Course Race, space and affect- critical inquires into processes of othering, racialization and non- belonging

Course description

In this course we will introduce central theoretical and methodological perspectives on othering, belonging and racialization specifically looking into how body, space, affect and race intersect and are entangled in specific educational contexts. As Nirmal Puwar (2004) reminds us; “Social spaces are not blank and open for any body to occupy. Over time, through processes of historical sedimentation, certain types of bodies are designated as being the “natural” occupants of specific spaces…. Some bodies have the right to belong in certain locations, while others are marked out as trespassers who are in accordance with how both spaces and bodies are imagined, politically, historically and conceptually circumscribed as being “out of place.” (p. 51) 

Space and race are interlocked and mutually constitutive in processes of differentiation. From the demarcation, stratification, and planning of specific neighbourhoods and areas as white, brown or Black (e.g. Lipsitz, 2007, Neely & Samura 2011) to the more subtle affective experiences of feeling more or less welcome and at ease in specific contexts and spaces within e.g. education or work places (Puwar 2004, Ahmed 2012, Berisha 2023), bodies are more less easily able to pass through or be stopped. The latter, the affective experiences of being stopped are often what becomes telling of the spatialized racial structures of a given space. In Sara Ahmed’s analysis of academic space and non-belonging (2012) she speaks about arrivals – how bodies arrive in certain spaces and how certain affects stick to certain racialized, gendered bodies. Affects that encompass surprise, shame, and anger. This relates to how bodies become telling of certain spaces, and how relations of belonging to particular somewheres emerge through (1) proximity/distance to the bodily norm constructed in and through a given space, and (2) how bodies differentially become (in)visible in relation to the (3) affective, epistemic, and ontological logics of the given space. When one becomes visible as a disruption that demands explanation, you are not assumed to be someone who naturally belong to that space (Khawaja 2011, in press). 
In this course we wish to delve into how some bodies, groups, positions and spaces are marked as othered and how these processes and demarcations are intwined with racialization, affect and embodied knowledge making.

We will examine

1. How it is possible to understand and conceptualize processes of othering, racialization and non-belonging as entangled with how spaces, bodies and affects (are allowed to) come into being?  
2. How it is possible to investigate and interrogate these processes methodologically? Do we need different forms of methods, sensibilities and approaches to grasp the often ephemeral, affective, embodied and spatialized processes of othering and racialization?  

Drawing on a combination of post- and decolonial theory, affect theory, critical race theory, queer and posthumanist feminist theory, we will focus on the theoretical perspectives, methodological potentials and analytical scopes of these perspectives in carving out new ways of understanding and researching what it means to be othered. This entails looking into e.g. autobiographical methods, creative methodologies, hauntology and memory work.    

Aim

The students will gain insights into

1. Central conceptualizations of and perspectives on otherness, racialization and belonging
2. Analytical potentials of looking into ways in which race, space and affect intersect in specific historical and institutional contexts
3. Methodological reflections on and hands-on experience of investigating spatialized, affective, and embodied processes of racialization and othering

Target group/Participants

• PhD students both at early and late stages of their fellowship who are interested in and engaged with questions related to how space, body and affect are entangled in processes of inclusion/exclusion and othering, as well questions of how to explore these processes via embodied and creative methodologies.

Language 

• English

ECTS-credits

• 2,5

Lecturers

• Nirmal Puwar, Goldsmiths University, UK

• Yasmin Gunaratnam, Kings College London, UK

• Carla Ramirez, NTNU, Norway

• Iram Khawaja, DPU, AU, Denmark

Literature

• Ahmed, S. (2012) On being included- Racism and diversity in institutional life, London, Duke University Press.
• Acharya, M., & Muasya, G. I. (2023). Sensible Ruptures: Towards Embodiedand Relational Ways of Knowing. Kvinder, Køn &Forskning, 36(2), 29–45.https://doi.org/10.7146/kkf.v36i2.138090
• Berisha, T. (2023) Racialized Spatial Attachments– Researcher Positionality and Access in a Danish Suburban High School. Kvinder, Køn og Forskning. 23(2).
• Ivinson Gabrielle, Renold E. J. Neely, B. & Samura, M. (2011) Socialgeographies of race: connecting race and space, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34:11, 1933-1952.
• Puwar, Nirmal. (2004). Space Invaders: race, gender and bodies out of place. Berg.
• Puwar, Nirmal (2021) Carrying as method: listening to bodies as archives. Body & Society 27(1): 3–26.
• Ramirez, Carla (2023): Entangled with the past in Norwegian academia, Gender and Education, DOI: 10.1080/09540253.2023.2272817
• Springgay Sarah E., Truman Stephanie E. (2017)(2021) What more do bodies know? Moving with the gendered affects of place. Body & Society27(1): 85–112.
• Khawaja, I. (Accepteret/In press). ”The surprise element”: Racialized differentiation and the negotiation of visibility, transparency and opacity in STEM . Gender, Place and Culture.
• Khawaja Iram (2022) Memory work as engaged critical pedagogy: creating collaborative spaces for reflections on racialisation, privilege and whiteness. Nordic Journal of Social Research13(1): 94–107.
• Lipsitz, G. (2007) The racialization of space and the spatialization of race: Theorizing the Hidden Architecture of Landscape. Landscape Journal, vol. 26, 1-14.
• Gunaratnam, Y., Kisubi Mbasalaki, P., & Matchett,S. (2024). How to do social research with...WhatsApp soapie. In R. Coleman, K. J., &N. Puwar (Eds.), How to do social research with... (pp. 265-273). Goldsmiths Press.https://www.gold.ac.uk/goldsmiths-press/publications/how-to-do-social-research-with/
• Lugones, M. (2010). “Toward a Decolonial Feminism.” Hypatia 25 (4): 742–759.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2010.01137.x 
• Mignolo, W. D. (2009). “Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and Decolonial Freedom.” Theory, Culture &Society 26 (7-8): 159–181.https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276409349275

Venue

• 7 April 2025: Emdrupvej 115B , 2400 København NV. Building D 7220, room D166
• 8 April 2025: Emdrupvej 115B, 2400 København NV. Building 7220/D, room D170
• 9 April 2025: Emdrupvej 115B, 2400 København NV. Building 7220/D, room D170

Course dates:

• 07 April 2025 09:00 - 16:00
• 08 April 2025 09:00 - 16:00
• 09 April 2025 09:00 - 16:00