Global Indigenous Intimacies

Co-presented by the NYU Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality and NYU’s Intersectional Feminist/Queer Collective. Co-sponsored by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU.

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In Intimacies of Four Continents, Lisa Lowe shows how capitalism and modernity emerged from the history of colonial encounters, which coerced intimacies among America’s Indigenous peoples and the Africans and Asians brought to this continent for the extraction of labor by European settlers. The violence of these colonial intimacies must be masked, Lowe argues, so that narratives of modernity and progress spread by Europeans maintain their luster. Our panelists discuss what happens on the other side of the mask, addressing the new modes of kinship, collectivity, recognition, solidarity—of decolonial democracy, equality, and representation—that also emerged in the face of colonial violations. Joanne Barker, Reid Gómez, and photographer Cara Romero discuss the forms of intimacy that flourished in the shadow of violation, and share with us how these decolonial intimacies are and have always been global. They elucidate circuits of intimacy that followed and exceeded circuits of commerce. Lisa Lowe will be their interlocutor.

Photograph by Cara Romero.