Decoloniality and Tropicality: Part Two

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.22.2.2023.4005

Keywords:

decoloniality, postcolonialism, colonialism, tropicality, tropics

Abstract

The papers collected together in this special issue on the theme ‘decoloniality and tropicality’ discuss and demonstrate how we can move towards disentangling ourselves from persistent colonial epistemologies and ontologies. Engaging theories of decoloniality and postcolonialism with tropicality, the articles explore the material poetics of philosophical reverie; the 'tropical natureculture' imaginaries of sex tourism, ecotourism, and militourism; deep readings of an anthropophagic movement, ecocritical literature, and the ecoGothic; the spaces of a tropical flâneuse and diasporic vernacular architecture; and in the decoloniality of education, a historical analysis of colonial female education and a film analysis for contemporary educational praxis.

Author Biographies

Anita Lundberg, James Cook University, Australia & Singapore

Associate Professor Anita Lundberg is a cultural anthropologist whose ethnographies engage people, places and material cultures of Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. Her works arise from interdisciplinary theories including rhizomatics, material poetics, tropical imaginaries, myths, liminality, tropical gothic and flanerie. Sites of analysis include Singapore city, cinema, a Malay house, a whale hunting village in Indonesia, street art in Bali, climate change, the environment, and education.  Anita has received awards for research supervision and innovative research and has held international fellowships: LIA TransOceanik (CNRS, Collége de France, JCU); The Cairns Institute (TCI); Post-Doctoral Fellow, Cambridge University, UK; Guest Researcher, Maison Asie-Pacifique, Université de Provence, France; Visiting Fellow, Institute of the Malay World and Civilization, National University Malaysia. She has also been an Anthropologist-in-Residence at Rimbun Dahan, Malaysia. She has curated exhibitions in NY, LA, Paris and Sydney and her own research, theoretical, and artistic works have been exhibited at the Australian National Maritime Museum, the National Art Gallery of Malaysia and Alliance de Française. Anita has a PhD from the University of New South Wales, Australia and was a Post-Doctoral Fellow with Cambridge University, UK. She has an MA in Science and Technology Studies. Anita lives in Bali.

Hannah Regis, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago

Hannah Regis is a Lecturer at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine. She is a Caribbeanist and Black Atlantic literary scholar, though she has also completed research that centres on Indigenous Studies. Her research interests include Caribbean spectrality, haunting, counter-archival engagements, reparative writing, theories of embodiment and cultural memory. Her investigations trace widespread and recurring patterns in seemingly unrelated material with the cumulative aim of historicizing, transforming and expanding upon theories of epistemic injustice while shaping potentialities for recuperation and interventions. She has published widely on aspects of Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean literature in Caribbean Quarterly, Journal of West Indian Literature, The American Studies Journal, eTropic and other periodicals. A single-authored monograph on the Poetics of Caribbean Spectrality is forthcoming.

Gregory Luke Chwala, Union Institute and University, USA

Gregory Luke Chwala is Graduate Professor of Humanities and Culture at Union Institute and University in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, where he specializes in nineteenth-century British literature and culture as well as decolonial and transatlantic queer studies from the nineteenth through the twenty-first century. He has published work on queer, trans, race, postcolonial, decolonial, and gothic studies in journals such as the Victorian Review and eTropic. His current projects include a book that explores decolonial queer ecologies in gothic and speculative fiction, and a book on transembodiment in steampunk fiction. He is co-editor of the University of Wales Press new series, Queer and Trans Intersections.

Stephen Ogheneruro Okpadah, University of Warwick, UK

Stephen Ogheneruro Okpadah is a Chancellor International PhD Scholar, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom. He won the 2021 Janusz Korczak/UNESCO Prize for Global South in emerging scholar category. He has published numerous articles in international journals and chapters in books. Okpadah is co-editor of Language of Sustainable Development: Discourses on the Anthropocene in Literature and Cinema (2021), which is a special issue of the journal: Language, Discourse and Society. Books that he co-edited are, Committed Theatre in Nigeriaː Perspectives on Teaching and Practice (Lexington Books, 2020); Locating Transnational Spaces: Culture, Theatre and Cinema (IATC and the University College of the North, Canada, 2020); and The Road to Social Inclusion (UNESCO/Janusz Korczak Chair’s Book Series, 2021). Okpadah is a non-resident research associate, Centre for Socially Engaged Theatre, University of Regina, Canada. Okpadah is also a Non-Resident Research Fellow, University of Religions and Denominations, Iran.

Ashton Sinamai, La Trobe University, Australia

Ashton Sinamai is an archaeologist with experience from Zimbabwe, Namibia, United Kingdom, and Australia. Born 5 miles from Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, he developed an interest in archaeology quite early from stories and folklore told by his grandmother. His interest in pursuing Cultural Heritage Studies rose out of the need to reconcile 'history from the people' with empirical data from the discipline of archaeology. He has a PhD in Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies from Deakin University and currently works in Australia as a heritage consultant in the private sector. Previously he has worked as an archaeologist at Great Zimbabwe, Chief Curator at the National Museum of Namibia, and as lecturer at the Midlands State University, Zimbabwe. After his PhD, he worked for at the University of York (UK) as a Marie Curie Experienced Incoming Fellow. Currently he is working as Advisor, Heritage Approvals for Rio Tinto in Perth, Australia. Ashton is also a Research Associate with La Trobe University, Melbourne and is an Expert Representative on UNESCO’s Roster for Cultural Emergencies. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Community Archaeology and Heritage and a co-editor for the Journal of African Cultural Heritage Studies. His research focuses on the cultural landscapes and their perceptions through indigenous knowledge and philosophies. His most recent book, Memory and Cultural Landscape at the Khami World Heritage Site, Zimbabwe: An Uninherited Past was published by Routledge in 2019.

R. Benedito Ferrão, William & Mary, USA

R. Benedito Ferrão is an Assistant Professor of English and Asian & Pacific Islander American Studies at William & Mary. Additionally, he has been the recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright, Mellon, Endeavour, and Rotary programs, the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies, and the American Institute of Indian Studies. Curator of the 2017-18 exhibition Goa, Portugal, Mozambique: The Many Lives of Vamona Navelcar, he edited a book of the same title (Fundação Oriente 2017) to accompany this retrospective of the artist’s work. His scholarly writing appears in various international journals, including eTropic, Research in African Literatures, Verge, and Society and Culture in South Asia.

Sophie Chao, University of Sydney, Australia

Sophie Chao is Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow and Lecturer in the Discipline of Anthropology at the University of Sydney. Her research investigates the intersections of Indigeneity, ecology, capitalism, health, and justice in the Pacific. Chao is author of In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-Human Becomings in West Papua and co-editor of The Promise of Multispecies Justice. She previously worked for the human rights organization Forest Peoples Programme in Indonesia, supporting the rights of forest-dwelling Indigenous peoples to their customary lands, resources, and livelihoods. Chao is of Sino-French heritage and lives on unceded Gadigal lands in Australia. For more information, please visit www.morethanhumanworlds.com.

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Published

2023-07-23

How to Cite

Lundberg, A., Regis, H., Chwala, G. L., Okpadah, S. O., Sinamai, A., Ferrão, R. B., & Chao, S. (2023). Decoloniality and Tropicality: Part Two. ETropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, 22(2), 1–32. https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.22.2.2023.4005

Issue

Vol. 22 No. 2 (2023): Decoloniality and Tropicality: Part Two

Section

Introduction to Special Issue

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