We Have to Stop Solely Reacting:
A Conversation with Iris Rajanayagam

Dr. Heidi R. Lewis and Iris Rajanayagam

As younger generations enter movement spaces, create their own coalition work, and come into their own as political thinkers, it is imperative to preserve the memory of past movements. Here, we ask how can we work against the pressure to constantly produce in order to slow down, study, and better understand the challenges that continue to erode political movements and spaces? Trust is the foundation from which we can exchange knowledge transnationally, but it is also the soil that allows intracommunal healing to take place. So, we discuss the challenges of coalition work, what sustains us in movement spaces, and the importance of finding motivations beyond fighting whiteness to create the existences we envision.

In order to shift the focus to creating, we have to stop solely reacting. Honoring the types of knowledge that give energy back into our community is one way to combat that feeling of being overwhelmed by the enormity of what it is we’re fighting against. Finding motivation through creating, rather than reacting to, is one way to sustain that energy.
—Iris Rajanayagam

Iris Rajanayagam is a historian with an M.A. in Modern/Contemporary History from the University of Cologne/Humboldt University Berlin/University of Dar es Salaam. She works on post- and decolonial theories, intersectionality, the politics of memory, and social change, with a focus on the connection of theory and praxis. She is Director of the non-profit organization xart splitta, and she is a researcher and lecturer at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Science. Iris is also co-founder of the radio show Talking Feminisms on Reboot.fm, spokesperson of the Migrationsrat Berlin (Migration Council Berlin), and she was active in The Caravan for the Rights of Refugees and Migrants for many years.

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