In the News
Silence No More: Perspectives on Black Ecologies
Monday, April 1, 2024
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
NYU KJCC Auditorium
53 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012
This event seeks to deepen our understanding of the contestations of the ecological-spiritual practices that Black cultures on both sides of the Atlantic have faced since the beginning of the colonial era with respect to African environmental knowledge and ecological relationships.
Professor Saudi Garcia – Afro-Caribbean Queer Feminist & Anthropologist.
Professor William Narteh Gblerkpor – Ghanaian Anthropological Archaeologist, Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies.
Professor Alex A. Moulton – Black Geographer, Ecological Justice, and Political Ecology. Hunter College, NYC.
Image Artist: Professor Tao Leigh Goffe
Title - Kill Them with the “No!”
maroon / mawon / marron (2022-ongoing)
Institute of Jamaica (IOJ), Kingston.
While many scholars and practitioners who have supported the ongoing desire to encourage a more racially diverse environmental conservation movement, some caution against exhumations of the past histories of Africans/Afro-descendants, noting that such retrospective projects only diminish the contributions of modern-day Afro-descendants or fetishize spurious past African environmental knowledge.
Our panel discusses the importance of centering silenced histories, cultural resistance, marronage, and Black environmental knowledge/experiences as part of environmental and racial justice movements and with the academic fields of Black Geographies and Black Ecologies.
Bios:
Dr. William Narteh Gblerkpor is an anthropological archaeologist and cultural heritage and museum studies expert. He holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from The University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Philosophy in Archaeology from the University of Ghana. His research and writing explore the dynamic roles of material culture, landscapes, and the natural environment in the historical and contemporary construction and maintenance of social identities and livelihoods in West Africa.
Dr. Saudi Garcia is an Assistant Professor of Medical & Environmental Anthropology at The New School for Social Research and the Executive Director of In Cultured Company, a social change organization repairing the harm of anti-Blackness and colonization among Dominicans and Haitians
Alex A. Moulton is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Geography and Environmental Science at Hunter College. Dr. Alex Moulton earned his PhD in Geography from Clark University, with a MS in Geography from East Carolina University and a BSc in Geography and Geology from the University of the West Indies, Mona. His research examines Black geographical epistemologies and history, ecological justice, community resource governance, landscape legacies of colonization, and political ecology of environmental change. Working at the intersection of critical social science, the environmental humanities, and physical geography, his research draws on a range of methodologies and epistemologies. Prior to Hunter College, Dr. Moulton was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville with previous teaching appointments at Middle Tennessee State University and the University of the West Indies, Jamaica.