Marking the launch of the oral history collection “Tamil Feminist Liberation: An Archive of What Could Be,” the PublicsLab and South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA) will be hosting a participatory, interactive workshop on holding complexity when facing traumatic histories of communal violence. This in-person workshop is catered towards practitioners and individuals who work with, are part of, or connected to communities and diasporas experiencing post-war collective trauma, histories of ethnic cleansing, and internecine (in-group) violence.

Oftentimes, communities that have endured civil/structural/armed violence simultaneously include recipients, witnesses, and perpetrators of harm. Sometimes the same person can identify with all three categories. The diasporic Ilankai (Sri Lankan) Tamil community is no exception, having endured decades of violence at the hands of the Sri Lankan state, majoritarian forces, global migration regimes, and from within the Tamil community itself. Under these conditions, healing community trauma means embracing the complexities of violence inflicted and endured by members of the same ethnicity, locality, and family.

Listening to complexities and nuances Tamil feminists offer in their storytelling, we will have the opportunity to reflect upon our relationship to complexities we embody. We will explore how the capacity for complex realities and possibilities live in the communities we value, love, or move through. This interactive participatory workshop guides you to notice the wisdom of your body through journaling, breath, gentle movement and storytelling.

Portions of this workshop will include references to violence. You are encouraged to arrive with materials that are grounding to you (i.e. a smooth rock in your pocket or wearing a fabric that reminds you of soft warmth). Folks are always welcome to participate in the manner that is comfortable to you and to honor your needs and self-care during the course of our time together.

This workshop builds on the launch event for “Tamil Feminist Liberation: An Archive of What Could Be” held on September 30, 2022.

Tamil Feminist Praxis: Embodying Complexity