“Since 2010, DSN activities have contributed critical knowledge on how sexuality, race and religion intersect within state law and policy as well as within civil society developments in different national settings”
Meet the Directors
Welcome to the website of the Decolonizing Sexualities Network! The network is managed by two directors: Sandeep Bakshi (Université Paris Cité, Paris, France) and Paola Bacchetta (University of California, Berkeley, US).
Sandeep Bakshi Hi! I’m a queer vegan of colour academic in the global north. My work spans disparate terrains of decolonial knowledges, queer memories, and sartorial, literary, oral, and food cultures.
Institutional webpage: https://larca.u-paris.fr/en/membre/bakshi-sandeep-2/.
Find me on Twitter: @sandeepbak
and on Instagram: @sandeep.bak
Paola Bacchetta Greetings folks, I am an academic and long-time QTPOC activist. My areas of work are: analytics of relations of power (colonialism, coloniality, racism, capitalism, sexism, queerphobia, speciism, environment); decolonial, postcolonial and global southern queer theories; lesbian and queer of color activisms and artivisms; political conflict; and space. My writings are here: http://berkeley.academia.edu/PaolaBacchetta
Former Members of the DSN Advisory Board
Suhraiya Jivraj Hi! I’m an activist academic taking a critical/decolonial approach to issues of race/religion in law and gender, sexuality and Islam.
Silvia Posocco My background is in anthropology and transnational gender and sexuality studies. My research to date has focused on the study of violence, conflict, genocide, life and death. You can find some of my work here: silviaposocco (wordpress.com)
The Decolonizing Sexualities Network (DSN) was established after a transnational workshop held in Berlin in 2010. This 'Decolonise Queer' (DQ) (as it was then) event was organised by queer/trans people of colour (QTPOC) and allies involved in local anti-racism and other social justice work, many of whom are now key figures in the emerging field of decolonial sexuality studies.
The History of the Network
- 2010 -
Managing to collectively scrape together bits of funding the DQ workshop in Berlin brought together scholars, activists and civil society practitioners from different geographical locations working on the diverse ways in which sexuality can converge with religious and racial identities to produce multiple exclusions and socio-economic disadvantage as well as political marginalisation. Our first workshop was to develop links and conversations between various constituencies working across the themes of the network.
Seeking to continue this work a number of us from DQ set about securing funding from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Research Networking Scheme for another phase under the name Decolonizing Sexualities Network to strengthen and develop the activities initiated in Berlin.
- 2012 to 2014 -
A series of on-line discussions between October 2012 and June 2013 examining topics falling under two broad themes: a. re-mapping the urgent questions in local contexts; and b. facilitating transnational QTPOC Conversations across the Global South and across Europe.
A two-day invitee-only international workshop took place in the UK in July 2013 preceded by an open round-table event and followed by an activist public talk and workshop in London.
A second DSN round-table event and Queer African Reader book launch in December 2013.
-2019-
First Decolonial Cafe series
-2021-
Second Decolonial Cafe series to celebrate a decade of collective efforts as DSN
As a result these DSN activities have contributed critical knowledge on how sexuality, race and religion intersect within state law and policy as well as within civil society developments in different national settings.
The continued overall aim of the DSN has been to continue re-mapping some of the specifically local issues as well as the common ones affecting all QTPOC transnationally through events, publications and social media.
DSN Publications
The DSN anthology Decolonizing Sexualities: Transnational Perspectives, Critical Interventions (2016) http://counterpress.org.uk/publications/decolonizing-sexualities/
(Sliding Scale pricing)
The DSN Special Issue of Interventions, 22.4 “Decolonial Trajectories: Praxes and Challenges” (2020) https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/riij20/22/4?nav=tocList
(Open Access)
“The volume is more than timely. First, it contributes to the field of decolonial queer theory, second it offers a transnational approach, third it never seeks to fix categories, and finally, and more importantly, it centred on narratives of solidarity and alliance which are so important today in a world under the assault of financial capitalism, new politics of dispossession and colonization, and new politics of division and fragmentation.”
Françoise Verges
(Chair Global South(s), College d’études mondiales, Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris)
