#BeyondTalkingBack: Anti-racism reconsidered from the Postcolony

Many observers, in different places in the industrialised West, are reporting on mounting overt political consolidations of racism and xenophobia, as well as often narrowing and hardening public debates. In such context, for anti-racist scholars and activists alike, finding and creating spaces to go beyond the re-active and the merely talking back. Inspired by the conversations during a workshop and public conference titled Race after the Postracial organised by Françoise Vergès and Theo David Goldberg in Paris in December 2016, the following blog posts collect thoughts and works from scholars that locate their anti-racist work firmly in the postcolonial. The aim is to share insights and frameworks of anti-racist thought that go beyond merely talking back. They are entry points to keep the conversation going differently.

Click here for the first in a series of four interviews this week by Olivia Rutazibwa: Françoise Vergès, political scientist, feminist, and author of the book ‘Le ventre des femmes. Capitalisme, racialisation, féminisme” (Éditions Albin Michel, 2017).

“Etre agricultrice, c’est plus difficile”: women farmers on La Reunion

An unusual initiative of the Association Espace Ajoupa last Saturday 11 March created a platform for discussion of some of the issues that women farmers on Reunion face.

Through the medium of theatre, their problems, as well as other issues like violence, pollution and unfair competition were debated. Despite forming an essential part of the island’s economy, women farmers face competition from large scale farming, as well as social prejudice from male farmers. More information and a link of an interview with Murielle Lebon, proud “agricultrice”, is on http://www.ipreunion.com/photo-du-jour/reportage/2017/03/11/semaine-des-droits-des-femmes-la-manifestation-fanm-later-s-est-deroulee-ce-samedi-espace-ajoupa-quand-les-femmes-se-battent-pour-leur-terre,58811.html.

According to online figures of the Reunion Chambre of Commerce, the island has 7623 plots, worked on by 7872 farmers of whom 1269 are women. Adding family and farmhands brings Reunion’s total employment in agriculture to over 21,000. 96,5% of plots, 7358 of the plots are smaller than 20 acres (96,5%) mostly producing sugar cane (57%) and some other crops. Around 30% of Reunion’s export value comes from sugar cane production. http://www.reunion.chambagri.fr/spip.php?rubrique55