How can the historical and geographic location of Cape Town, perched at the literal hinge of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, reframe our understanding of creolisation?

As a former Dutch East India Company (VOC) settlement, Cape Town is deeply layered with the legacies of unfree labor and diasporas from across both ocean worlds. This lecture with Ananya Jahanara Kabir, explores the Cape as a vital transoceanic site to examine how creolisation manifests in diverse creative expressions, from Longarm dancing and Cape Malay foodways to the Afrikaans language and the contemporary visual art of Thania Petersen. Ultimately, She suggests that retrieving these memories of creolisation offers an anti-hegemonic resource for resistance, resilience, and community-building today.