Weaving the Black Tapestry: An Approach To Decolonial Counter-Storytelling

The aim of this workshop is to explore storytelling as a legitimate research method, understand the landscape of Black lived experiences in the UK, explore what rehumanising research might look like, and foster a sense of community, oneness, and collective healing.

Often, in research about and relating to Black experiences, typically our stories are summarised and flattened, often reduced into statistics and generalised. This can be dehumanising, and sacrifices crucial contextual details, divorcing our stories from the people, environments, and lives from which they were taken. Additionally, our stories and experiences are often not told by ourselves, meaning the narratives about us in society are not shaped by our voices.

The aim of this workshop is to push back against these effects through counter-storytelling, meaning empowering participants to tell their own stories in their own voices. Instead of trying to quantify, categorise, and summarise their experiences, Lonceny uses storytelling in a way that creates a “big picture” tapestry of stories while also preserving the individual details and richness of each.

Event Format

6pm | Welcome

6.30pm | Presentation by Lonceny Kourouma

7.15pm| Break

7.30pm | Activity led by Lonceny Kourouma

8.30pm | Social (Food available)

9pm | End

FREE EVENT - please RSVP to secure your spot! This workshop space is primarily for Black, African & Caribbean LGBTQ+ people - please be mindful when booking your ticket.

About Lonceny Kourouma

Lonceny Kourouma is a queer doctoral researcher, Part-Time Visiting Lecturer (PTVL) in Sociology at the University of Westminster. His research focuses on highlighting the intersectionalities and intricacies of Black lived experiences in the UK through their own voices and examines this through a decolonising lens. To do this, he uses storytelling as a form of decolonial praxis to help understand and retell Black lived experiences in the present day. Being a member of the Pedagogies for Social Justice network at the University of Westminster, the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) at the University of Manchester, and a member and contributor of the Chakula Steering Group has allowed him to better reach and connect with other researchers from the global majority and find a community of decolonial thinkers that has further enriched his and the community's collective activism.

About Chakula

The Chakula programme is a monthly series of events, workshops and dialogues geared towards supporting and empowering Black and African LGBTQ+ communities at The Africa Centre.