Guided Walk: Traces of Slavery at Utrecht University

In collaboration with students and staff from the departments of Cultural Anthropology and Educational Sciences, the Contesting Governance platform at Utrecht University has been hosting a film series titled Re-imagining the University. After four inspiring screenings, we will close this academic year with a thematic walk exploring the Traces of Slavery in the very buildings where we study, teach and conduct our research. 

Re-Imagining the University Film Series

This series was initiated as an invitation to rethink the university as a critical political space, to dream up new possibilities, and to chart a course towards a more equitable, inclusive, and transformative vision of learning and knowledge cultivation. This is especially crucial in light of recent student-led struggles for Palestine on campus and the unprecedented budget cuts announced by the far-right government. Each screening was followed by a conversation led by invited discussants who helped to frame key themes. Our first screening featured The Uprising (2019), a powerful music documentary by Pravini Baboeram. The second film we watched was Everything Must Fall (2019), a vivid reconstruction of the student protests at Wits University, Johannesburg, by Rehad Desai. For our third screening, we watched All Was Good (2022) (original title: Sab Changa Si) by Teresa Braggs, which intimately captures the 2019–2020 student-led protests in Bangalore, India, against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). We concluded the series with The Blockade (2012) by Igor Bezinovic. This film provided a unique view from within the massive, longest, and politically most significant student protest in Zagreb, Croatia.

Traces of Slavery at Utrecht University

Before we are back with more film screenings after the summer break, we invite you to join a thematic guided tour through Utrecht’s city centre. After we have spent the year critically examining the university through film, this walk invites us to reflect on its physical spaces and material archive. Thanks to the work of researchers affiliated with the Traces of Slavery project, we now understand more clearly how deeply Utrecht is connected to the history of colonial exploitation and the global slave trade. These lesser-known histories also extend to our university and the very buildings where we study, work and conduct our research today.