Françoise Vergès: The world is made through struggle
In this episode, I sit down with the incredible Françoise Vergès. We had a beautiful conversation about how the politics of Réunion has animated her life's work, how she was brought up in the struggle alongside the revolutionaries in her family, about her time in Algeria and Paris, decolonial feminisms (of course!), and the centrality of psychic life to our ongoing fight against fascism and oppressive systems. We honestly talked about so so much more, so I am excited for you to hear it! It was such an honor to sit down with a sister-comrade who has shaped so much of my thinking and political orientation to scholarship.
Françoise Vergès is a political theorist, curator and writer. She writes on the racist fabrication of premature death, decolonial feminism, the impossible decolonization of the western museum, climate disaster and antiracist, anticapitalist politics of vital needs. She works with artists and curates, since 2015, public performances with artists and activists. She is currently working on a film about anti colonial struggles in Reunion Island through her parents' personal archives and her own.
For more information and on and links to Françoise's powerful work, see her website: https://francoiseverges.com/ [https://francoiseverges.com/]
This is the passage I read from Françoise's landmark A Decolonial Feminism (Pluto, 2019):
"I used a familiar fruit, the banana, to shed light on a number of analogies and elective affinities: the banana's dispersion from New Guinea to the rest of the world, the banana and slavery, the banana and US imperialism (banana republics), the banana and agribusiness (pescticides, insecticides--the chlordecone scandal in the Antilles), the banana and working conditions (the plantation regimes, sexual violence, repression), the banana and the environment (monocultures, pilluted water and land), the banana and sexuality (Josephine Baker), the banana and branding (Banana Republic), the banana and racism (when did the association of bananas and Negrophobia begin?), the banana and science (researching the 'perfect' banana), the banana and consumption (bringing bananas into the home, suggesting recipes), the banana and rituals for ancestors, and the banana and contemporary art. The method is simple: starting from one element to uncover a political, economic, cultural, and social ecosystem in order to avoid segmentation that the Western social-sciece method has imposed." p. 21-22
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