- Hadiya Sewer, Scholar
Dr. Hadiya Sewer is a Visiting Scholar in the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University and a Scholar in Residence at the University of the Virgin Islands. Dr. Sewer’s work uses a non-sovereign territory in the Caribbean, the United States Virgin Islands, as a case study for tracing the conceptions of freedom and the human that exist under contemporary colonialism. Sewer earned their Bachelors in Sociology from Spelman College and their M.A. and Ph.D. in Africana Studies at Brown University. They recently completed a Research Fellowship in the African and African American Studies Program at Stanford University. Their scholarship focuses on environmental justice and Africana decolonial, feminist, queer, and political theories. They are currently working on two monographs titled, “(De)Colonial Desires: Blackness, Aporia, and the Afterlives of the Dead,” and “Black as Nature: Climate Disaster, Covid-19, and the Coloniality of Power.” Dr. Sewer’s research, teaching, and advocacy provide phenomenological, ethnographic, and historical examinations of anti-blackness, colonialism, imperialism, and the climate crisis. As a community-engaged scholar, Sewer is also the President and Co-Founder of St.JanCo: the St. John Heritage Collective, a land rights and cultural heritage preservation nonprofit in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, and a founding member of the Virgin Islands Studies Collective. In their consultancy, Dr. Sewer helps personal and corporate brands to develop their brand conscience and curate their legacy.
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