From 8-10 April 2026, approximately 35 academics, practitioners and members from civil society will meet at the Geneva Graduate Institute for the Law & Marxism Spring School: Race, Resources and Redistribution.
What's the role of the development paradigm in 'new imperialism', and what's the role and significance of food (plantation economies, world trade law, food subsidies, supply chains, corporate power) and food sovereignty as a claim for redistribution? Can we do legal history from below? What are the legal histories of empire? What is the role of doctrines of free trade, terra nullius, etc? How were race, gender and sexuality legally constructed as part of the European colonial project? What can we do/are we doing today with lessons from the past? How can our research and legal practice support social movement struggles? How do we share resources with, and put our research and legal skills at the service of, social movements and groups?
These and other questions will be discussed in plenary sessions with experts, writing workshops and a critical walk in Geneva. Focusing on race, resources and redistribution, we hope the participants to engage in the discussion of how the lenses of historical materialism and Third World Marxism can provide a new horizon for redistribution. Further, we will discuss which methods we should use and how we can critically interrogate the silences, biases, and erasures of the archive. And how to take theory beyond academia and engage with movement lawyering.
This Spring School is organised by Suzana Rahde Gerchmann, Lys Kulamadayil (both Geneva Graduate Institute) & River Baars (SOAS) with the generous support of the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. 216005) and the Graduate Institute’s International Law Department.