Event Description
Can we produce theoretical knowledge without embodying it ourselves? This talk reflected on and reconsidered what counts as knowledge-making, how it is practiced, spoken, and embodied, where, and by whom. When our bodies stand by our ideas, we write the world with our bodies. We learn through our bodies when we step into the world, and in the process, we write the world with our bodies. It is one of those spaces of publication that is intangible to metrics and rankings, yet that is unforgettable to the bodies involved. The myth of a science disengaged from the world brushes aside our bodies and our imagination, the things we ultimately rely on as the first places of knowledge-making. Picq discussed her work at the intersection of scholarship, journalism, and activism, reflecting on how our bodies can stand with our ideas to bring new worlds into being.Speaker
Manuela L. Picq is a scholar-activist who works at the intersections of academia, law, and journalism. She shares her time between activism in Ecuador and teaching as a Senior Lecturer in Political Science and Sexuality, Women’s and Gender Studies at Amherst College (USA). Her most influential books are Savages and Citizens: How Indigeneity Shapes the State (University of Arizona Press 2024) and Vernacular Sovereignties: Indigenous Women Challenging World Politics (University of Arizona Press 2018). She is Editor of Public Humanities, an open-access journal at Cambridge University Press, and has contributed to international media outlets such as Al Jazeera and The New York Times. Her work at the intersection of scholarship, journalism, and activism led her to be named one of the Global Americans New Generation of Public Intellectuals (2018) and featured in the FemiList 100 (2021). In 2024, Picq was awarded the Outstanding Scholar Activist Award by the International Studies Association. Her legal work contributing expert reports for Indigenous and women’s rights is accompanied by larger causes in the UN and OAS systems. Together with her partner, Picq set an international legal precedent with the recognition of Indigenous ancestral marriage at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2022. In 2021 and 2023, she coordinated the presidential campaign of Indigenous candidate Yaku Pérez in Ecuador.
Co-sponsorship
Presented in collaboration with the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management.