Caring for resistance, caring as resistance- understanding solidarity networks in postcolonial contexts
Raktim Ray, USI visiting scholar
Lecturer and Director of Education at Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London
There is a resurgence of literature on care in the ‘post-pandemic’ time. Many of these studies either highlight how alternative forms of care were provided through community solidarity networks or critique how the state captured vocabularies of care and repositioned itself as the principal caregiver. Acknowledging the importance of this growing literature on care, this talk expands the idea of ‘politics of care’ as differential forms of resistance.
This talk is centred around the idea of care as a mobile practice and shows how everyday acts of care not only symbolise resistance but also directly counter the state. To do so, the talk demonstrates vignettes of care praxis in India cities and Sao Paulo, Brazil. Empirically, it relies on oral historical accounts of everyday acts of care by protesters in two contemporary occupation movements (Anti-CAA-NRC protest and Farmer’s protest) and one student-led solidarity network (QSYN) for Covid-relief in India. The care acts at the occupation sites counter the state directly whereas acts of care by QSYN counter the state through unsettling its claim as the principal caregiver during the crisis. The talk additionally brings empirics from working with a solidarity network Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Teto (MTST) in Sao Paulo Brazil and highlights how urban occupation and running a community kitchen become essential praxis for manifestation of politics of care. The talk builds on these differential resistance mechanisms through politics of care which are demonstrated by each of these cases individually. In the end, the talk argues collectively these praxes call for a politics of liberation and emancipation in the postcolonial contexts and claim insurgency citizenship through solidarities for a just urban world.
Practical details
- When: Thursday 22 May 2025, 12 -1.30 p.m.
- Where: UAntwerp Stadscampus, room KS.204, Kattenstraat 10
- A vegetarian lunch is included.