Sarah Demart
ULB University (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
Sarah Demart is senior researcher in sociology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium. She is the author of Les territoires de la délivrance - Le Réveil congolais en situation postcoloniale (RDC et diaspora) (Paris: Karthala, 2017) and the editor with Gia Abrassart of Créer en post-colonie. 2010-2015. Voix et dissidences Belgo-Congolaises which brings together almost 50 academic, activist and artist contributors. She published several articles on Congolese diaspora, Black women activism, Activist resistances to research procedures, The politics of ignorance towards Black/African women. She recently published La fiction postraciale belge. Antiracisme afrodescendant, féminisme et aspirations décoloniales. Her current research looks at the intersection of sexual health, migration and (global) race from a multi-sited perspective (Democratic Republic of Congo and Belgium).
Talk Information:
The Afrodescendant-led anti-racism and the Belgian postracial fiction
July 3, 2026 | 9:00 AM
In this talk I’ll discuss the Belgian postracial fiction from a long-term ethnographic study within Afro-Belgian/Black circles (2011–2019) and a critical perspective informed by feminist, Black and postcolonial/decolonial epistemologies, as well as ignorance studies. I’ll explore the conditions of possibility for an antiracism led by and for people of African descent at three levels: microsocial (interpersonal relationships), mesosocial (organisations) and macrosocial (institutional and political framework). Looking at the epistemic dispute (Hesse) around racism that Afro-Belgian/Black have engaged vis-à-vis mainstream antiracism (Belgian civil society) and state antiracism (equal opportunities policies), I’ll argue that ignorance, appropriation and tarnished white innocence are central concepts to understand how postracial fiction structures antiracist dominant thinkings.