Shift in thinking: It all begins with decolonization - Denise Ferreira da Silva

Time and time again over the last decade, global catastrophes have shown that the stage for disaster has been set by colonial and racial subjugation. These catastrophes have challenged us to re-orient our thinking, to enact a radical shift - or even a demolition - of the roots and structures that shape our world’s most urgent ethical and political issues, and those that will face the generations to come.
In this Big Thinking lecture, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Professor and former Director of the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at UBC, will outline the path forward signalled by black feminist poethics, starting with the restoration of the total value extracted from Native Lands and expropriated through slave labour. In the pursuit of “social justice” and “global justice”, decolonization must be the starting point. Ferreira da Silva will ask us to consider a shift in thinking, to transform how we understand and address global catastrophes - starting by acknowledging and confronting colonial and racial subjugation as constitutive of, and active in, our circumstances. One thing is clear: the path forward must begin with decolonization.