Decolonizing the Eco-Hero: Representations of a Collective Movement
September 12, 2020, 15:30 - 17:00
Lakenhal
free
Colonial mentalities often plague the ways in which we render solutions to the climate crisis. In many cases, white European figures like Greta Thunberg dominate the narrative of the climate justice movement, leaving Indigenous voices as afterthoughts in a crisis that will inevitably impact these frontline communities the hardest.
This event, in collaboration with the Lakenhal Museum, brings together a panel of filmmakers and visual anthropologists to critique the ways in which we can decolonize the climate justice movement through new means of visual representation. Moderated by Dr. Sander Hölsgens, a visual anthropologist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Groningen, and Lana Askari, a documentary filmmaker and researcher on social inequality and migration, this event brings together two filmmakers from our 2020 programme, Nadir Bouhmouch (dir. Timnadin N Rif, 2017) and Patricia Ribas (dir. Tribal Affairs, 2020), to discuss how indigenous communities, from Brazil to Morocco and beyond, have been forced to respond to the climate crisis even harder as they fight to protect their land, heritage, and identity.
Using film and other ethnographic media as a way to return sovereignty to indigenous communities, these filmmakers will discuss the ways in which their own work, and the work of future filmmakers, can serve to provide a counter narrative to the individualist white saviour archetypes of the climate justice movement, embracing a more collective approach to remedying the climate crisis. Rather than reinstantiating a colonial idea that one's freedom must come at the expense of another, that prosperity can only be achieved by dehumanizing indigenous peoples, exploiting their lands, and imposing a revised narrative of history, these speakers will offer their own solutions for how the climate crisis can be totally decolonized in its approach.
Due to the coronavirus, we ask that attendees of this event maintain a 1.5 meter distance at all times. Masks are recommended though they are not compulsory. If you or those in close contact with you have symptoms of the coronavirus (fever, cough, etc.) please stay home to prevent the spread of the infection.