Decolonise UoM

The concept of race is inherently associated with colonialism and coloniality. It is an integral part of the coloniser/colonised dynamic that continues to manifest itself in everyday, interpersonal interactions. In order to conceptualise the pervasive presence of race within the colonial endeavour it is essential to contextualise the origins of race within the period of European expansion. It is, for instance, well established that, ‘ for centuries, Europeans attempted to make sense of human diversity, classifying people by how they differed from themselves’. [1] The categories that were subsequently produced paved the way for the production of a racial hierarchy which, within the colonial context, involved the ‘ systematic negation of the other person and a furious determination to deny the other person all attributes of humanity’. [2] The heavily intertwined, and oftentimes interdependent, relationship between race and European, colonial history becomes increasingly undeniable the

  Excerpts of conversation with Linda Brogan - an intergenerational exchange, focusing on institutional battles, decolonisation, slavery and trauma.   Beginning as a short interview about Brogan’s recent Reno exhibition at the Whitworth Gallery, our Zoom discussion sprawled into a few hours of debate and discourse- an intergenerational exchange as activists and creatives. Much of the discussion focused on identity and how it has influenced our practice. Linda Brogan is a playwright and artist, recently in the spotlight for her curation of this show. The Reno exhibition used interviews and images to examine the lives of those from Moss Side in Manchester, who frequented the Reno nightclub. It was a safe haven for those of mixed-race descent, labelled ‘half caste’ by locals in the area.  Brogan was a fellow club-goer, who is herself half Irish and half Jamaican. In our long conversations I enjoyed her quick wit, warm laugh and Mancunian sensibility.     On black lives maters- not just