How traditional African technologies can create holistic repair

The University of Repair is a mobile, open-ended series of interventions reimagining learning spaces and offering communal knowledge sharing using the “groundings” principles laid down by the Guyanese scholar Dr Walter Rodney.

The project has teamed up with Museum of London Docklands to launch its spring term series of masterclasses and a Creating Economic Repair Conference due to the clear resonance of the history of the site and in an effort to address collective legacies.

The programme platforms, develops and encourages practical approaches to holistic repair. Our interventions build personal and collective resilience, referencing traditional African technologies as a counter practice to ways of knowing and doing that do not serve the upliftment of African heritage communities.

As part of the project, the free-to-attend Creating Economic Repair Conference will take place this weekend to consider the diasporic circumstances emerging from London’s involvement in the enslavement of African people, contemporary reparation discourses, and the practice of collective economics here in Britain, Africa and beyond.

Connecting the past, present and future, we want to deepen conversation and collaboration between scholars, community representatives, entrepreneurs and students.

Decolonising The Archive has collaborated with the Museum of London Docklands and the Walter Rodney Foundation to present practice-based methods and a rich source of presenters that will show cooperative, ethical and Ubuntu models to business as possible methods of repair to economics that include working class and marginalised communities. There will be a vibrant marketplace showcasing businesses that are practicing these models or have incorporated aspects of these approaches.

The University of Repair project will be offering more exciting programs and masterclasses so follow @de_archive on Twitter and Instagram to find out more.

Join us as we reflect and re-imagine our economic future together!

Connie Bell is the founder of Decolonising The Archive and the University of Repair

The Creating Economic Repair Conference takes place on 14 May