To celebrate Black History Month, join us for this conversation with Olivia Umurerwa Rutazibwa.
Meet our speakers and chair
Olivia Umurerwa Rutazibwa (@o_rutazibwa) is Assistant Professor in Human Rights and Politics at the Department of Sociology, LSE. She is a Belgian/Rwandan International Relations scholar and former journalist and Senior Research Fellow of the Johannesburg Institute of Advanced Studies (JIAS), South Africa. She holds a PhD in Political Science/International Relations from Ghent University (2013, Belgium), following the doctoral training programme at the European University Institute (2001-6, Italy) and internships at the European Commission in Brussels and the EU Institute for Security Studies in Paris (2003-4). Before joining LSE, she was Senior Lecturer in European and International (Development) Studies at the University of Portsmouth. (2013-21, UK).
Her research and teaching focuses on ways to decolonise (international) solidarity. Building on epistemic Blackness as methodology, she turns to recovering and reconnecting philosophies and practices of dignity and repair and retreat in the postcolony (e.g. autonomous recovery in Somaliland, agaciro in Rwanda and Black Power in the US, Tricontinentalism and the political thought of Thomas Sankara) to theorise solidarity anticolonially.
She has published in various (academic) journals (Foreign Policy, Millennium Journal of International Studies, Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, Postcolonial Studies, Ethical Perspectives, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, and Journal of Contemporary European Studies), is the co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Postcolonial Politics (with Robbie Shilliam, 2018) and Decolonization and Feminisms in Global Teaching and Learning (with Sara de Jong and Rosalba Icaza, Routledge, 2018). She is associate editor of International Feminist Journal of Politics and recently joined the editorial boards of International Politics Review and Review of International Studies and the 2021-22 Section and Programme Chair of the Global Development Section of the International Studies Association.
Maarya Rabbani (@MaaryaRabbani) is the 2022-23 Education Officer at LSE Students’ Union. She is a British-Afghan scholar and holds two MSc degrees in Education, and Comparative Politics from the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and Political Science, respectively. Her research focuses on critical pedagogy, civic engagement and active citizenship. She underscores topics of intersectionality, epistemic and testimonial injustice in her work, and has recently presented her paper Transnational Solidarity: On Palestinian Self-Determination and Black Liberation at Queen’s University (Canada).
Eric Neumayer is Professor of Environment and Development at LSE, having joined the Department of Geography and Environment in 1998. He is currently LSE's Pro-Director (PVC) Planning and Resources.
More about this event
The London School of Economics Students' Union (@lsesu) is the representative and campaigning body for students at the London School of Economics and Political Science. LSESU is a not-for-profit organisation run by LSE students, for LSE students. The LSESU aims to give students life-changing experiences. Black History Month is one of the key dates in the Union calendar.
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a social science university based in central London with a global reach. We ranked first in Europe and second in the world for social sciences and management in the QS subject rankings 2021.
Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSEBlackHistoryMonth
Podcast & Video
A podcast of this event is available to download from In Conversation with Olivia Umurerwa Rutazibwa.
Podcasts and videos of many LSE events can be found at the LSE Public Lectures and Events: podcasts and videos channel.