Keynote Lecture: Dayamani Barla — April 18th, 6pm (ET)

Room 304, TNS University Center

Indigenous Activism: A Transnational Dialogue — April 19th, 6pm (ET)

Room 1618 D, 79 Fifth Avenue

Both events will feature simultaneous interpretation from Hindi into English and Spanish.

As neoliberalism has tightened its stranglehold on India, it has dispossessed, displaced, impoverished, and repressed numerous adivasi (Indigenous) communities who stand in the way of corporate capital accumulation. Adivasi feminist activist and journalist Dayamani Barla has refused to accept these gross injustices: she has spoken, written, and organized against these various forms of neoliberal violence in her native state of Jharkhand and across India for decades. From April 18 – 19, 2023, “the Iron Lady of Jharkhand,” as she is popularly known, will graciously share the lessons she has learned from her lived experiences of anti-systemic struggle with The New School community.

On April 18, Ms. Barla will deliver a keynote lecture on how she has led and supported various Indigenous, environmental, and social justice movements as a self-described Indigenous feminist. On April 19, Ms. Barla will participate in a transnational dialogue on Indigenous activism in the face of late capitalist crises with prominent Native and Indigenous organizers from Turtle Island (so-called North America). Both of these events offer prime opportunities for members of The New School community to deepen their understanding of not only Indigenous worldviews and mobilizations but contemporary capitalism and imperialism in South Asia.

Dayamani Barla is a world-renowned adivasi feminist activist and journalist who has been on the front lines of grassroots movements against the dispossession, impoverishment, and repression of India’s Indigenous communities for nearly four decades. Known as the “Iron Lady of Jharkhand,” she is determined to protect jal (water), jangal (forest), and zameen (land) on traditional adivasi lands in her home state as well as across the country from the relentless incursions of neoliberalization and state violence. For her tireless advocacy, she has earned numerous national and international plaudits, including the Counter Media Award for Rural Journalism in 2000, the National Foundation for India Fellowship in 2004, and Cultural Survival’s Ellen L. Lutz Indigenous Rights Award in 2013.

This is a hybrid event. If you plan to attend online, you will receive a zoom link for each day upon registration.