underlying conditions within socio-cultural systems, addressing projections of the exotic, collective prejudices, but also hybrid identities in the everyday and within mannerisms of globalization, migration, and post- and decolonial discourses. I argue for a decolonial approach by means of identifying and unravelling collective imaginaries and tropes.
Dzifa Peters: German-Ghanaian visual artist and PhD candidate in Culture Studies, Catholic University of Lisbon.

PANEL 4 – MIGRANT MEMORIES AND PARTICIPATION B: LOCAL ACTIVISM

Postcolonial Chemnitz: How to decolonize a city without a (post-)colonial memory!?, Stephan Schurig
Abstract: In the PhD project Chemnitz postcolonial – Fragments of Untold History(s), both the historical colonial links of the city or region around Chemnitz and the postcolonial continuities are examined. The local and regional specifics in (post-)colonial Saxony will be globally historically classified on the basis of concrete historical phenomena such as colonial goods (trade), colonial movements in the form of associations or so-called human zoos (local coloniality), but also on the basis of symbolic representations and discourses through exoticisation, primitivisation, othering and racialisation. With the help of a postcolonially informed perspective, analyses of colonial and racist continuities or anti-colonial/anti-racist resistances of contemporary socio-cultural phenomena, such as the construction of the ‚own‘ and the ‚foreign‘ or urban and memory politics as well as emancipatory efforts, are in the foreground of the project. Since local history research has so far lacked a systematic examination of Chemnitz’s urban history with the interconnections of German and global colonial history, the PhD project attempts to create a basis for addressing this research desideratum with the help of explorative methods (e.g. evaluation of documents and archives from archives, cartographies) and thus also to provide a theory-practice transfer for civil society remembrance work.
Stephan Schurig: PhD candidate at the Institut for European Studies and Historical Sciences, University of Chemnitz.

Red de Migración, Género y Desarrollo: Decolonial perspectives on feminist activism, Leonie Papritz
Abstract: Feminism is and has always been a multifaceted movement that refused to unite under one umbrella. Social hierarchies, unequal distribution of power and resources within the movement have led to different feminist factions. Women in and from the Global South face a long struggle to make their realities and unique challenges heard. Therefore, de- or postcolonial feminism is located at the intersection of coloniality and gender, criticizing both mainstream feminist and postcolonial theory. Red de Migración, Género y Desarrollo (Barcelona) is a collective that works with the postcolonial feminist approach and advocates for migrant and decolonial perspectives on common feminist issues. By examining Red MGD’s web presence and published works, I elaborate the characteristics of decolonial feminism more precisely: What constitutes decolonial feminism and what makes this group a decolonial one?
Leoni Papritz: Graduated with a bachelor’s degree in European Studies from the University of Chemnitz.

ROUND TABLE: ONGOING DECOLONIAL PRACTICES IN THE IBERIAN SPACE AND IN GERMANY A

Leipzig Postkolonial: Colonial-historically reprocessed City Tours, Manwinder Dhanjal
Abstract: Postkolonial Leipzig has been in existence for over a decade, originally founded by students of African Studies to historically reappraise colonial structures in the city of Leipzig. The student program quickly developed into an important local organization with 10-15 permanent members, which now not only deals with the academic-historical reappraisal of colonialism in Leipzig, but is also active in an activist capacity, providing advice to the Grassi Museum, the Migrants Advisory Board, the University, the City of Leipzig and other bodies. In addition, Postcolonial Leipzig also supports self-organizations of Bi_PoC and other racialized people. One of the most important works is to educate people in and around Leipzig. As a medium for this, the group uses so-called colonial-historically reprocessed city tours. These are carried out on request with groups from a wide variety of backgrounds (schools, NGOs, political parties, senior citizens‘ groups, etc.) and convey the racist-colonial implications of the city of Leipzig by means of selected stations. Not only are historical references made, but also current racist-right motives are uncovered and illuminated. Another project of the group is the colonial-racist reappraisal of the Leipzig Zoo, which still reproduces the colonial-racist ideas of the human trafficker and organizer of human shows, Ernst Pinkert.  And last but not least, the group is working on the STIGA project (Saxon Thuringian Industrial and Commercial Exhibition 1897), where it is dedicated to the colonial history of the exhibition, which celebrates its 125th anniversary in 2022.
Manwinder/Monty Dhanjal (they): Activist in Leipzig Postkolonial and empowerment trainer, Leipzig.

The Memorial to Enslaved People in Lisbon, Beatriz Gomes Dias
Abstract: In her presentation, Beatriz Gomes Dias will address the proposal to create the Memorial to Enslaved People, and the three conceptual pillars on which it is based, namely, (i) the recognition of slavery as a central element of this enterprise of subjugation and of the key role that Portugal played in it; ii) the resistance, in its various expressions, of enslaved people against this oppression, particularly Africans, thus recognizing their agency and subjectivity; iii) the historical legacies and continuities of this period, from cultural legacy to contemporary forms of racism and discrimination, thereby linking the past to the present.
Beatriz Gomes Dias: Member of City Council and co-founders of Djass – Association of Afro-descendants, Lisbon.

Decolonial culture politics, Jonas Prinzleve
Abstract: This contribution introduces the recent decolonial policy instruments that the city of Hamburg has developed together with affected communities. It will concern the following main questions: What different time levels surface when comparing post-colonial memory politics in Germany and in Portugal? Can we identify a similar decolonial cultural politics across different European cities and which future potentials hide behind decolonial modes of memory?
Jonas Prinzleve: Co-author of the digital project ReMapping Memories Lisboa – Hamburg and PhD candidate in Comparative Studies, University of Lisbon.

ROUND TABLE: ONGOING DECOLONIAL PRACTICES IN THE IBERIAN SPACE AND IN GERMANY B

Decolonial Decolonial research in university seminars:
Starting Point 2020: Decolonial and antiracist struggles in Ibero-America, Ina-Sophie Deckert
Between cotton, colonial goods and human zoo – Glocal colonial entanglements of the city of Chemnitz from a postcolonial perspective, Luca Hirsekorn and Johanna Preißler
Abstract: Colonial history is inevitably linked to the places from which the politics and logics of colonialism were organized and negotiated. The traces of colonial „heritage“ in postcolonial conditions are omnipresent and yet mostly invisible. A critical examination has so far taken place primarily in the large cities, since there the encounter between the present and the past takes place in more diverse dimensions. But also, in „smaller“ cities of the former colonial more remote land colonial goods were once traded and processed, white colonial-racist fantasies of the exotic and primitive are still received today, as well as colonial looted art or monuments. Students of a variety of disciplines from Jena and Chemnitz will present and discuss the results of their projects where they researched colonialism within the framework of historical colonial research, postcolonial theory and urban research as well as post- and decolonial practices.
Ina-Sophie Deckert: Studies English, Spanish and Educational Sciences, University of Jena.
Johanna Preißler: Master’s student in education, University of Chemnitz.                          Luca Hirsekorn: Bachelor’s student in European Studies, University of Chemnitz.