The International Festival of Decoloniality 2026

Dr Melanie-Marie Haywood, Dean of Students, Birmingham City University

Dr Melanie-Marie Haywood is the Dean of Students at Birmingham City University. She has a passion for academic development, quality, and equity in education and leadership. She has worked across the field of education in primary, secondary and higher education, both in the Caribbean and the UK.

Dr Haywood has attained professional and academic qualifications in a variety of education studies, specialising in assessment and post-colonial education. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). Her heritage, and time in the Caribbean developed a passion for success of marginalised students. She has worked with numerous organisations and HEI’s in the UK to develop anti-racist and inclusive approaches for improved outcomes for students and staff of colour.

Keynote title: TBC

Joris Lechêne, Decolonial storyteller

Joris Lechêne (he/his) – is a decolonial storyteller and activist. In 2023-24 Joris was the DCFA Fellow at Pakhuis De Zwijger, Amsterdam on the Re-designing Cities for All research programme. With over 500k followers, he is particularly active on social media, where he provides social commentary based on his lived experiences as a neurodivergent queer black man, drawing comparisons and similarities among various forms of oppression. Joris is also a trainer on anti-racism, bias and decoloniality. In this capacity Joris has worked with multiple UK universities, global NGOs and international corporations.   

Keynote title: TBA

Professor(a) Bárbara Carine, Federal University of Bahia

Professor Bárbara Carine, is a writer, lecturer and tenured professor at the Federal University of Bahia. She holds degrees in philosophy and chemistry, and a master's and doctorate in chemistry education from the Federal University of Bahia.

She was a finalist for the Jabuti Prize for two consecutive years and won in 2024 in the Education category. She is a member of the Academic Teaching Council (CAE) at UFBA, a collaborator at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of São Paulo (IEA/USP), coordinator of the Research Group on Diversity and Criticality in Natural Sciences (DICCINA/UFBA) and a founding partner of the Maria Felipa Afro-Brazilian School, the first Afro-Brazilian school in Brazil. Barbara is critical of Western white-centric academia. An education specialist, she always recalls the African proverb that says: It takes a village to raise a child.

Keynote title: Decolonial pedagogy and Brazilian school education

1. NB. Keynote address will be delivered in Portuguese with simultaneous interpretation into English.

Dr(a) Geni Nuñez, University of São Paulo  

Dr Geni Nuñez is a Brazilian writer, Guarani indigenous activist, and psychologist. Geni is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the University of São Paulo (IEA-USP), where she dedicates herself to interdisciplinary reflections and productions that connect ancestral knowledge and contemporary knowledge. She holds a doctorate from the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Human Sciences at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), where she also completed her master's degree in Social Psychology and her undergraduate degree in Psychology.

As an activist, Geni is a voice in the fight for social, territorial, and cultural justice. A feminist who advocates for political non-monogamy, she fights for the decolonisation of affections, opposing monosexism, binarism, and cissexism. Focusing on relationships, Geni is a columnist for Mina, on Universo Online.

Author of several works addressing themes such as indigenous ancestry, psychology, decolonization, and resistance, Geni Nuñez uses her writing as a tool for awareness and transformation in different spaces, reinforcing respect and celebrating cultural and epistemological diversity.

Geni is a member of the Human Rights Commission (CDH) of the Federal Council of Psychology (CFP) and the Guarani Yvyrupa Commission (CGY). Geni is the author of "Decolonizing Affections: Experiments on Other Ways of Loving" (2023) and the children's book "Jaxy Jaterê, the Guarani Saci" (2023).

Keynote Title: Reforesting the Imaginary

1. NB. Keynote address will be delivered in Portuguese with simultaneous interpretation into English

Adelaide Ivánova, journalist and housing justice activist

Adelaide Ivánova is a journalist and housing justice activist, working in poetry, photography, performance, translation, political education, and publishing.

In 2018, she won the Rio de Janeiro Literature Prize for her second book of poetry, “o martelo,” a documentary poetry book based on research on sexualized violence in Brazil. Her most recent book, “ASMA,” was chosen as the best poetry book of 2024 by 451 magazine and was listed as one of the 20 best books of the year by Folha de São Paulo. In January 2025, she won the APCA award for best book of poetry for “ASMA,” and in August 2025, she was announced as a semifinalist for the Oceanos Prize.

Ivánova's books and essays have been translated into German, Galician, English, Catalan, Spanish, Greek, Italian, Estonian, Swedish, and Russian. Her photo reportages are part of the collection of Brandenburgisches Landesmuseum für moderne Kunst (Germany), L’arthotèque – Museum of Fine Arts (France) and Galeria Murilo Castro (Brazil). She is not of Russian descent and lives in Berlin.

Keynote address title: "You and a little keyboard would be awesome": translation as an anti-colonial gesture.

9:00am - 9:25am: Arrival and coffee. Room T201.

9:25am - 9:30am: Housekeeping. Room T201.

9:30am - 9:40am: Welcome: Professor Charlotte Chadderton, Head of Research, Institute of Education and Skills, University of Derby. Room T201.

9:40am - 10:25am: Keynote: Dr Melanie-Marie Haywood, Dean of Students, Birmingham City University. Room T201.

10:25am - 10:35am: Break and move.

10:35am - 12:05pm: Workshops

• What’s Theory Got to Do with It? Social Change in and Beyond Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. Tré Ventour-Griffiths. Room T201.
• Museum of colonial continuities and decolonized futures—Zine-making workshop. Frances Rosenberg and Alessandra Cuzzolino. Room B102.
• The Dissolution of the University (or how do revolutionary teachers teach, after Gaza?) Professor Richard Hall. Room B104.

12:05pm - 1:05pm: Lunch

1:05pm - 1:50pm: Keynote: Joris Lechêne, Decolonial story-teller; Room: T201.

1:50pm - 2:10pm: Artistic presentation: If this street were mine. Igor dos Santos Mota; Room T201.

2:10pm - 2:20pm: Break and move.

2:20pm - 3:50pm: Workshops

• Improving decolonial praxis through connectedness – building capacity for undisciplinarity in higher education. Dr Dom Jackson-Cole, Dr Lucia Kula, Joris Lechêne. Room T201.
• The Grammar of Social Death: A Pioneering Afro-Pessimist Analysis of Black British Women. Roz Kaylor-Yarde Etwaria & Alison Morris. Room B102.
• Decolonisation from the Margins: Navigating the Insider–Outsider Position of Indigenous Knowledge Creation in Practice and Academic Research in the Diaspora. Maria Takaendisa and Chipo Mukoki. Room B104.

3:50pm - 4:00pm: Break and move.

4:00pm - 4:30pm: Presentations

• Exploring Academic Developers Perceptions of Decolonial Curriculum Design Praxis. Danielle Chavrimoottoo.
• Coafrwology: A Pan-African Science for Order, Justice, Restoration, and the Global African Renaissance. Alphonse Mpeke.
• The Role of Camfranglais in Diasporic Cameroonians’ Negotiations of Home and Belonging. Dr Constance Mbassi Manga.

4:30pm - 4:35pm: Break and move.

4:35pm - 4:45pm: Final words: Dr Dom Jackson-Cole.

9:15am - 9:30am: Arrival and housekeeping

9:30am - 10.30am: Workshop: Re-storying the curriculum and student co-creation in decolonial narratives through comic art and the collective imagination. Reece Sohdi and Shaun Bremner-Hart.

10:30am - 10:40am: Break

10:40am - 11:10am: Presentation: Law Students as Co-Producers of Knowledge in Decolonising the Curriculum: Outcomes of a Student-Staff Partnership. Dr Renginee Pillay, Patricia Dubin, Susheelwant and Kaur Surinder Singh.

11:10am - 11:15am: Break

11:15am - 11:45am: Artistic presentation: Images, archives and women's cinema: artistic expressions that reimagine memories and futurities with the sea / Imagens, arquivos e cinema feito por mulheres: expressões artísticas que reimaginam memórias e futuridades com o mar. Hyndra.

11:45am - 11:50am:  Break

11:50am - 12:20pm: Presentation: The school as a dialogical and subjective space: teaching materials in the emancipatory development of English teachers. Mellissa Barbosa.

12:20pm - 1:20pm: Lunch

1:20pm - 2:20pm: Keynote: Professor(a) Bárbara Carine, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil (in Portuguese with simultaneous translation into English).

2:20pm - 2:30pm: Break

2:30pm - 4:00pm: Workshop: Liminagraphy: Life-affirming research in times of crisis. Dr Zuleika Sheik.

4:00pm - 4:10pm: Break

4.10pm - 4.40pm: Presentation: Slowing Down: An Anti-Colonial Approach to Teaching an Learning. Rachelle McKay.

9:30am - 9:30am: Arrival and housekeeping

9:30am - 10:30am: Workshop: Still Her: Embodied gender and creative process as method for decolonisation. Yilin Tang and Batya Reich.

10:30am - 10:40am: Break

10:40am - 11:10am: Presentation: uMakhulu as Gobela. My grandmother lives within me. She teaches me things. Li'Tsoanelo Zwane.

11:10am - 11:15am: Break

11:15am - 11:45am: Presentation: Institutional Decolonising in UK Higher Education. Prof Deborah Johnson, Megha Kashyap.

11:45am - 11:50am: Break

11:50am - 12:20pm: Presentation: Navigating Resistance: Staff-Student Dialogues and the Internationally Relevant Curriculum Scales in Decolonising Practice. Dr Nighet Riaz, Dr Julia Bohlmann, Dr Colette Mair, Dr Donald Reid, Samarth Pinnamaraju, Yufan Chen.

12:20pm -  1:20pm: Lunch

1:20pm -  2:20pm: Keynote: Dr Geni Nuñez, University of São Paulo, Brazil (in Portuguese with simultaneous translation into English).

2:20pm -  2:30pm: Break

2:30pm -  3:15pm: Keynote: Adelaide Ivánova, artist.

3:15pm -  3:25pm: Break

3:25pm -  3:55pm: Presentation: Building Bridges, Not Silos: A Decolonial EDI Network in Action. Dr Peny Sotiropoulou, Dr Yetunde Kolajo Dr Nidhi S. Sabharwal.

3:55pm -  4:00pm: Break

4:00pm -  4:30pm: Presentation: Cacimba de Histórias: Lives and knowledge of traditional storytellers from cities in the interior of Bahia. Eliziane Santos and Luciene Souza Santos.

4:30pm -  4:35pm: Break

4:35pm -  4:45pm: Closing statements