Moving Forward
Anti-racist Black Organizing and Coalition Building in Canada: Looking Back to Move Ahead
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Belen Samuel, Dip Kapoor
Drawing on document and literature-based research and thirteen years of experience in anti-racist Black organizing in Canada as a woman of African descent, including recent work with a collective of African and Caribbean youth, this paper provides a brief sketch of the historical efforts of Black organizing and coalition building in Canada (Turtle Island). These insights will then be used to, both, analyze and inform contemporary mobilizations including that of social movements like Black Lives Matter (BLM) Canada and community organizing initiatives undertaken by voluntary organizations like the Africa Centre on Treaty 6 (Indigenous) territories in western Canada. The purpose of this graduate participatory research initiative is to contribute towards the research-based understanding and continued development of Black organizing and coalition building in Canada by addressing some of the following questions: (1) What can we learn from the history of specific (cases) of Black organizing initiatives in Canada (e.g. the Canadian experience with anti/slavery)? (2) What do contemporary cases of Black organizing and coalition building look like (e.g. Black Lives Matter)? What can we learn from these initiatives to strengthen the continued anti-racist political prospects of these struggles? (3) What are the ways in which we might need to re-think current organizing work? (4) What is the place of Indigenous sovereignty struggles in relation to Black organizing and vice versa? The research is theoretically and analytically informed by and contributes towards Black Feminist theory and the work of the Combahee River Collective (1979).
The Challenges of South African Rural Communities Land Restitution Process: A Criminological and Legal Nexus in Traditional Leaders' Arsenal
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Maluleke Witness, Smangele Shandu
Post-apartheid administrations in South Africa are currently faced with readdressing the legacy of multifaceted poverty and social inequalities created by the apartheid politics. Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Act (No. 22 of 1994) was passed to offer a solution to people who had lost their land as a result of racially discriminatory practices such as forced removals. Between 2014 and 2016 conflicting matters emerged regarding the Land Restitution Amendment Act (No. 15 of 2014) in terms of prioritisation of finalisation and processing of land claims. On the contrary, unlimited challenges still affect settlements of land claims in South Africa, with the traditional leaders continuing with corrupt activities on this subject. This paper revisits the existing legislative frameworks and to enhance transparency on land claims processes as administered by traditional leaders through application of ‘Criminological and Legal theories’ (Differential Association Theory, Legal Justice Theory and Routine Activities Theory). Through the use of non-empirical research design - systematic review. This research found and recommends that outstanding backlogs of land claims are enormous and constraints in the government expenditure, persistence of landlessness and rural communities poverty and ambiguity of the land-reform policies were also observed by the researchers and it could not be established whether the selected Acts and criminological and legal theories play a significant role in determining rightful allocations of land effectively in South African rural communities, with the traditional leaders presently acting as colonial agents of land restitution process. This should be addressed urgently.
State, Globalization, and Indigenous Issues in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Aditya Kumar Dewan
Three decades ago, I argued in my doctoral thesis (Class and Ethnicity in the Hills of Bangladesh, 1990) that ethnic conflicts in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) emerged as a consequences of British, Pakistani, and Bengali colonialism, modernization, and development projects undertaken by the international aid agencies. The conclusion of the thesis was that the Indigenous peoples (IP) of the CHT have very little chance to survive as societies, as human populations if the Bangladesh Government continues to follow the present patterns of violence directed against them. The government is not likely to modify its destructive and genocidal policies in the hills because of strong support it receives from donor countries and international aid agencies. It was also predicted that the IP's in the CHT, especially those who live in rural areas will be totally eliminated, and may literally be exterminated in massacres, and their lands will be taken over by the Bengali settlers. The native elites will be assimilated into Bengali society, culture, and religion. As a final result the whole IP population will disappear without any outside interference or protest. Based on contemporary scholarly research works on the CHT IPs, and my occasional fieldwork in the area, this paper explores whether those arguments and predictions made about thirty years ago are still valid and relevant.
