Dr. des. Vanessa E. Thompson
Dr. des. Vanessa E. Thompson is a postdoctoral researcher in Sociology at the Department of Social Sciences at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. Before, she was a fellow at the Department of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research and teaching are concerned with black political theory, decolonial/postcolonial feminist theories and methodologies, gender and queer studies, theories on race and racism, critical migration studies, cultural studies, urban securitization and abolition democracies.
In her PhD thesis, she has explored forms of black urban activism in France as well as analysed the re-production of coloniality and anti-blackness through the workings of French Republican Universalism. Her current project focuses on racial policing in Europe and abolitionist visions and practices.
She has written articles on black social movements and racism in France, the relation between post-colonial power and recognition politics, and racial profiling and policing in Europe. Recent publications include:
- Thompson, V. E. und V. Zablotsky (2017). Nationalismen der Anerkennung – Gedenken, Differenz und die Idee einer „europäischen Kultur der Erinnerung.“ In: Decolonize the City! Zur Kolonialität der Stadt. Gespräche – Aushandlungen – Perspektiven. Eds. Zwischenraum Kollektiv. Münster: Unrast, 156-177.
- Thompson, V. E. (2015). “The Master’s Tools will never Dismantle the Master’s House.” Frantz Fanon on the Politics of Recognition and Whiteness in Hegemonic Social Philosophy. In: Unveiling Whiteness in the Twenty-First Century: Global Manifestations, Transdisciplinary Interventions. Hrsg. von D. Howard-Wagner, V. Watson, L. Spanierman, Lisa. MD: Lexington Books, 171-192.
- Thompson, V. E. (2015). Black Jacobins in Contemporary France: On Identities on Politics, Decolonial Critique and the Other Blackness. Sociological Focus, Special Issue on Black Movements, 49(1): 44-62.
Dr. Thompson is a co-founding member of cop-watch ffm.