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Charlotte Mertens

@charlottemertens.bsky.social
622 followers 270 following 40 posts

#Unimelb Gender/violence, race, decolonisation, colonialism, empire, humanitarianism, archives | DRCongo | Australia | Belgium

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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
Check out our new paper on teaching gender-based violence in higher edication www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Teaching on gender-based violence in higher education: critical reflections from criminologists on stolen land
Gender-based violence (GBV) remains a pervasive harm disproportionately affecting Indigenous women and marginalised communities in Australia and across the globe. Despite the centrality of GBV in c...
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 06/12/2025
Let the summer begin!
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
Rediscovering the work and spirit of Hafiz.
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Al Jazeera English @aljazeera.com · 13/08/2025
UN chief Antonio Guterres puts both countries ‘on notice’ over documented pattern of sexual violence.
bit.ly
UN chief warns Israel, Russia over reports of sexual abuse by armed forces
UN chief Antonio Guterres puts both countries ‘on notice’ over documented pattern of sexual violence.
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
Adriennne Rich’s poem ‘Rape’ remains as haunting and relevant as ever.
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
Excellent analysis by @kristoftiteca.bsky.social on the new peace deal between DRC and Rwanda negotiated by the US. “Peace is not a real estate transaction.”
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
Brilliant piece by Elizabeth Strakosch, Natalie Ironfield, & Shillan Shelby on Unimelb’s racist, harmful ‘anti-racist’ politics. overland.org.au/2025/06/rebr...
overland.org.au
Rebranding repression: the University of Melbourne’s elite capture of antiracism - Overland literary journal
Our current climate of political repression at the University of Melbourne reinforces why it is imperative that we continue to build autonomous intellectual homes that are grounded in Indigenous sover...
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Stéphanie Perazzone 🍉 🇨🇩 @stephanieperazzone.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
Our article in Review of International Studies, I wrote with @charlottemertens.bsky.social, now has a 'home' issue 😍 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
Review of International Studies: Volume 51 - Issue 2 | Cambridge Core
Cambridge Core - Review of International Studies - Volume 51 - Issue 2
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Haymarket Books @haymarketbooks.org · 20/05/2025
An Indigenous Theory of Water: @biidaasamose.bsky.social on Rivers as Teachers
lithub.com
An Indigenous Theory of Water: Leanne Betasamosake Simpson on Rivers as Teachers
Rivers are connectors. The rivers feeding into Lake Ontario and then the St. Lawrence connect me, for example, with Audra and her homeland. My people are called Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg because we …
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
People in Bukavu keep telling me about daily targeted arrests, about gunshots and killings every night. They are living in a ‘psychose totale’. Unlivable.
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Egmont Institute @egmontinstitute.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
📄𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗣𝗨𝗕𝗟𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 by @judithverweijen.bsky.social, @kvlassen.bsky.social & Godefroid Muzalia ““We Are Caught Between Violence and Famine” – Analysis of the Deepening Crisis Affecting Eastern DR Congo” #DRC 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 👉 bit.ly/3FLayRl
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David Gadd @profdavidgadd.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
'It starts from a premise which assumes there is such a thing as masculinity and that the answer to gendered problems in society, problems that affect all of us, is more and better gender, or gender done differently; rather than not at all' Serious food for thought
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
Sharpe’s voice will stay with me for a long time @hystericalblkns.bsky.social Ordinary Notes finds beauty despite living under brutal and violent regimes of anti-blackness. What an achievement. Read it.
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
“Every day you wake up and there’s something trying to break your heart.” Dionne Brand.
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Aron Lund @aronlund.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Istanbul protest image destined for book covers 📸 Ümit Bektaş, @reuters.com
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
Now more than ever we need to read bell hooks’ timeless book. And implement it. And throw it in university leaders’ faces and never forget the power we have as educators. ✊🏾
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Melanie Richter-Montpetit @mellimo.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
New UN report shows "Israel has increasingly employed sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence ... and carried out genocidal acts through the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities" www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...
ohchr.org
“More than a human can bear”: Israel's systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since October 2023
GENEVA - Israel has increasingly employed sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians as part of a broader effort to undermine their right to self-determination ...
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
I feel this is only the beginning.
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Greg Greene (he/him/his) @greene.haus · 26/02/2025
Whoever described generative AI as the aesthetic of fascism made a sharp point.
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Charles Onyango-Obbo @cobbo3.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Anxiety rises in DRC capital Kinshasa as M23 rebels advance in east. Some residents are looking to move their families abroad amid open talk of a coup. Some members of Congo's fractious opposition are openly predicting Tshisekedi will not last.
monitor.co.ug
Anxiety rises in DRC capital as M23 rebels advance in east
Tshisekedi faces criticism for lack of action
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Afrique XXI @afriquexxi.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
Les archives sont porteuses de la violence du passé colonial mais aussi d’une potentielle postérité anticoloniale, à condition d’être radicalement réorganisées autour d’une exigence de justice et d’accessibilité, expliquent @charlottemertens.bsky.social et @stephanieperazzone.bsky.social 👇
afriquexxi.info
Le regard de l'homme blanc sur les archives persiste - Analyse
Les archives sont porteuses de la violence du passé colonial mais aussi d’une potentielle postérité anticoloniale, à condition d’être radicalement réorganisées autour d’une exigence de justice et (…)
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
My heart is in Bukavu. 30 years of cycles of violence. Courage and strength to the people of Bukavu ❤️
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 11/02/2025
REPORTER: Are you policing yourself for conflicts of interest? What are the checks and balances? MUSK: We post our actions to the DOGE handle on X
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
That this even went to trial is insane. The cop called her ‘little missy’, she called him ‘white and stupid’.
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Mondoweiss @mondoweiss.net · 11/02/2025
The United States and Israel are openly pushing their plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
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Z Samudzi @zsamudzi.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Thinking about Afrikaners (smh) but actually thinking about the white American insistence on framing the post-colonial white settler as perpetually imperiled in stark opposition to their material and political economic conditions/realities. The foundational anxiety of the settler international.
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Butler: ‘If we continue to be gripped with outrage and stilled by stupefaction by each day’s new proclamation, we will fail to discern what links them. To be gripped by his statements is precisely the aim of their utterance.’
theguardian.com
Trump is unleashing sadism upon the world. But we cannot get overwhelmed | Judith Butler
Those who celebrate his defiance and sadism are as claimed by his logic as those who are paralyzed with outrage
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Al Jazeera English @aljazeera.com · 07/02/2025
"When people deny our stories, they're denying my truth. They're denying my abuses that I experienced." Rejecting the full history of Canada's residential schools and the harms Indigenous children faced is a form of hate, say survivors ⤵️
aje.io
‘Denying our truth’: Fighting residential school denialism in Canada
Rejecting the full history of the institutions and the harms Indigenous children faced is a form of hate, survivors say.
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
Grateful to @OverlandJournal for publishing my piece on Unimelb’s response to last year’s Gaza encampment. None of the University’s reconciliatory gestures (land acknowledgements, Indigenous strategies etc) have any meaning if we cannot speak about Palestine.
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A/Prof Bianca Fileborn (she/they) @snappyalligator.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
We have been censored in the US for our research on LGBTQ+ sexual violence. My co-authors and I are extremely concerned about research and activism being censored and the speed with which organisations have acquiesced to transphobic, homophobic and misogynist demands.
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Overland Journal @overlandjournal.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
"Refusing the University’s erasure of Palestine involves a collective effort in thinking on how we will teach Palestine [and] the ongoing settler colonial violence" @charlottemertens.bsky.social on teaching Palestine on stolen Indigenous lands.
overland.org.au
Teaching Palestine on stolen Indigenous lands   - Overland literary journal
Refusal is not only possible, it generates different worlds. Refusal insists on the possibility of alternative anti-colonial futures and ways of being. Refusing the University’s erasure of Palestine i...
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Stéphanie Perazzone 🍉 🇨🇩 @stephanieperazzone.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
@charlottemertens.bsky.social and I just published an essay with Africa is a Country that summarizes our article published with @risjnl.bsky.social a few months back. It looks at the Belgian Congo's archives to make sense of the political and structural violence still found in contemporary #DRC.
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Judith Verweijen @judithverweijen.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
New piece with @kvlassen.bsky.social on the escalating Congo crisis
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Judith Verweijen @judithverweijen.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
excellent article qui attire l'attention sur la coopération militaire contestée de la France www.mediapart.fr/journal/inte...
mediapart.fr
RDC : les rebelles entrent dans Goma dans l’indifférence de la communauté internationale
Le mouvement rebelle M23 soutenu par l’armée rwandaise est entré dans la ville d’un million d’habitants, sans parvenir pour l’heure à la contrôler totalement. Ni les forces internationales déployées …
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
The wretched of the earth ready to wreck the earth
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
Scorched earth tactics. Billions of dollars spent to completely destroy land and infrastructure. But the people will never be defeated. #FreePalestine
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
Our paper on the structural nature of DFV now has a home. Drawing on research with the Federation of Community Legal Centres in Australia, we argue that a distinction needs to be made between what is genuinely structural change and what is system reform. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
Structural Problems Demand Structural Solutions: Addressing Domestic and Family Violence - Evelyn Rose, Charlotte Mertens, Jennifer Balint, 2024
Despite the global recognition of domestic and family violence (DFV) as an outcome of unequal power relations between men and women, dominant frameworks for add...
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Al Jazeera English @aljazeera.com · 17/12/2024
'Soul of my soul'. Khaled Nabhan grieved peacefully for his granddaughter Reem last year. On Monday, Israel killed him in Gaza, too
aje.io
Grieving the Gaza granddad who wept for the ‘soul of his soul’
Khaled Nabhan grieved peacefully for his granddaughter Reem last year. On Monday, Israel killed him in Gaza, too.
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Gillian Mathys @gillianmathys.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
It took me way too long, but my book 'Fractured Pasts in Lake Kivu's Borderlands' will finally be out next year with CUP. You can preorder it here. www.cambridge.org/core/books/f... And it's hard to believe, but wonderful scholars called it 'bold', 'provocative', 'original' and 'essential reading'.
cambridge.org
Fractured Pasts in Lake Kivu’s Borderlands
Cambridge Core - African Government, Politics and Policy - Fractured Pasts in Lake Kivu’s Borderlands
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
In the belgian Congo mixed race children were stolen from their families, discriminated against and villified. Five women - all in their 70s now - took the Belgian state to court which found the state guilty of a crime against humanity (systematic kidnapping) www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/202...
aljazeera.com
Crime against humanity: Why has a court found Belgium guilty of kidnapping?
Thousands of children were forcibly taken from their families in Belgian colonies because they were mixed-race.
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
Teffera, Human Rights Watch researcher, describes the ruling as “a historic win because it recognises the obligation of European governments in addressing their legacies of colonialism”. It sets an important legal precedent and may lead to further reparations www.theafricareport.com/370402/activ...
theafricareport.com
Activists hail conviction of Belgium over treatment of métis girls in colonial Congo - The Africa Report.com
In its ruling Monday, the Brussels Court of Appeal held the Belgian State responsible for the abduction and systematic racial segregation of five mixed-race children under Belgian colonial rule 70 yea...
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
Historic judgement as the Belgian state has been found guilty of crimes against humanity for the forced removal of five mixed-race children from their mothers in colonial Congo. www.theguardian.com/world/2024/d...
theguardian.com
Belgium found guilty of crimes against humanity in colonial Congo
Court said five women were victims of ‘systematic kidnapping’ by state over forced removal from mothers as small children
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
More than 70 years after being taken away from her mother, Bitu Bingi, and four other women have accused Belgium of crimes against humanity for their forced removal and placement in religious institutions. Hope justice prevails.
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Charlotte Mertens @charlottemertens.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
The struggle of imperial leaders to conceive that the ICC might issue arrest warrants against them is something to behold. www.reuters.com/world/france...
reuters.com
France believes Israel's Netanyahu has immunity from ICC arrest warrant
France said on Wednesday it believed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had immunity to actions by the International Criminal Court which is seeking his arrest for alleged war crimes in Gaza, given Israel has not signed up to the court statutes.
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Jairo I. Fúnez-Flores @insurgentthought.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
This is hilarious.
Elon is still lying.
Just ask Grok.
Many of Elon Musk's posts on X are not true. Is that correct?

Answer by Grok
Elon Musk's posts on X often contain misinformation or misleading claims, particularly on topics like elections, immigration, and other political issues. This has been noted by various analyses and reports:
- Analysis of Misinformation: Studies and reports from organizations like the Center for Countering Digital Hate have found that false or misleading clai...
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Gert Huskens @gerthuskens.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
On the state of Belgium’s colonial archives. Leopold II’s private administrative papers, brick walls in a Walloon castle and the Goffinet brothers.
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