Decolonising Truth Globally: Seeking Sovereignty and Reparations through Truth-Telling

The Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADI) and the Institute for Postcolonial Studies (IPCS) will be running a series of seminars on international experiences of truth-telling with particular relevance to the unfolding conversation about truth-telling in Australia following the release of the Uluru Statement calling for Voice, Treaty and Truth in 2017.

The seminars are intended to foster a critically important conversation about the possibilities and challenges of truth-telling by drawing on the experience of truth-telling processes in other global contexts. The series will focus particularly on truth processes that have impacted on Indigenous communities in order to share knowledge that may help inform an Australian truth-telling process.

Thus far, globally, truth-telling has often been linked to discourses of recognition and reconciliation within a multicultural project. While recognition and reconciliation remain important, this symposium will explore what truth-telling with an explicitly decolonial focus might look like. It will ask specifically how truth telling can restore sovereignty and ensure reparations in a practical sense – what initiatives are necessary for this to happen?

Part 1: The Colombian Peace Process: Truth-telling in times of continuing conflict

The series will begin with a seminar on the Colombian truth process. Colombia has endured more than 50 years of civil conflict that has included the left-wing guerrilla group FARC-EP), right-wing paramilitaries and crime syndicates. This long-lasting armed conflict has left more than eight million people officially recognised as victims. After a historic Peace Accord in 2016 a Truth Commission for the Clarification of Truth and No Repetition was created in 2017. This process is still ongoing. The seminar will feature two speakers from the Truth Commission.

The seminar will be conducted with Spanish-English interpretation.

SPEAKERS

María Patricia Tobón Yagarí is a Commissioner at the Colombian Truth Commission. She is an Indigenous women of the Emberá people and is a lawyer who specialises in territorial ethnic rights and constitutional law. As Commissioner she oversees the work of the Directorates of Ethnic Peoples and Social Dialogue.

Alejandra Londoño Bustamante is a historian with a Masters degree in Gender Studies and research interests in the social and political history of Colombian women and questions of historical memory. She is currently in charge of the analysis of social and cultural factors contributing to the Colombian conflict, specifically those associated with racist and patriarchal relationships.

FACILITATOR

Laura Rodriguez Castro is a researcher, writer and educator employed as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute of Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. Her research focuses on decolonial feminisms, anti-racism, rurality and difficult memories. Her book, “Decolonial Feminisms, Power and Place: Sentipensando with Rural Women in Colombia” (2021) explores how rural women enact and imagine decolonial feminist worlds.

Descolonizando la verdad globalmente – Parte 1: El proceso de paz en Colombia y la verdad en tiempos de continuidad del conflicto

PONENTES

Maria Patricia Tobón Yagarí (Comisionada) y Alejandra Londoño de la Comisión de la Verdad

MODERADORA

Laura Rodriguez Castro, Investigadora Post-doctoral, Instituto Alfred Deakin para la Ciudadanía y la Globalización, Universidad de Deakin

El seminario se realizará con interpretación en Inglés y en Español.