dr. A.D. Osbourne (Alana)

My work is located at the intersection of anthropology, critical geography, post-colonial and black studies. I am concerned with the material and affective manifestations of coloniality and with the everyday strategies that urbanites deploy to work through them. In past research I investigated how violence and poverty are transformed into tourism experiences that can be purchased and consumed, and unpacked the inequalities that permeate such encounters. I have also carried out work on urban inequalities and insecurity, with ethnographic research in Kingston, Jamaica and in Brussels, Belgium. I approached these topics through a focus on the embodied, affective and atmospheric.

As someone interested in colonial continuities I currently work on a couple of projects that probe these issues, though in very different ways. The first project focuses on the recent ‘Parliamentary Commission on Belgium’s Colonial Past’ where I observed how official assemblies and grassroots tourism initiatives work issues of race and memory into - and through - the city. The second project I am developing probes the entanglements of museums, inorganic matter and outer-space travel.