About the event
This event will take place in person at The Gradate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Ave, NYC, Room 5414. Register here to attend in person. For more information and to get a visitor pass contact Juan Corredor García at [email protected]
This conversation will be conducted in Spanish with interpretation into English.
Watch the conversation via Facebook Live in the Colombian Studies Group here @csgcuny
“I’m part of a process, of a history of struggle and resistance that began with my ancestors brought here under conditions of slavery. I'm part of the struggle against structural racism; I’m part of those who fight to give birth to freedom and justice; I’m part of those who preserve hope for a better life, of those women who use maternal love to take care of their territory as a living space, of those who raise their voices to stop the destruction of the rivers, the forests, the paramo ecosystem.”
A social leader from the southwest of Colombia, Francia Márquez is part of the “Process of Black Communities of Colombia" and “The Mobilization of Afro-Descendant Women for the Preservation of Life and Ancestral Territories” movements. Márquez’s struggle in the defense of the territory has been recognized by the prestigious Human Rights and Environmental Goldman Prize Award. She is currently the first Black presidential candidate in the history of Colombia.
In the context of the Colombian presidential campaign and in the week of March 8, International Women’s Day, a date when feminists across Latin America call for an Antiracist and Abolitionist Feminist General Strike, the Colombian Studies Group wants to invite you to join us for a conversation with women activists involved in this movement. Members from Las comadres del distrito de Aguablanca will join the conversation remotely (from Cali).
Speakers:
María Elvira Solís, Alicia Arrechea, Ana Yudith Gamboa, and Elena Hinestroza Vente from Las comadres del distrito de Aguablanca, a group of afro-Colombian women displaced from their territory due to the country's internal conflict. Singers, storytellers, and poets, “Las comadres” have gathered together around the idea of "el Comadreo por la Paz" as a strategy to resist and transform their pain through song and art.
Elizabeth Castañeda is an activist who works to politicize the Colombian diaspora and further implement the Peace Agreements and respect for Human Rights.
Sarah Ohmer is an Assistant Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies, African American Studies, and Women's Studies at Lehman College in the Bronx, NY, and editorial board member of the Women's Studies Quarterly Journal. Ohmer's research focuses on the intersection of gender, race, class and trauma in literature by Black Women from Cuba, Brazil, and Colombia.
Moderated by Juan Corredor García, PhD student in Political Science, CUNY. Co-chair of the Colombian Studies Group.
This event is organized and hosted by The Colombian Studies Group, which is a space for interdisciplinary dialogue with an Inter-American, progressive, and critical perspective. This event is media co-sponsored by the Archives in Common: Migrant Practices/Knowledges/Memory project led by Ángeles Donoso Macaya as part of the Seminar on Public Engagement and Collaborative Research from the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center CUNY.
