POS 6: SARA AHMED. COMPLAINT AS FEMINIST PEDAGOGY

In session 6 of our Permanent Ordinary Seminar, Sara Ahmed will be presenting Complaint as Feminist Pedagogy. This is the last session of Permanent Ordinary Seminar, a public collaborative programme by Bulegoa z/b and Sociología Ordinaria which have run in 2020 and 2021 via face-to-face and online conversations and meetings. Laura Muelas and Leire San Martin will comment on the session.

COMPLAINT AS FEMINIST PEDAGOGY
In this lecture I explore how complaints can be feminist pedagogy. We learn about institutions from making complaints within them. We learn how power works by making it hard to challenge how power works. I consider how some people become complainers without making complaints because of what they need to do their work or the kind of work they do. To become a complainer is to become a complaint magnet, to attract as well as receive complaints. The lecture concludes with a discussion of the work of complaint collectives and complaint activism, exploring how complaints can be used to press against institutions and to press for institutional change.

You tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Ld2I8CPJE

Simultaneous translation will be provided. To take part in this session in person or online please contact bulegoa@bulegoa.org

Sara Ahmed is an independent feminist scholar and writer. Her work is concerned with how power is used and challenged in institutions and everyday life. Her book Complaint! is forthcoming with Duke University Press in September 2021. Her previous books include What’s the Use? On the Uses of Use (2019), Living a Feminist Life (2017), Willful Subjects (2014), On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life (2012), The Promise of Happiness (2010) and Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others (2006). She blogs at feministkilljoys.com.

Laura Muelas de Ayala (Murcia, 1984). Technical College degree in Audiovisuals, Degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Universidad Complutense, Madrid. Completed Masters in Feminist and Gender Studies, Universidad del País Vasco, and began a PhD at the same university, writing a thesis on feminist practices around pleasure, where I am especially interested in highlighting the interconnections between feminist activism and the processes of pleasure as emotional and political practices. For some years I’ve been co-organising sessions on Film and Sexuality at the Universidad Autónoma, Madrid, and have worked on the making of ethnographical documentaries on sexual diversity and educational practices.

I am currently working as a researcher with the Feminist Anthropology Research Group (AFIT) at Universidad del País Vasco, and am a member of the coordinating team for the Feministaldia festival of feminist culture, San Sebastian, and am also a militant with the feminist movement in the Basque Country. I also work at Eihera Kooperatiba on the design and implementation of feminist and LGTBI processes of transformation.

Leire San Martin Goikoetxea (Bilbao, 1983). My professional trajectory has developed around education and programming in the field of contemporary art practices. I have worked in several projects, including the mediation of Itzuli Barik for the Harriak programme (Eremuak); the research project “An archaeology of mediation) for the Tratado de Paz programme with Sara Martín; Superbia. Ulrike Ottingerren 8 film with Sahatsa Jauregi; and as coordinator of Cine_ilegal for Bulegoa z/b.

I have been in charge of the Mediation department at Tabakalera since 2014, as well as coordinating for the Feministaldia festival of feminist culture, San Sebastian.

This event is supported by the Foundation for Arts Initiatives (FFAI), New York.