3: Decolonizing Travel Culture with Bani Amor

Jul 19, 2017

To listen in on your iPhone, go to bit.ly/libertypod. To listen in on your Android, go to bit.ly/libertygplay. To listen on your computer, go ahead and scroll down!

 

BANI AMOR IS…

a queer travel writer from Brooklyn by way of Ecuador. Through their work, they explore diasporic identities, decolonizing travel culture and the intersections of race, place and power. I don’t remember how I connected with Bani’s work, but this conversation and reading Bani’s writing has expanded so much of how I define and understand travel (you can find some of their writing linked below). In this episode, we talk about:

  • the various definitions and experiences of this thing we call “travel”
  • the ways in which we treat the communities we’re engaging with when we travel (especially indigenous communities)
  • the culture and business of travel writing
  • who’s really paying the price for climate change.

QUOTES FROM THE SHOW:

“There’s personal liberation of the individual but I don’t think that can be separated from collective liberation.”

“A lot of the time, when we do travel, we are infringing upon other communities’ right to self determine. We are affecting the land, we are affecting the environment, we are affecting the economy.”

“I’m trying to ask questions that tie together relationships of power between places and communities and I think that has to do with taking responsibility or being aware of the history of the place that you’re coming from.”

REFLECTION PROMPTS:

  • What is the history of the places you’ve traveled or are traveling between?
  • What is your/your family/your ancestry’s travel history?
  • How have these histories affected your life or your communities?

MENTIONED ARTICLES BY BANI:

 

CONNECT WITH BANI + SUPPORT THEIR WORK:

 

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