This talk offers a critical reflection of the invisibility in working on Indigeneity in southwest Asia within the structural imperatives of the academy. It takes up each of these themes by examining the fields of international relations and Iraqi studies to show how the story of Assyrians is invisible or unintelligible across these fields of political science and Middle East studies. Moreover, what the Assyrian story tells us about these disciplines and the multiplicity of coloniality (Patel 2019) is also rendered invisible. Despite the absence of Assyrians from Indigenous studies, Dr. Georgis sees this field as a site from which to potentially globalize Indigeneities. Specifically, she uses Indigenous feminism to construct a more nuanced framework into Assyrian histories, a framework that uses the lens of colonialism, land theft, erasure, and genocide to reframe the Assyrian experience as a remnant of the colonial global order.
Date & Time:
Wednesday, February 26, 2025 | 4:00pm – 6:00pm (PST)
Location:
Room 120, C.K. Choi Building, 1855 West Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
This talk is free and open to the public. Registration is required.
Speaker
Mariam Georgis is Assistant Professor of Global Indigeneity in the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University. She is Assyrian, Indigenous to present-day Iraq and currently living on and sustained by the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the Tsleil-Waututh, Kwikwetlem, Squamish, and Musqueam Nations. Grounded in embodied decolonial feminist epistemologies, her scholarship is located at the nexus of global politics, critical Indigenous studies, and Middle East studies. Her research interests include issues of global violence and security; global colonialism, Indigeneities, and decolonization; and politics of southwest Asia.
This event is hosted by the UBC Asian Studies Indigenous Asia Initiative Steering Committee.
Contact: Dr. Fuyubi Nakamura, the committee chair
Email: fuyubi.nakamura@ubc.ca
