Palestine Through Chilean Eyes – featuring Dr. Rodrigo Karmy, Dr. Emilio Dabed, Pamela Arancibia, and Paz Jurado.
Thursday, April 8th @ 6pm EST via Facebook Live
RSVP here on Facebook or on Eventbrite via https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/146179443651
Contact: 3902bdspac@gmail.com
Hosted by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 3902 BDS Committee, Apoyamos Chile, Upping the Anti & CUPE Ontario.
Palestine Through Chilean Eyes is the second event of IAW 2021 at UofT. It traces the intimate connections and histories of shared struggle between Chile and Palestine, as well as the links between apartheid Israel and the Chilean state’s campaign of terror against the current popular uprising. Israel exports its weapons that are “field tested” on Palestinian bodies and society to repressive regimes around the world, including Chile. The Chilean state has deployed these to repress indigenous and social movements, including the recent estallido social (social explosion) taking place since October 2019 against neoliberal privatization and social injustice. A stark example is the adoption by Chile of Israel’s shoot to maim policy of targeting specific body parts such as the eyes or knees as part of a campaign to debilitate movements and populations. Chile, in turn, has been spreading Israel’s tactics and arsenal of repression further across the region, including through military training and missions in locales across Central America and the Caribbean like Haiti and Honduras. As the Chilean people mobilize to elect members to the Constituent Assembly to replace Pinochet’s constitution in April 2021 amidst the uprising, and the Palestinian people prepare for local elections in May 2021 amidst the ongoing resistance, this panel hones in on the Chile-Palestine case to examine the global circuits of imperialist collaboration and anti-imperialist solidarity that bring struggles together across the Global South.
About the Speakers (in alphabetical order)
Pamela Arancibia is a PhD Candidate in Italian Studies and Book History & Print Culture at the University of Toronto. She is also a labour activist and a former Chair of CUPE 3902, the local that represents contract academic workers at UofT. Pamela currently sits on the CUPE Ontario International Solidarity and the Workers with Disabilities Committees; on the Board of Directors and the Programming Committee of the Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts; and on the Creative Committee of the Common Frontiers podcast “Super-Exploitation and Resistance,” which focuses on Latin American politics. She also co-founded the Coalition for Northern Central America, which advocates for asylum seekers from the region. Pamela has a particular interest in the role of art in social movements. The daughter of Chilean exiles from the Pinochet-era dictatorship, she is deeply committed to the principle of Internationalism in the labour movement.
Dr. Emilio Dabed is a Palestinian-Chilean lawyer and political scientist (Science Po-Aix en Provence, France) specializing in constitutional matters, international law and human rights and currently based in Toronto. Previously, he was a Researcher and Visiting Professor at An-Najah National University Law School, Nablus, Palestine (2017-2018). In 2015-2016 he was the Palestine and Law Fellow and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law at Columbia University Law School-Center for Palestine Studies. Between 2014 and 2015, he was the Director of the International Law and Human Rights Program at Al-Quds/Bard College, Jerusalem, where he taught from 2011 to 2015. He also taught in Diego Portales University, Santiago, Chile. His latest research and publications look at the relations between law and political and social changes, subjectivity, and identity formation, with a particular focus on the disciplinary powers of law and the discourse of (human) rights in contemporary politics.
Paz Jurado is a Chilean-Palestinian artist, actress and activist based in Toronto. She is a founding member of Apoyamos Chile, a Toronto-based solidarity organisation rooted in the Chilean exile community. She has been supporting the Chilean uprising through her activism in Toronto, her community advocacy and artistic work, including her performance piece, . Jurado is a graduate of the Theatre Performance and Scenic Communication program of the University for the Arts, Sciences, and Communication (UNIACC) in Chile, and has completed studies at the Dramatic Literature and Theatre program of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She has worked in contemporary, classical and musical theatre, and on diverse performing arts, Indie film and artistic projects in Chile, Mexico, Guatemala and Canada. These have focused on social theater and community art. She has also served as a teacher of musical expression and performing arts for children and youth.
Dr. Rodrigo Karmy Bolton holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Chile. He is a professor and researcher in the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities, and at the Centre for Arab Studies at the University of Chile, as well as Research Director of said faculty. In his work, contemporary thought and medieval Greco-Arab thought are weaved together, focusing on the question of the imagination. He is (co-)editor of the books “Políticas de la interrupción: Ensayos sobre Giorgio Agamben” (Escaparate: Santiago de Chile, 2011), “Biopolíticas gobierno y salud pública: Miradas para un diagnóstico diferencial” (Editorial Ocho Libros: Santiago de Chile, 2014), and “Estudios en Gubernamentalidad: Ensayos sobre poder, vida y neoliberalismo” (Ed. Communes: Viña del Mar, 2018). For “El Desconcierto”, a digital newspaper for which he is a columnist, he contributed a piece for the series, “Nakba: Tres ensayos sobre Palestina” (2018). His latest books, which reflect on uprisings in Chile, Palestine and beyond, are “El porvenir se hereda: fragmentos de un Chile sublevado” (Ed. Sangría: Santiago de Chile, 2019), and “Intifada: Una topología de la imaginación popular” (Metales Pesados: Santiago de Chile, 2020). His research interests include Averroism and Averroes’ thought, and political theology and modernity in the tradition of Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and others.