by Forensic Architecture, with Jumanah Bawazir & Omar Ferwati, MSH Invited Professor, Goldsmith University

En partenariat avec le REVIP

Research and public advocacy about environmental and colonial violence faced by indigenous communities fail to comprehensively understand the extent of its harm and to mobilize effectively in calls for justice. This gap both in knowledge and communication about violence hurts international solidarity between victims and obstructs our articulation of justice for each case of systemic violence. Research into both environmental and colonial violence often takes an abstract top-down view into the sites of violence where victims are incidental subjects. The result is a distorted view that removes human sensibility and with it, mobilization against violence. The knowledge produced in this way is incomplete because it trivializes the lived experience of affected communities who hold generations of knowledge about their lands and who witness violence through their eyes and bodies. We argue in this lecture that the voices of those afflicted communities must not only be foregrounded in research and advocacy but that knowledge production and advocacy must be led by those communities. Through a series of civilian investigations from Yanomami land in the Amazon rain forest to Palestine, we show how this approach gives rise to new methodologies that lead to more insightful and comprehensive advocacy. It becomes increasingly clear too, in these cases, how cross-reliant and interconnected colonial and environmental violence is.

Omar Ferwati est le coordinateur de recherche de Forensic Architecture, où il travaille à l'élaboration de méthodes de recherche pour les enquêtes forensiques du centre. Ses enquêtes ont porté sur les frappes aériennes, la violence coloniale et les questions environnementales. Ses recherches se concentrent actuellement sur la manière dont les civils utilisent l'architecture pour survivre à la guerre urbaine. Il a notamment pris part aux investigations suivantes : Restituting Evidence: Genocide and Reparations in German Colonial Namibia ; Shireen Abu Akleh: The Extrajudicial Killing of a Journalist ; Gold Mining and Violence in the Amazon Rainforest ; Drift-backs in the Aegean Sea ; Sheikh Jarrah: Ethnic Cleansing in Jerusalem ; The Shelling of Khudair Warehouse: Chemical Warfare by Indirect Means; The Murder of Lucas Villa ; Environmental Racism in Death Alley, Louisiana ; European Arms in the Bombing of Yemen ; The Extrajudicial Execution of Ahmad Erekat ; Police Brutality at the Black Lives Matter Protests ; Cloud Studies ; Torture and Detention in Cameroon ; The Murder of Halit Yozgat ; Airstrikes on the al-Jinah Mosque.

Jumanah Bawazir est designer multidisciplinaire, poète et chercheuse. Ses recherches portent sur les outils permettant aux communautés exilées de raconter leurs propres histoires. Elle tisse des liens entre la narration, le cinéma et la poésie, en tant que formes de collaboration et de communication, pour confronter les politiques spatiales de l'exil ; en s'engageant spécifiquement dans les conflits spatiaux auxquels sont confrontées les femmes somaliennes demandeuses d'asile, ainsi que les conséquences intergénérationnelles de l'exil au sein de la diaspora palestinienne. Elle a notamment pris part aux investigations suivantes : The Beirut Port Explosion: The Welders ; Shireen Abu Akleh: The Extrajudicial Killing of a Journalist ; Sheikh Jarrah: Ethnic Cleansing in Jerusalem ; The Shelling of Khudair Warehouse: Chemical Warfare by Indirect Means ; Dispossession and The Memory of the Earth: Land Dispossession in Nueva Colonia.