Can we repair and heal international solidarity?
Speakers: Olivia Rutazibwa (LSE), Harpreet Kaur Paul
Language: English
Is reparation the right approach for the future of international solidarity?
Decolonisation is, or should be, an integral part of the debate about international solidarity.
In this session, we look for inspiration about the future of international solidarity and investigate whether the concept of reparation can take us further in the debate about decolonisation. What are the obstacles? What are the opportunities? We will not limit the debate to only financial reparations but rather look for a broad interpretation of the concept of repair/healing.
To also take into account new perspectives, we delve into the subject of reparation within climate justice movements. More specifically, we will be talking about climate-related loss and damage. The aim of this session is to inspire the audience without looking for the ultimate solution.
Speakers
Eric Njuguna
Eric Njuguna works for climate justice and human rights in Kenya. He is co-leader of the Friday for Future group In Kenya and is the campaigns director at Kenya Environmental Action Network. He has worked with youth across Kenya and Africa to build advocacy campaigns and build pressure on African leaders.
In 2017, during his junior year in high school, Kenya was hit by severe drought. After seeing the consequences, he joined the Youth Climate Movement to demand action from world leaders. Together, they organised climate strikes and events across the country.
Olivia Rutazibwa
Dr. Olivia Umurerwa Rutazibwa (1979) is a Belgian/Rwandan International Relations scholar and former journalist. She is Assistant Professor in Human Rights and Politics in the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and Senior Research Fellow of the Johannesburg Institute of Advanced Studies (JIAS).. She holds a PhD in Political Science/International Relations from Ghent University (2013, Belgium).
Her research and teaching focuses on ways to decolonise (international) solidarity. Building on epistemic Blackness as methodology, she turns to recovering and reconnecting philosophies and practices of dignity and repair and retreat in the postcolony (e.g. autonomous recovery in Somaliland, agaciro in Rwanda and Black Power in the US, Tricontinentalism and the political thought of Thomas Sankara) to theorise solidarity anticolonially.
