Dr Chamindra Weerawardhana
Co-founder and Acting Director: Consortium for Intersectional Justice
Commissioner: O’Neill-LANCET Commission on racism, structural discrimination and global health
 

Abstract: Progressive political and social justice movements are under attack in many countries, with the rise of right-wing power politics. From Aotearoa to India and the Netherlands, political movements that tout antifeminist and anti-human rights discourses are gaining momentum. In the western world, discourses such as ‘feminist foreign policy’ often water down to soft power strategies with little substance when it comes to their ‘feminist core’. In feminist movements, power structures and exploitative dynamics that disregard and usurp the labor of indigenous women, for example, are rampant. In such volatile circumstances, how can we envision well and truly decolonial feminist politics, advocacy and activist praxes, organizing, knowledge-making and worldmaking? This talk is an invitation for collaborative critical reflection around this question. 
 

Chamindra Weerawardhana is a researcher, political and international affairs analyst, intersectional feminist organizer and disrupter. A Sri Lankan queer woman, Chamindra  has held research and teaching responsibilities in western Europe and north America. She has extensively worked in/with the nonprofit industrial complex at national, regional and international levels, grappling with its inherent inconsistencies, challenges, and contra[dic/distinc]tions. Her political organizing and advocacy – closely linked to her ongoing research and knowledge dissemination initiatives –  focus on centring critical decolonial feminist politics in the analysis and praxis of international relations, politics of deeply divided places, feminist foreign policy, gender politics and global cooperation. She is the author of the book Decolonising Peacebuilding, and her writing has appeared in international peer reviewed journals, book chapters, and media outlets in several countries. She is a co-founder of the Consortium for Intersectional Justice, and a commissioner at the O’Neill-LANCET commission on racism, structural discrimination and global health.