Object Positions: Lecture 2 | Karen Salt: Administering Activism, Organising Change, Holding Our Form(s)

Followed by response and conversation with Ramon Amaro

Keguro Macharia seeks to write about ‘we-formations’ - the work of forming and sustaining ‘we’. There are questions, though, about this work. Who sits within the space of we? Who is assembled, enchained, called and unmade by we? What kind of form erupts from the centres, margins, constraints and lived theories of being of the we’s? What happens when the we’s mobilise their collective action and target institutions and systems? How can futures steeped in equity resist the power (and the perils) of administration? This talk traverses these questions and holds open the possibilities of unknowing as a radical act.

Come talk, share, weep and laugh with Karen Salt as she creates an open space for activism, and hope, in these times.

Karen Salt co-Directs the Centre for Research in Race and Rights at the University of Nottingham where she works on race, trust, power and sovereignty. A significant portion of her work investigates how black nation-states and global minority communities fight for their continued sovereignty in a highly racialised world. A sought-after national and international speaker on race and politics, she frequently engages with students, collaborates with community ogranisations and advises governmental bodies on aspects of power and social justice.

Ramon Amaro is Associate Lecturer in Digital Media: Critical Theory, Associate Lecturer in Visual Cultures, and PhD researcher at the Digital Culture Unit of the Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London. He holds a Masters degree in Sociological Research from the University of Essex and a BSe in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Amaro is a former quality design engineer for General Motors and programmes manager for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and has also been an Assistant Editor for the SAGE open access journal Big Data & Society. His research interests include philosophy, machine learning, and black study.