By Françoise Vergès
In the fifth session of the political teach-in series, Françoise Verges discusses the meaning of decolonial feminism by taking a step back and moving away from big statements about feminist principles and looking into the very simple yet profound question of who cleans the world and the importance of asking ourselves this question every time we enter a space; only then are we able to see the manufacturing of an invisible, exploited work usually performed through the bodies of the indigenous and racialised black women and how this division of labour is anchored in the history of slavery and colonialism; guiding us to look at decolonization as a dismantling of unjust world order.
Françoise Vergès (Reunion Island, Indian Ocean) is a political theorist, historian, film producer, independent curator, journalist, feminist activist and public educator. Her work focuses on the afterlives of slavery and colonialism, current forms of racial exploitation and decolonial feminism. She has contributed extensively to the body of work on postcolonial theory, the economy of predation and decolonial feminism, among other topics. She holds a PhD in Political Theory from the University of California, Berkeley. Vergès has authored a number of books, including: “A Feminist Theory of Violence”, “De la violence coloniale dans l’espace public”, “A Decolonial Feminism”, “The Wombs of Women, Race, Capital, Feminism” and “Monsters and “Revolutionaries: Colonial Family Romance and Métissage”.
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