The Land Beneath Our Feet (2016, directed by Sarita Siegel)
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square
The Land Beneath Our Feet (2016, directed by Sarita Siegel)
When: 22 July 2022, 17:00-20:00
Venue: Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square
Schedule:
17:00: Welcome refreshments
18:00: Introduction
18:15: Film screening
19:20: Q&A session with Dr. Emmanuel Urey and discussion chaired by Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey
20:00: Close
The Land Beneath Our Feet follows a young Liberian man, uprooted by war, who returns from the USA with never-before-seen footage of Liberia’s past. The uncovered footage is embraced as a national treasure. Depicting a 1926 corporate land grab, it is also an explosive reminder of eroding land rights.
In post-conflict Liberia, individuals and communities are pitted against multinational corporations, the government, and each other in life-threatening disputes over land. What can this ghostly footage offer a nation, as it debates radical land reforms that could empower communities to shape a more diverse, stable and sustainable future?
The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with Dr. Emmanuel Urey (main protagonist in the film)
Dr. Urey was born in a small rural village in Bong County, Liberia. At the age of 13, he, along with his family, fled Liberia for a refugee camp across the border in French Guinea. One year later, he first learned to read and write. Imprisoned by Charles Taylor’s rebels while furthering his education in Monrovia, Emmanuel narrowly escaped death. Today, he is working to advance land reforms in Liberia critical to equitable development.
This film screening is organised by the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research Working Group “Plantations: Political ecologies of extraction and resistance” which examines historical and contemporary perspectives on the ‘plantation’ and its processes of subsuming social and ecological relations into capitalist regimes through the appropriation of cheap natures, and the multiple and differentiated effects of these processes.
Links
https://www.thelandbeneathourfeet.com/
Contact name:
Matthew Barrington