Ancestral Bridges | Lecture Series
Decolonizing Knowledge: Reclaiming African Intellectual Sovereignty in Caribbean Academic Spaces.
At: University of Aruba
Date: 09 November 2026
Time: 6:30pm to 8pm
Admission: FREE 💗
For: researchers, historians, educators and knowledge practitioners.
Who decides what counts as knowledge?
This conversation explores the continuing influence of colonial education and narratives on African-descended identity, historical memory and intellectual life, while opening possibilities for reclaiming African-centred knowledge, epistemologies and scholarship.
The lecture will explore questions including:
How colonial education fragments identity and shapes perceptions of knowledge.
The histories and knowledge systems that have been erased, marginalised or forgotten.
African epistemologies and their place within contemporary Caribbean academic spaces.
The relationship between knowledge, identity and reparatory justice.
The responsibility of academic institutions in reconstructing more inclusive intellectual landscapes.
Lecture 2. RECLAIM THE VOICE
Story to Asset: Transforming Diaspora Identity into Leadership, Policy Influence & Community Power.
At: Archivo Nacional Aruba
Date: 11 November 2026
Time: 6:30pm to 8pm
Admission: FREE 💗
For: NGOs, civil society organisations, community leaders and advocates.
Every community has stories.
But what happens when those stories become knowledge, narrative power and influence?
This conversation explores how African-descended communities and organisations can move beyond simply documenting lived experiences and begin transforming community knowledge into leadership, advocacy, institutional influence and collective power.
The lecture will explore:
Turning community stories into strategic narrative power.
Using lived experience as knowledge rather than merely testimony.
Ubuntu-rooted leadership and organisational sovereignty.
Transforming community trauma into institutional wisdom.
Strengthening the relationship between civil society, communities and policymakers.
Moving from service provision towards becoming architects of community transformation.
Lecture 3. RECLAIM BELONGING
From Memory to Belonging: Restoring Identity, Healing Generations & Rebuilding Community Power.
At: Kulture Cafe
Date: 13 November 2026
Time: 6:30pm to 8pm
Admission: FREE 💗
For: San Nicolas communities, youth, elders, cultural groups, families and grassroots organisations.
What do communities carry across generations?
Stories. Silence. Memory. Displacement. Resilience. Culture. Wisdom. Dreams.
This community conversation explores how reconnecting with African identity, cultural memory and intergenerational knowledge can become part of healing, belonging and rebuilding community power.
The conversation will touch on:
Intergenerational memory and the wounds and strengths communities inherit.
Cultural identity as a foundation for belonging.
Healing colonial and historical disruption through reconnection.
The relationship between elders, youth, family and community memory.
Cultural memory as a resource for community development.
Moving from remembering what was lost towards imagining what can be built.