Afrika Kolloquium: Zimbabwe in St. Lucia. Heritage of African Descendants in the Caribbean

14.06.2022 17:15

by Ras Kella Wala and Dominik Frühwirth

Tuesday, 14 June 2022, 5.15pm

Seminar room 1, Department of African Studies, Spitalgasse 2, Hof 5, 1090 Wien

and online in moodle of the Department

After Zimbabwe had gained its independence from Great Britain in 1980, a group of Rastafari in St. Lucia took to the mountain of La Sorcière and also named it Zimbabwe. There they established the organic Zimbabwe Roots Farm as a liberated African space in the West. After they were evicted from La Sorcière in 1985, they relocated Zimbabwe to a former slave-plantation in 1986 from where it has operated ever since. This lecture seeks to explore the background and realities of the African Presence in the Caribbean through a conversation with one of the founders of Zimbabwe Roots Farm.

Ras Kella Wala was a founding-member of Zimbabwe Roots Farm and the spokesperson of the group. He administrated Zimbabwe Roots Farm until 2003 when he moved to Austria. He had already been working with the Red Cross in St. Lucia and is still working with the Red Cross in Vienna, Austria, and Shashemene, Ethiopia, connecting the African Presence in the Caribbean to the African continent.

Dominik Frühwirth is a Doctoral Candidate in African Studies at the University of Vienna and a Graduate Assistant at the “School of Sacrament Rastafari University” (SOSACRU) International Rastafari Studies Research Platform. His doctoral research centers on Rastafari and the African Presence in the West, and he has long been a student of Ras Kella Wala as well.

Chair: Birgit Englert

Please contact afrika@univie.ac.at for getting the link of the online version of the event.

 

 

Tuesday, 14 June  2022, 5.15pm
Seminar room 1, Department of African Studies, Spitalgasse 2, Hof 5, 1090 Wien
and online in moodle of the Department