Mini Conference on Borders and Communication of Postcolonial Communication Project Team at the Cyprus University of Technology

For the full invitation and details on the presentations visit our facebook page here: facebook group

Also information available here

Speakers:

Rodolfo Torres, University of California-Irvine "US-Mexico Border"
Nicos Trimikliniotis, University of Nicosia "Southern European Border"
Christopher Kyriakides, Cyprus University of Technology  "Borders in Cyberspace"
Maria Avraamidou, Cyprus University of Technology "Media, Ethnic Conflict, Cyprus"

Discussion Chair: Dr Olga Demetriou, PRIO&University of Cyprus

The mini conference is co-funded by the Republic of Cyprus and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). 

EUROPEAN UNION

Postcolonial Communication Project Preliminary Results presented at the SSPC 2014 Conference in Oporto, Portugal

Preliminary Results of the Postcolonial Communication Project were presented at the 2014 Summer Conference of the  Biannual International Conference for Social Sciences Debate (July 17-20, 2014) in Oporto. The presentation's main aim was to present preliminary findings of a qualitative study exploring Greek-Cypriots’ perceptions on the re-unification of ethnically divided Cyprus taking as a starting point the negotiations and the referenda on a UN Annan Plan (the plan), the only settlement proposed for Cyprus reunification. The plan was rejected in April 2004 during two simultaneous referenda by 73, 58% of Greek-Cypriots and was accepted by 64, 91% of the Turkish-Cypriots. Rejection by one community meant that the plan was void. The referenda results initially prompted homogenizing accounts regarding what the two communities expect in relation to the solution. The presentation's focus was on participants' perceptions on the role of the media during the Annan Period.

Partha Chatterjee on Subaltern Studies, Marxism and Vivek Chibber

Interesting debate

Partha Chatterjee on Subaltern Studies, Marxism and Vivek Chibber

Preliminary Results of postcolonial communication project to be presented at Manchester conference, May 2013

CONFERENCE:  "Ethnicity, Race and Nationalism in European Media and Film: Rights, Responsibilities, Representations"

International Conference, The University of Manchester, UK
23-25 May 2013

For more information including the draft programme please follow this link

‘Race’, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies (REPS) PhD symposium

‘Race’, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies (REPS) PhD symposium
London Metropolitan University

6-7 June 2013

link to the event

The Second Havana Declaration-full text

The full text of the Second Declaration of Havana of 4 February 1962 can be found here. Robert Young (2001:p.216) argues that the declaration is also about a transformation of power relations, a reversal in which the dispossessed of the earth have begun to seize power and write their own history. This is of central importance for postcolonial theory and theorists who advocate for social transformation. Some extracts of the declaration follow:

Yes, now history will have to take the poor of America into account, the exploited and spurned of Latin America, who have decided to begin writing history for themselves for all time. Already they can be seen on the roads, on foot, day after day, in endless marches of hundreds of kilometers to the governmental "eminences," to obtain their rights.

Already they can be seen armed with stones, sticks, machetes, in one direction and another, each day, occupying lands, sinking hooks into the land which belongs to them and defending it with their lives. They can be seen carrying signs, slogans, flags; letting them flap in the mountain or prairie winds. And the wave of anger, of demands for justice, of claims for rights, which is beginning to sweep the lands of Latin America, will not stop. That wave will swell with every passing day. For that wave is composed of the greatest number, the majorities in every respect, those whose labor amasses the wealth and turns the wheels of history. Now, they are awakening from the long, brutalizing sleep to which they had been subjected.

What is a nation?

The famous lecture delivered by Ernest Renan at the Sorbonne, 11 March 1882 'Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?' can be found translated in English in the book Nation and Narration which is edited by Homi K. Bhabha. Some abstracts from the lecture follow:

Nations, in this sense of the term, are something fairly new in history. Antiquity was unfamiliar with them; Egypt, China and ancient Chaldea were in no way nations-No nation traces its origins back to Alexander the Great’s momentous adventure, fertile though it was in consequences for the general history of civilization.

p. 11 Forgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical, error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation, which is why progress in historical studies often constitutes a danger for [the principle of] nationality. Indeed, historical enquiry brings to light deeds of violence which took place at the origin of all political formations, even of those whose consequences have been altogether beneficial. Unity is always effected by means of brutality; the union of northern France with the Midid was the result of massacres and terror lastng for the best part of a century.

Yet the essence of a nation is that all individuals have many things in common, and also that they have forgotten many things. FNo French citizen knows whether he is a Burgundian and Alan, a Taifale, or a Visigoth, yet every French citizen has to have forgotten the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, or the massacres that took place in the Midi in the 13^th century.

The modern nation is therefore a historical result brought about by a series of convergent facts. Sometimes unity has been effected by a dynasty, as was the case in France; sometimes it has been brought about by the direct will of provinces, as was the case with Holland, Switzerland, and Belgium; sometimes it has been the work of a general consciousness, belatedly victorious over the caprices of feudalism, as was the case in Italy and Germany.