An introduction to the basic framework for decolonial thinking and exploring where the colonial past touches our own lives, and what we as storytellers can do to include it in our writing.

Data storytelling from a decolonial perspective.

Guest speaker: Peiying, co-founder of Kontinentalist in 2017, an award-winning data-driven editorial studio. Kontinentalist has told innovative and rigorous data stories on topics ranging from how the rubber industry in Singapore and Malaysia was shaped by colonialism, to communicating climate change in Southeast Asia. With Kontinentalist, Pei Ying seeks to empower voices through cause-driven stories as well as change people’s perception about Asia and its cultures. She is a board member for the Society for News Design, and has an MSc in Data, Inequality, and Society at the University of Edinburgh’s Futures Institute with support from the Chevening Foundation.

About Bali, Indonesia: the Balinese concept of Tri Hita Karana, patriarchy, overtourism, the well-being industry, and writing as a tool to change the society around you.

Guest speaker: Sonia Piscayanti. Sonia runs Komunitas Mahima in the North of Bali and shares her work empowering Balinese women through poetry and writing and letting them be heard. She reflects on her own position in Balinese society. Besides being a community builder, Sonia is a writer, a lecturer in English literature, a theatre maker, a partner, and a mom. She is co-founder of the Singaraja Literary Festival, held annually since 2022.

What does “decolonizing journalism/ storytelling” mean?

Guest speaker: Rolando Vázquez Melken, Professor of Post/Decolonial Theories and Literatures, with a focus on the Global South.

Q&A.

Who tells the story? Exploring positionality, objectivity, and parachuting in storytelling. With attention to Solutions Journalism and Complicating the Narrative.

Guest speaker: Amy Hall. Amy is Co-editor of New Internationalist Magazine. She will explore with you why your positionality as a writer matters, and how it influences what gets told and how. Every storyteller carries their own lens, but are you aware of yours? What happens when stories are told with communities, rather than about them?

You’ll discuss parachute journalism and get a sense of how New Internationalist implemented Solutions Journalism in the series Decolonize, How?

What do borders mean in our world? How can we understand borders both as abstracts and lived experiences? How are they made, remade, drawn, redrawn, and what do they do with cultures? How can we understand European modernity beyond its simplified notion of ‘Western’, can we understand modernity not just geographically but also cognitively and emotionally? What does it mean to be modern?

Guest speaker: Debasish Borah. Debasish joined the Institute for History and Theory of Architecture at ETH Zurich in 2022 as a doctoral fellow. He is a visual artist working with mediums of photography, video, performance, and publishing. In his research and practice, he attempts to understand Imperial frontier-making and political modernity in Northeast India. He works with mundane micro-histories, found objects, and self-made photography and video. He graduated in 2013 with a Master’s degree in architecture history, theory, and design from CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India. He is also the co-founder of Art Book Depot, India’s first independently organized art book festival. Debasish was born and brought up on the fringes of the Indian nation-state; in Arunachal Pradesh.