*CANCELED* With Compliments From the Housewives: Settler Colonialism and Contesting White Public Space in Nairobi
Meghan Ference is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Brooklyn College. She teaches undergraduate courses in urban and economic anthropology. Her research interests broadly explore how the built environment impacts social relationships, particularly regarding transportation infrastructure in the urban environment.
Professor Ference graduated with a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis in 2013.
This talk will explore racial and gendered placemaking practices in colonial Nairobi using archival letters from a group of European settler women who called themselves, ‘The Housewives.’ These letters not only make visible intimate, physical, transgressive interactions that often remain invisible in the colonial record, but they also give us a glimpse of African women and men insisting on their ‘right to the city’ and provide a snapshot of African refusal from both passengers and workers, across gender, ethnicity and neighborhood.
This event is sponsored by the African & African American Studies, History and Anthropology Departments