Eric Kyere

Dr. Eric Kyere studies structural construction of humanity along hierarchy based epistemology and practices that have root in history and animate inequalities are linked to the present and future. He is an Associate Professor of Social Work and Adjunct Professor of African Studies at the Indiana University, Indianapolis. His overall research focuses on epistemic and relational repair through processes that allow us to collectively dialogue with past historical structures and practices of injustices (e.g., slavery, and colonialism) and the ways we are collectively but differently implicated beyond victims and perpetrators. He builds on such dialogues to foster collective reinterpretation of our histories toward collective efforts to engage in reparative future. That is a future where structures and practices of violence rooted in slavery and colonial capital imaginaries are addressed for the collective. Such collective rethink is critical to reconstruct futures that support healthy relations with the self, the collective, and the natural environment in ways that support our thriving together. He believes that by dialoguing with the nuanced ways that we have all inherited and embody the legacies of slavery, colonialism and structural construction of racial hierarchy, it will foster a deeper understanding of how our shared humanity has been altered, but not destroyed, by colonial and racial imaginaries. This understanding will help us to connect with, instead of blaming, one another to rethink the structures shaping the collective to (re)produce injustices. From the perspective of collective memory and cultural trauma, the historical structures and processes that initiated and sustained slavery and colonialism, driving the racialization process today indicate cultural trauma (a disruption in memory creation pattern through which meanings are sustained and transmitted to inform collective consciousness and identity formation). He explores slavery heritage sites especially in Ghana as sites of memory embedded with narratives to visualize the inner workings of structural formation of whiteness (in US and Ghana) in creating and sustaining conditions and practices that can produce inequalities through human hierarchization. His transatlantic work and experiences have shown that when contextual distinctions are accounted for, the way slavery and colonialism accumulate into our present and are projected into the future implicates all of us but in differentiated ways. Therefore, our collective understanding of the relations among slavery, colonialism and ongoing formation of whiteness relative to epistemology and our shared humanity is essential to collectively re-construct our futures in reparative fashion. Dr. Kyere earned his BA in social work in 2006 from the University of Ghana, MSW in 2011 from the Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, and PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in 2017. In addition, Dr. Kyere acquired a graduate certificate in African Studies from the University of Pittsburgh Center for International Studies.