Lunch seminars 2022

  • Mon
    21
    Nov
    2022

    Incomplete lives: Islamophobia in Belgium as the governance of Muslim subjectivities and restriction of life aspirations

    12-13:30Hybrid. On campus: Faculteitszaal, Blandijnberg 2 9000 Ghent
    In this lunch seminar, An Van Raemdonck will present her research on experiences of racism and Islamophobia among Muslim minorities in Belgium. While phenomena of discrimination have been widely documented, in-depth qualitative research remains scarce. Findings are based on forty semi-structured interviews conducted between 2020-2021 with Belgian Muslims who are second and third-generation immigrants. Education appears as a prime domain where interviewees experience discrimination and racism, resulting in the restriction of life aspirations. The problematization of Muslim subjectivity is discussed through women’s understandings of job acceptance on the condition of hijab removal as a rejection of the (Muslim) self. Respondents’ prospects of the future are therefore afflicted and some express the desire to leave Belgium in search of better life conditions. This analysis refines our understanding of the two main rationales of Islamophobia as governmentality – assimilation and separation – with the intertwined dimensions of governance of Muslim subjectivity and restriction of life aspirations.

    An Van Raemdonck is postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Research on Culture and Gender. Her current research project focuses on Islamic ethics, Islamic conviviality and the ethics of living together in diversity.

    The seminar is hybrid. You can follow on campus or online. Please register here.
  • Mon
    12
    Dec
    2022

    CANCELLED | Tit-for-Tat Media and the Hong Kong Meltdown

    12-13:30Hybrid. On campus: Faculteitszaal, Blandijnberg 2 9000 Ghent

    In this talk, Katrien Jacobs will discuss a polarization in social media discourses and sexual politics in the field of online activism. Political activists across the political spectrum are using online visual cultures as “extreme speech” to target each other and as a mechanism of emotional release and social cohesion. The talk will zoom in on the role of sex-focused visuals used during the Hong Kong Anti-Extradition movement of 2019 and coinciding with “a highly radicalized “laam chau” doctrine. (“If we burn, you will burn with us”). It will outline the wider techno-political contexts of these visuals and also make a plea for archiving and studying them despite their highly contentious and “rubbish-like” nature. It will discuss research methods of “historicizing” and “humanizing” this imagery by positioning them as catalysts for radicalized movements, geopolitical transformations and sexual well-being. At the same time, it will ponder a shift in a researcher’s methods of online ethnography from open and affective encounters or observations towards a cautious handling of highly polarized and politicized materials.

     

     

    About the speaker:
    Katrien Jacobs is adjunct associate professor and research associate at Chinese University of Hong Kong and Ghent University. She is leading scholar of sexuality and gender studies alongside emerging digital cultures and social movements. Her book “Tit-for-Tat Media: The Contentious Bodies and Sex Imagery of Political Activism” was published by Routledge in June 2022. Her work can be found at www.katrienjacobs.com

    Follow the seminar:

    Online: interested participants can register and join on Microsoft Teams

    On-campus: Faculteitszaal, Blandijnberg 2