ABSTRACT

This essay expands on my uses of the central concept of Sara Ahmed’s seminal work, Postcolonial Encounters, in a participatory theater-based research project with a cohort of women from different countries in West Africa ‘On their Way’ through the asylum/migration nexus in the Republic of Ireland. I situate asylum- seeking (and asylum-giving) in white nations as a fourth encounter between the West and the rest, and examine the shifting conditions in which encounters between the other, and ‘other others' take place. Part 1 of the paper provides a background to my research project and asylum-seeking in the Irish context. In Part 2, I outline my use of the ‘encounters’ method to make decolonial interventions across theory, epistemology and methodology. Part Three analyses a devised theatrical scene to illustrate how the women re-stage the past and present, disrupt relations of power, proximity and distance, and speak back to what has been said or known about them. I conclude with a discussion of ‘making theory from the flesh’ to distinguish specific forms of Black female agency and resistance and outline my current practice-based applications of Ahmed’s work in Australia.

摘要

本文扩展了我对萨拉·艾哈迈德（Sara Ahmed）的开创性工作后殖民遭遇的中心概念的运用，该研究是基于参与性戏剧的研究项目，来自西非不同国家的一群妇女通过非洲的庇护/移民关系“在途中”。爱尔兰共和国。我将寻求庇护（和寻求庇护）的地点定在白人国家，作为西方与其他国家之间的第四次交往，并考察彼此之间以及“其他”交往之间不断变化的条件。本文的第1部分提供了我的研究项目和在爱尔兰环境下寻求庇护的背景。在第2部分中，我概述了如何使用“遭遇”方法跨理论，认识论和方法论进行殖民主义干预。第三部分分析了一个设计好的戏剧场景，以说明女性如何重现过去和现在，如何破坏权力，亲近度和距离的关系，并回头谈论或谈论她们。最后，我讨论了“从肉体中制造理论”，以区分黑人女性代理和抵抗的具体形式，并概述了我目前基于实践的艾哈迈德在澳大利亚的应用。