The conference began with an introduction by the editors of the book "Decolonizing Educational Sciences", Prof. Dr. Yalız Akbaba (University of Marburg) and Prof. Dr. Alisha M.B. Heinemann (University of Bremen). Moderated by Sheila Ragunathan (University of Mainz), exciting discussions followed in a roundtable on positioning, intersectionality and affects with impulses from Prof. Dr. Saphira Shure (University of Bielefeld), Ginnie Bekoe (activist, Hamburg), Nhu Y/Linda Nguyen (University of Mainz) and Prof. Dr. Carmen Mörsch (University of Mainz).
The day ended with an inspiring keynote speech by the well-known critical race theorist Prof. Dr. David Goldberg (UCLA, USA), the touching short film Marx & I by Prof. Dr. Shahrzad Mojab (OISE, Toronto, Canada) and a cozy get-together with music and dancing.
On the second day we started with morning yoga led by Dr. Gesa Münchhausen (BIBB, Bonn) and a performance critical of classicism by Sheri Avraham (University of Applied Arts, Vienna) and Dila Kaplan (Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna), both of whom then moderated the subsequent roundtable. In this roundtable, concepts such as knowledge production, institutions and solidarity were discussed with impulses from Manjiri Palicha (vhs Berlin Mitte), Prof. Dr. Arzu Cicek (Wiesbaden), Michal Schwartze (secondary school teacher in FFM) and Dr. Marion Thuswald (Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna). The following future workshop provided space for reflections on the practical implementation of decolonization in education. The conference ended with a spoken word performance by Furat Abdulle (Community Organizer, Mainz) and a brilliant keynote speech by Dr. Céline Barry (TU Berlin) and Dr. Denise Bergold-Caldwell (University of Innsbruck).
We look back on lively discussions, multi-perspective insights into the challenges of decolonization in the educational sciences and new networks that once again raised awareness of the urgency of this topic.
In the blue box you will find the links to the book and to the EBW (Educational Sciences) blog of the University of Bremen.