Professor Elisa Joy White, UC Davis
UAL Decolonising Arts Institute x TrAIN x London College of Fashion Visiting Scholar
Chaired by Carol Tulloch, UAL Professor of Dress, Diaspora and Transnationalism
10 October 2019, 6.30 – 9pm
Chelsea College of Arts
UAL Decolonising Arts Institute, Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN) Research Centre at Chelsea, UAL and London College of Fashion (LCF) are pleased to welcome Dr Elisa Joy White (UC Davis) as a Visiting Scholar to UAL.
Dr Elisa Joy White is Associate Professor in African Diaspora Studies and African American Studies at University of California Davis. Her research focus includes lesser-examined African diaspora sites and new diaspora communities.
Open to all, this public talk will draw on Elisa's current project, which looks at the migration to Southern Spain by 'manteros' (street vendors) from Mali and Senegal, and their production of garments.
Elisa will also work with UAL staff and students on decolonising the curriculum through practice, research and dialogue. Her publications examine a range of areas, including the African diaspora in Ireland, Black Europe, ethnicity and new media, human rights and immigration policy. She is the author of Modernity, Freedom, and the African Diaspora: Dublin, New Orleans, Paris (Indiana UP, 2012),and co-editor (with P. Essed, K. Farquharson and K. Pillay) of Relating Worlds of Racism: Dehumanisation, Belonging, and the Normativity of European Whiteness (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), which includes her essay, “Peripheralised in the Periphery: Migration, Deportation, and Detainment in Ireland and Spain.”
Professor Carol Tulloch’s invitation to Elisa Joy White follows a visit to University of California Davis as part of the TrAIN/UAL ‘International Strategy Initiative: Dress and the African Diaspora – Expanded Thinking’ in 2018. UAL Decolonising Arts Institute has initiated a collaborative partnership with TrAIN and LCF, to develop a cross-college model for a Visiting Practitioners/Scholars programme that brings together staff and student communities, generates dialogue, nurtures networks, and shares good practice and strategies for change.
UAL Decolonising Arts Institute has been in development since autumn 2018 and now enters its pilot year, with a view to launching in autumn 2020. Led by UAL Professor susan pui san lok, the Institute seeks to enhance the visibility, understanding and impact of postcolonial, decolonial and intersectional thinking and practice. It aims to address historical amnesias and contemporary silences, to amplify voices and gather strengths.
Image credit: Museum of Catalan History, Barcelona. Photo by Friedrich Böhringer. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license. Original cropped