Fung Fellows Public Talk: Loving ourselves the Earth: undoing the colonial inhabitation

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Lecture Global/Intercultural Humanities Social Sciences

Tue, Apr 8, 2025

12 PM – 1:15 PM EDT (GMT-4)

Louis A. Simpson International Building, Room A71

Princeton, NJ 08544, United States

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Details

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The pesticide contamination of the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe has become known as one of the most important environmental scandals of the current French Republic. The historic use of the chlordecone (or Kepone) in particular has caused significant damage to both humans and non-humans while no one has been held accountable. Based on 15 years of interdisciplinary research as well as a sustained political involvement in the case, Malcom Ferdinand will present a radical narrative of that scandal, one that moves away from the technicist perspectives of the French government and many scientists. "Loving ourselves the Earth: undoing the colonial inhabitation" tells the story of an ongoing decolonial resistance and, with a poetic gesture, offers a conceptual proposition for inhabiting the Earth and engaging the world in the ruins of modern colonization.

Food Provided (Lunch will be provided before the event begins.)

Where

Louis A. Simpson International Building, Room A71

Princeton, NJ 08544, United States

Speakers

Malcom Ferdinand

Environmental Engineer, Researcher

CNRS (IRISSO/University Paris Dauphine

Malcom Ferdinand is an environmental engineer from University College London and doctor in political philosophy from Université Paris Diderot. He is currently researcher at the CNRS (IRISSO/University Paris Dauphine). At the crossroads of political philosophy, postcolonial theory and political ecology, his research focuses on the Black Atlantic and particularly the Caribbean. He explores the relations between current ecological crises and the colonial history of modernity. His work has been featured in numerous academic journals and includes the award winning book Decolonial Ecology: Thinking of Ecology from the Caribbean World (Seuil, 2019 &Polity 2021). He recently published a comprehensive study on the pesticides contamination of Martinique and Guadeloupe in a book called S'aimer la Terre: défaire l'habiter colonial (Seuil, 2024).

Photo credit: Mathieu Genon

Hosted By

Fung Global Fellows Program, PIIRS | View More Events
Co-hosted with: Princeton Institute for International & Regional Studies, French and Francophone Society, Caribbean Graduate Student Association