Crossroads in Cultural Studies

12 – 15 August 2018, Shanghai (China)

ECHOES Scholars, Christoffer Kølvraa, Marine Schütz, Elvan Zabunyan, LU Jiansong, Yi ZHENG will be participating in the ‘Crossroads in Cultural Studies’ Conference in Shanghai, with a panel entitled “De-colonialising Europe’s colonial Heritage’

Panel Abstract:
This interdisciplinary session investigates how colonial heritage is currently being used, re-interpreted, and reframed as part of decolonizing endeavors across and beyond old colonial and post-colonial power-geometries. The panel explores the ways in which Eurocentric/Westernized epistemologies are played out differently in specific local and institutional settings through different heritage practices. As such the panel asks how the colonial heritage is entangled in new affective modes of performance or representation, at both a ‘local’ city level, and at the transnational level of the EU. We focus on a wide range of de-colonial initiatives, including those by activists, artists, heritage professionals, and (EU) political actors. The panel aims at unravelling emerging relationships that appear out of such initiatives and to gauge if these entail a potential de-colonialization of Europe’s colonial heritage.