Climate and Colonialism

Imeh Ituen studied Social Sciences (B.A.) and Environmental Management (M.Sc.) in Berlin and Indigenous Australian Studies in Perth. As a social scientist and activist, she is concerned with issues of racism and colonial continuities in the environmental and climate crisis. Imeh Ituen’s lecture with Joshua Kwesi Aikins on Black perspectives on the climate crisis, held in summer 2019, opened up a discursive space for the interconnection between climate change, racism and coloniality. She recently co-authored a short study on environmental racism in Germany with Tatu Hey. It is the first text contribution tracing environmental racism in Germany. Imeh Ituen is part of the Decolonial Think Tank for Care & Repair as well as the collective Black Earth.

Dr. Boniface Mabanza Bambu was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo under Mobutu’s military dictatorship. He studied philosophy, literature and theology in Kinshasa and did his doctorate at the University of Münster on the topic “Justice can only exist for all. Criticism of Globalisation from an African Perspective”. He has been the coordinator of the Church Office for Southern Africa at Werkstatt Ökonomie/Heidelberg since 2008, focusing on trade policy, raw materials policy and globalisation. He completed training in conflict management at the Academy for Conflict Transformation in Bonn and works as a trainer for development policy and anti-racism for various institutions. Boniface Mabanza Bambu is active in numerous networks of the African Diaspora in Germany and Europe and has published numerous articles on various Africa-related topics. From 2018 to May 2021, he was one of the 24 members of the Commission on Root Causes of Displacement.

This event is part of Breathe, a discourse programme that unfolds in echo to the upcoming exhibition YOYI! Care, Repair, Heal and explores how different power relations impact our ability to breathe. The programme is curated by Magnus Elias Rosengarten.