Global entanglements: Critical approaches to the impact of cultural exchange

Situatedness

The cluster is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, and we seek to address our situatedness by reflecting critically on our positioning and possible biases. On what foundations is it possible to engage in critique today within and beyond academia? The cluster members discuss how intersecting vectors of identity – race/ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, etc. – bear down differently on individuals within postcolonial and globalized matrices of power. This includes the implications of radical Black and Indigenous traditions for the notion of critique in the fields of art and cultural studies.

Research methodologies

The cluster engages in a variety of analytical and methodological perspectives, including qualitative as well as quantitative approaches to cultural analysis.

We share a commitment to contribute to the methodological and theoretical renewal of their respective fields by addressing questions such as: How can we develop new experimental approaches to historical writing, archival practice, curatorial work and cultural phenomena that cannot be confined within a traditional framework for understanding? And how can debates in feminist, indigenous and queer methodologies inspire researchers to engage different modes of expression, e.g. embodied knowledge, oral story-telling, post-monolingual literature, and various kinds of participatory practices? 

Migration and coloniality

One strand of Global entanglements considers artistic and cultural practices that engage with questions around coloniality, migration, and racialization. This includes contemporary and historical struggles for social justice and how they play out in the fields of art and culture, as well as how artists and cultural producers intervene in such struggles. Members also examine the historical and contemporary impact that capitalism, imperialism and nationalism have on art and culture, as well as how such structures have shaped the ways in which the fields of art and culture are studied and understood. How do colonial racial hierarchies and prejudice continue to generate violent and discriminatory forms of racialization today? How do these forms produce counter-reactions, including anti-racist practices of representations in art and culture? How does earlier influx of migrants determine the reception of newly arrived immigrants and refugees today, in both positive and negative ways, in socio-cultural contexts?

Transculturation and counter-cultures

One strand of Global entanglements explores theories of transculturation in order to study and develop dialogic, decentred and critical practices of cultural exchanges. This involves the study of cultural transfer and circulation as well as conflictual and exploitative relations, for instance, the emergence of artistic and cultural forms from within the constrictions of old and new incarnations of authoritarian and colonial contexts. What is the role of art in authoritarian regimes in shifting historical and geographical contexts, and how do aesthetic practices engage in authoritarian cultural politics as well as counter-cultures?