Surrounds: The City, The University, and Insurgency

In this roundtable discussion, Surrounds: The City, The University, and Insurgency, members of the Black Student Alliance at Columbia GSAPP [BSA+GSAPP] join African Mobilities curator, Mpho Matsipa, to respond to the latest episode of African Mobilities 2.0 Podcast on enclosure featuring GSAPP faculty members Justin Garrett Moore and Global Africa Lab co-directors Mabel O. Wilson, Mario Gooden.

This discussion comes four weeks after the public release of BSA+GSAPP’s statement “On the Futility of Listening,” which addressed a persistent lack of vision, awareness, and imagination from the Dean, faculty and administration of Columbia GSAPP, particularly in response to institutional and anti-black racism within the school. Against the backdrop of two global pandemics—COVID-19 and state-sanctioned anti-black violence—we hope to provide a space to interrogate our position within the university, and elaborate on our call for deliberate, careful, and shared modes of study within the university, and to explore forms of exchange beyond the institution.

BSA+GSAPP members include Elleza Kelley (moderator), Farouk Kwaning, Ochuko Okor, Malcolm Rio, and Ife Vanable.