The Brothers of Delta Epsilon Psi Fraternity Inc. in collaboration with the Asian and Asian American Studies Institute and the Asian American Cultural Center are proud to present our next Chai Time with special guest Dr. Renisa Mawani from the University of British Columbia.
For this Chai Time we will discuss colonialism as a social and political dynamic across oceans and not just land. This topic will be contextualized by sociology professor, Dr. Renisa Mawani through the story of the S.S. Komagata Maru. In this discussion, we will connect the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans together as a unified and dynamic system for perpetuating colonial power.
This is an honors event.
When: 5:00 - 7:00 PM
Where: Asian American Cultural Center (AsACC) Main Rm, SU 4TH FLOOR 428
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In 1914 the S.S. Komagata Maru left Hong Kong for Vancouver carrying 376 Punjabi migrants. Chartered by railway contractor Gurdit Singh, the ship and its passengers were denied entry into Canada and eventually deported to Calcutta. Renisa Mawani retells the well-known story of the Komagata Maru. Drawing on what she terms “oceans as method”—a mode of thinking and writing that repositions land and sea—Mawani places the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans into conversation to track the circulating legalities that connected the Dominions, colonies, and territories; the shifting intensities of racial and colonial violence that joined indigenous dispossession, transatlantic slavery, and Indian indenture to so-called “free” migration; and the transoceanic repertoires of anticolonial critique that challenged the empire’s underlying racial, spatial, and temporal divides. By following the movements of a single ship and bringing these three oceans into sharper view, Mawani offers a novel method of writing colonial legal history.
For more information, contact: Asian and Asian American Studies Institute at 860.486.3702