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This year, Queer History Month, in collaboration with IGSF, is delighted to welcome Dr Chamindra Weerawardhana, as our Keynote Speaker for QHM 2020. Dr Weerawardhana will give a lecture on Decolonial Politics, Feminist Futures: Perspectives on Global SOGIESC Advocacy in the New Decade.

The Covid-19 pandemic has been an unprecedented call to take stock of the dire realities of global SOGIESC advocacy, driving home the necessity of re-orienting how SOGIESC work is funded and executed, especially in the global South/s. In a world where populist and nationalist political discourses are gaining much traction in many countries, politics of the moderate ‘middle ground’, feminist movements, indigenous justice movements, and social movements spearheaded by non-cis and non-het peoples, are increasingly faced with new, and in some cases life-threatening challenges. This lecture is an invitation to a collaborative reflection how we can collectively envision more equitable and cosmopolitan approaches to engage in movement-building, social transformation work and progressive politics in a world that relentlessly marginalises trans and queer bodies and political discourses, decolonial feminist politics and praxes, and peoples at many other multiple intersections.

Dr Chamindra Weerawardhana is a political and international affairs analyst, academic, educator and human rights activist from Sri Lanka. Her discipline is International Politics, with a three-pronged focus on the politics of deeply divided places, feminist international relations and gender politics. A strong intersectional feminist advocate, her activist work focuses on decolonial approaches, and a holistic perspective on challenging forms of systemic marginalisation. She currently serves as a board member of the Asia-Pacific Transgender Network. Previously, she engaged in politics of the centre-left in the north of Ireland. Her writing has appeared in academic journals, edited volumes and in the press in several countries. Her second single-author monograph, exploring trans politics and the politics of reproductive justice, will be published in 2021. Her contributions to decolonial politics involve a constant focus on challenging cisnormativity and heteronormativity in academic spaces and political spaces. Chamindra is the founder of the Consortium for Intersectional Justice, a platform that focuses on promoting a better understanding of intersectional justice in all aspects of human rights and gender/social/economic justice advocacy.

We will provide ASL interpretation and live captioning (in English) for this event.