Amsterdam Assembly: Letting Go of Having to Speak All the Time

by Nuraini Juliastuti (University of Amsterdam), Carine Zaayman (Vrije Universiteit & RCMC)

 

How can we talk to each other to pass down intergenerational memories? How can we not repeat violent patterns in our ecosystems? Let us practice intellectual humility. Let us step aside, let us stop taking centre stage. Let us talk to each other and practice listening. We will sit and think together. We will write in commons and pass on certain knowledges and wisdoms. How do we start listening?

 

Towards an ethics of listening

We conceived the Amsterdam “Academy” to take two forms: A Reasoning (which took the form of a podcast), and an Assembly (an in-person gathering). Throughout our programme, we sought to create a space for organic conversation and a sense of togetherness. Listening as a methodology was a vital part of our planning, and so we invited people to listen with us and with each other. In this way, we explored decolonization as a process of listening.

In conceptualising the Reasoning and the Assembly, each member of the Amsterdam team (Chiara De Cesari, Nuraini Juliastuti, Wayne Modest and Carine Zaayman) reflected on what the concepts “assembly” and “gathering” meant to each of us. We were thinking of existing vernacular concepts around gathering and thinking together such as byeenkoms (gathering) and kuiering in Afrikaans, musyawarah (discussing things together to achieve a collective decision) in Bahasa Indonesia. “To kuier” in South African communities is about sitting together and chatting, chilling or eating. In Caribbean (especially Rastafari) culture, “Reasoning” refers to a practice where a speaker begins by pitching an idea within a group setting, which is then taken up by others in the group, in this way producing a lengthy line of conversation, reflection and exchange. The different forms of conversational practices with which each of us in the Dutch team were familiar informed how we structured conversations within the Assembly — not by following academic practices, but by drawing on these other forms of thinking together. In the authoritarian contexts where Nuraini and Carine grew up (Indonesia and apartheid South Africa) by contrast, consensus and in consultation are/were often perceived as dirty words that work(ed) to exclude the voices of those communities side-lined from hierarchical political and neoliberal structures.[1]

Reasoning and Assembly worked alongside each other as platforms where people from multiple decolonised contexts could think together to map their decolonization questions and specific forms of coloniality. Through creating the conversation space, we developed a list of various projects that are happening and overlap with each other. We invited people from these projects into our programme. This allowed us to trace longer histories of decolonization and activism and as a result surfaced interesting connections between diverse geographies, such as, among others, the spatial resistance work of the tea ladies in Sudan with the grass-roots community organizing work of Lakoat.Kujawas. New concerns about the meaning of visibility and transparency in activism practices were especially pertinent in our discussions. In the conversations that we had prior to the Assembly we asked the following questions: In what ways can we imagine different modes of networking with those people to whom we are connected and with whom we wish to be in conversation? How can we formulate ethics for working together, while being critical to horizontality at the same time? What kind of collaboration does not produce more violent justice?

While this Assembly took place in the Netherlands, we wanted it to be a site of reflection where activists, artists, and cultural practitioners in the Netherlands thought about their struggles and positionalities in relation to the pressing matters in different contexts globally.

Connecting Oceans: Connecting from below

The Reasoning took the format of a podcast series structured as a chain conversation, or a blind date that collects (re)definitions of terms, in what we would like to imagine as a “decolonial toolkit” that would feed into the Assembly and the larger Worlding Public Cultures project. The podcast was imagined as leading into the Assembly but then also to continue after the Assembly and keep going on its own.

The chain conversation started with Indonesia and South Africa, so as to anchor the podcast outside Europe, and in particular to Nuraini and Carine’s places of birth. It is conceived to spiral out to Somalia and Somaliland, St Martin and so forth, with the input of the activists and friends of the project. The first episode of Connecting Oceans podcast featured Tauriq Jenkins, Diah Widuretno, and Dicky Senda. Tauriq Jenkins is an activist, scholar, dramaturg, and is based in the University of Cape Town. Dicky Senda is a writer, food activist and community organiser in Lakoat.Kujawas in Mollo, South Central Timor. Diah Widuretno is a scholar, activist, community organiser in Sekolah Pagesangan in Yogyakarta. This podcast was the first occasion where Tauriq, Dicky, and Diah met and had a conversation together. Using the blind date as a concept in the podcast, the speakers were encouraged to share a common ground along with the flow of the conversation.

The conversation between Tauriq, Dicky, and Diah, reminded us of the historical Asia Africa - Bandung Conference that took place in 1955 in Indonesia, Asian-African Writers’ Bureau (1958-1978) or Tricontinental Conference (1966). Such remembrance emerges from the realization of how the opportunities to connect Indonesia and South Africa have been limited within certain historical periods. We need more of the connection opportunities to happen. Through Connecting Oceans, we hope to create more genuine, friendly, productive connections that operate on a grassroot level – as opposed to the state-to-state connections.

The podcast was broadcast during the second day of the Assembly through Ragadigiogo, an online radio station that describes itself as “an online community radio and collection of transmissions for friends in the equator.” Julian Togar Abraham introduced us to Ragadigiogo. Togar contributed a sound experience during the Decolonial Joy Party, which took place on the second evening of the Assembly. He is part of the radio station, which grew out of his fellowship, along with his other colleagues, in de Appel Amsterdam. Fiky Daulay — Nuraini’s colleague in Kunci Study Forum & Collective helped with all aspects of the podcast production.

Carine Zaayman, Drawing of Blind Date Conversation, 2021.

 

Structures: Modes of listening, building toolkits

The Amsterdam Assembly was structured around different registers of listening. We wanted to amplify the sound of today’s struggles. We wanted the Assembly to be a space where these sounds could be heard as loud as possible. They might emerge as disturbances, or interference, to the dominant sound, that is, the voices of those who have been centralized for decades. We wanted to design a space to hear stories and facilitate conversations. We wanted to make a space where people across communities can make honest and caring connections. We also wanted the Assembly to be a space where people could talk about what can be done here and now, and could feel the joy of just being together.

To follow this, the formats of the listening practices produced during the Assembly were varied. It ranged from scholarly lectures, talks, storytelling, mixtape, writing together, to a music performance and party. The formats were also based on the speakers’ practices and current activities. Togar has made the work “Ears have no self-defense mechanism”, on which our Decolonial Joy Party was based. The IMAGINART group has been using the mixtape as a format to disseminate the critical learning process. Nneka Mora, Amir Mohammadi, and Godfrey Lado from the ASKV Embassy Group have been practicing storytelling to critically discuss contexts, dreams, wisdom, and destination.

The third day of the Assembly was titled “Building the toolkit, or learning the habits for liberation.” The Assembly was not intended to be a once-off event, but rather something which would see its rippling effects inform multiple conversations beyond the event itself. The Assembly was imagined as a space where the participants could develop useful toolkits for their practices. While we used the word “toolkit”, we also intended to problematize it. “Toolkit” suggests a playful way for doing something, or a determination to give a sense of purpose to the doings. However, it also makes one think that a complete set of tools might be available, which is not the case. The concept of thinking toolkit instead as “habits for liberation” came from Quinsy Gario during one of our conversations before the Assembly to trouble the sense of ease or completion that “toolkit” by itself might suggest. The word “habit” suggests regular practice and continuation. This is the attitude that we wanted to learn and acquire from the Assembly.

Organizational ethics

We let the ethics of listening guide the ways for structuring the event instead of formulating a particular topic to govern the Assembly “from above.” We mapped out various issues and topics based on the research interests of the Amsterdam team members, combined with the team’s observation on the dynamics of the social movement in the local contexts. Instead of a certain theme for the Assembly, we thought about the following areas of listening – radical pedagogies, politics of archiving, and institutionalism.

          In the early phase of planning the Assembly, we invited a group of artists, thinkers, and activists to think together, share their concerns, and collaborate with us. They were Simone Zeefuik, Nawal Mustafa, and Quinsy Gario. During the course of the Assembly, it also led us to collaborate with other people who inhabited various intellectual spaces outside the universities. It was something which partly resulted from the intention to use listening as a guidance. These conversations brought forward the diverse topics to be discussed in the Assembly, in manners which were not limited to the scholarly accounts of telling something. The Assembly was a space where artists, thinkers, and activists were allowed to do interventions.

          Ola Hassanain talked about spatial politics, policies, and new possibilities for dialogues. @No.More.Later (Gizem Üstüner and M.C. Julie Yu) talked about their experiences of convening an international art student network in the Netherlands. Lúcia Rosa (from the Dulcinéia Catadora collective) delivered a lecture on publishing as a social movement, and presented a book-making workshop. Deborah Thomas (from the Practicing Refusal Collective - The Sojourner Project) delivered a lecture on embodiment, performance, decolonisation, and listening practices. Quinsy Gario gave a lecture on a decade of Zwarte Piet is Racisme and the Carnival. IMAGINART (Yazan Khalili, Eszter Szakacs, Aria Spinelli, Chiara de Cesari, Abdulkerim Pusat, Nuraini Juliastuti, Carine Zaayman) reflected on their mixtape on radical institutionalism. We had a storytelling session with Homing (Frigiti Tori: vergeten verhalen van de gedeelde geschiedenis tussen Nederland en Suriname), The PAO Embassy ASKV: Stories Where We Are From (Nneka Mora from Nigeria and Amir Mohammadi from Iran, Godfrey Lado), and Lakoat.Kujawas (Mollo, Indonesia). Hodan Warsame led the reflection session. Julian Togar Abraham, Diana Cantarey, Daniel Aguilar Ruvalcaba, and Sungeun Lee organised a Decolonial Joy Party. Tracian Meikle delivered a lecture on building community for liberation. Quinsy Gario and Maya Rae Oppenheimer led the Writing in Commons: Decolonial Companion Book workshop.

          The Amsterdam Assembly took place in Framer Framed (Amsterdam), from 7-9 October 2021. The Assembly was organised in a hybrid form – online and offline. The offline parts of the Assembly were conducted within the architecture of the installation work “Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes” by Radha D’Souza and Jonas Staal. Leonardiansyah Allenda made graphic recordings of all the Assembly sessions, which will be published alongside excerpts from the presentations in our Amsterdam Assembly chapbook.

Writing in Commons

The Assembly ended with the Writing in Commons session. The session was thought of as a space where the participants could gather, compare notes, and rewrite the collected keywords and concepts based on their experiences and histories, as well as concerns that emerged during the Assembly. We perceived writing together as an act to develop a collective reflection.

There were some references that we used in thinking about the session. We thought about spoken word performances and the tradition of building something by bringing together the works of numerous people. The Assembly took place in the time of the pandemic, and thus drew on the new possibilities to write together facilitated by the technologies we have all had to adopt. This is the new modality that we wanted to maximize in the Writing in Commons, the nascent sense of forms of collaboration necessitated by physical separation. The session maximized the use of Google Docs to write simultaneously, to share, and to comment on one another’s thoughts.

The Writing in Commons session was also intended to mark the beginning of the Decolonial Companion Glossary book. There was some reservation about whether the product of the collective writing would satisfy the conventional standards of academic writing. But we wanted to nurture the idea that intellectual writing should not be limited to a particular style. Inherent in our thinking was to value the dialogue process that would take place during the session. We wanted to produce different types of voices through promoting diversity of formats for our (collective) intellectual work.

The following is the Writing in Commons invitation written by Maya Rae Oppenheimer and Quinsy Gario, used to begin the session:

Keywords > Making Words > Making Worlds > Worlding Words

Join us for <Writing in Commons> to reflect upon and write around the Amsterdam Assembly’s events and discussions. This will be a wording-in rather than a winding-down: participants are invited to take time to build with and around language together by following a series of guided writing prompts and actions.

The collective writing session will unfold across three parts including breaks and slow moments: wor(l)ding up the session and collective trust; gathering a glossary of keywords drawn from the Assembly; indexing across our growing entries, both within our document and beyond.

What to bring: your time, attention, notes and curiosity to write together. We invite you to consider 2-3 words that you feel are particularly rich and relate to discussions from the Assembly. This session will use Zoom and shared Google folder for live-writing, set up by the facilitators.

<< We will all retain access to our writing, as a collective, and participants are welcome to download the documents as they change over time. >>

As an event, the Amsterdam Assembly might be behind us, but as an idea, a platform, we hope that it is but the start of an organic process that will continue to grow. The intensity of the three days of the event forged friendships and connections which will shape our future thinking.