Gregory Lecture: Decolonizing Asylum: Colonialism, Racism, and Humanitarianism in the Shaping of Refugees' (Un)belonging in East Africa. Event

The Lecture will be given by Professor Patricia Daley  Professor of the Human Geography of Africa, Helen Morag Fellow and Tutor at Jesus College, Oxford.

Asylum has become a stigmatized term in the West and, inevitably, in some African states where refugee policies and practices have been shaped by a humanitarianism that is informed by colonialism, racism, and the securitization agenda associated with Cold War/post-Cold War geopolitics.

In this public lecture, Professor Daley will use historical and contemporary evidence from the East and Central African region to illustrate how humanitarianism, including neo-liberal peacebuilding, has contributed to the dehumanized treatment of refugees and displaced communities. She will argue for a more humanizing approach that centres anti-racist and decolonial praxis, eschews ‘localwashing’, and is characterized by disobedience to hegemonic ways of knowing. In doing so, she draws on evidence from the anti-colonial/anti-apartheid struggles in Africa, as well as conceptual thinking about ubuntu and conviviality to demonstrate how African states/peoples might embrace ethical responsibilities that prioritize the common humanity of displaced communities.

About the Annual Gregory Lecture series

The Gregory Lecture was inaugurated in 1993 and named in honour of Professor Ken Gregory, a world-leading geomorphologist and geographer and former Head of Department, Dean of Science and Deputy Vice Chancellor and visiting professor at the University. He was appointed CBE in 2007 for services to geography and higher education. The aim of the Gregory Lecture series was, and continues to be, to provide a forum for academic discourse between the world’s leading geographers. Ken passed away on 23 November 2020 at the age of 82. He retained close links with the University after moving to the position of Warden of Goldsmiths in 1992, and has had the Gregory lecture series, which has run since 1993 within the School of Geography and Environmental Science, named after him.