Welcome to our August newsletter! We hope you're keeping well and taking care of yourself. Check out what you missed this month and dive into some interesting resources and events coming up below.
VIDEO: 'Forgotten Stories: Partition Remembered' Teach In, Part I
The recording of Part I of our 'Forgotten Stories: Partition Remembered' teach, which took place on Tuesday 18 August, is now available to watch. Speakers included Dr. Eleanor Newbigin who gave us an overview of the history of Modern South Asia and discussed gender in historical understandings of partition and Dr. Fatima Rajina who discussed the partition of Bengal in mainstream narratives.
Part II of the conversation continues on the 28th of August. You can sign up by clicking here.
Ikhatta IG Takeover with Almass Badat
As part of our ongoing Ikhatta series, we're hosting Instagram takeovers between August and September featuring members of the South Asian diaspora. Our aim is to showcase the diversity and talent, creativity, and change-making work that exists outside of the conventional narratives about South Asian people in the U.K.
We're excited to announce that Almass Badat, creative director, DJ and all round creative badass will be taking over our Instagram for the whole day on the 26th of August! Be sure to log in to see what she's up to.
LAUNCH: Brown Womxn [Un]Learn Resource Hub
We're so excited to finally launch our Resources Hub, a curated lists of articles, books, reports, papers, videos, and anything else that we feel can inform us of the issues we hope to tackle and ideas that underpin our work.
We hope you find this information useful. We encourage you to engage with it in a dynamic way - maybe set up a reading or learning circle to co-learn with others, or read a piece with a family member every month. If you’d like to set something up with our support, feel free to just get in touch.
We are sharing these resources in good faith to help you start your journey of [un]learning. Let us know how you get on.
Ansuni Stories Workshop
We hosted our Ansuni Stories workshop last weekend which explored collectivist culture and unpacked the idea of community among the South Asian diaspora. Our facilitators led participants through various discussions around caste, race, gender, religion, and mental health which led to some amazing moments of vulnerability and openness. We want to thank all of the wonderful participants who took part and shared their stories with us! Watch this space for more ways to get involved.
Last Chance to Submit to Ansuni Stories
We're also still accepting submissions to Ansuni Stories, our research and storytelling project, until 31 August 2020.
We invite you to set aside 20 minutes this week to reflect upon diverse, nuanced and, sometimes, conflicted experiences with your families and our community. Think about both the healing, nourishing and positive aspects, along with the challenging, toxic and harmful impacts that result from our "collectivist culture".
Our Statement & Action Plan for Black Lives Matter
In case you missed this, do check out our Statement and Action Plan for Black Lives Matter.
We affirm that Black Lives Matter, now and always. We recognise that the struggles we face as part of the South Asian diaspora can be intimately connected with those of Black people here in the U.K., whether that be colourism, classism, cultural oppression, militarisation abroad, Islamophobia, British Imperialism or White Supremacy. We also recognize that it is for this reason and our proximity to white supremacy that we must play a more active role in creating a liberated world for Black communities. We owe them and ourselves this much.
What We're Reading
A quarter of Bangladesh is flooded and millions have lost everything. Climate change and the widening inequality gap are to blame. Read here.
Dalit Indians in the U.S. report caste discrimination working in Tech. Read here about caste in Silicon Valley.
A year into the siege, Kashmir is facing a cultural erasure says Arundhati Roy for The Guardian, read now.
More on the lockdown in Kashmir here, with Adi Magazine curating short stories, and poetry on the issue. Read the full edition here.
Babri Mosque is once again at the center of the conversation, view the full timeline of Ayodha put together by the Wire. Read here.