Africa in Switzerland. Decoloniality of Knowledge and Experiences

This national conference will bring together the Swiss Society for African Studies, the University of Lausanne through its new Focus Africa Center, and civil society actors. Concerned with the fight against structural racism, the organizers want to articulate citizen mobilization and the main thrusts of cultural participation within an academic framework for reflection. The aim will be to revisit the presence of the continent and its diaspora in Switzerland, as well as representations stemming from the colonial world, and above all to explore ways of building common ground in societies that tend to crystallize differences rather than benefit from similarities. This issue will be approached from a decolonial perspective, with a view to networking knowledge and experiences that share the same axiological scope. To this end, considering that it is as much about experiences as it is about knowledge, the humanities are called upon – history, cinema, languages, and literature – but also the social and political sciences, environmental sciences, and religious studies, through anthropology, for example. Stakeholders in this transdisciplinary and transcontinental reflection will also discuss the continent's presence in Swiss school curricula and processes of cultural, linguistic, and artistic transfer. The aim of this conference is to examine representations and links in a participatory manner in order to renew them: the decolonization of knowledge implies challenging essentialisms.

The conference will feature plenary sessions, round tables, and various panels that will serve as the focus for shared discussions. These panels will be concerned with the following questions:

• What are the unseen and unacknowledged effects of structural racism? (boomerang effects)
• Which memories and transfers do operate around African history?
• Is mobility an actual global reality?
• What are the practices in terms of the endogenous knowledge and experiences?
• Press and information: which media relays allow for a deepening of these questions
• Languages and cultures: what kinds of transmission and representation are at work?
• To what extent do space and time carry an influence on the question of vulnerability from a gendered perspective?
• Education: what are the integrative strategies in terms of the school curricula?

Organizers

• Christine Le Quellec Cottier, Co-president, Swiss Society for African Studies & Co-President, Focus Africa-UNIL, christine.lequelleccottier@unil.ch
• Henri Michel Yéré, Copresident Swiss Society for African Studies, h.yere@unibas.ch