23.10.25, 19:30, Sinan Çankaya, Schuld en schaamte als sociale wonden

Why do so many people feel inadequate, alienated or superfluous, when the problem often lies elsewhere?

In this lecture, writer and cultural anthropologist Sinan Çankaya takes the audience beyond the walls of the therapy room and the jargon of psychotherapy. He shows how our inner lives are connected to the world around us: inequality, racism, class and power. Fanon showed that the pain and alienation of people of colour are not separate from the violence of society. Bourdieu showed how so-called “personal problems” are often imprints of social structures in our bodies: in how we speak, move and dare to dream. These (in)visible boundaries determine who belongs and who does not.

Much social work falls short because the individual is cut off from their social and cultural context. Guilt, shame and insecurity are reduced to a psychological problem. This language limits us. How do you treat structural inequality with a six-session treatment plan?

Çankaya explores the interaction between the psyche and society, and how it is intertwined with political structures. He invites attendees to look at things in a radically different way and to build a new relationship with themselves and others by recognising that we are “socially wounded”. In his view, this offers a form of liberation.

After the lecture, Sinan Çankaya will talk to journalist Samira Bendadi.

• Sinan Çankaya is an anthropologist and writer. He obtained his doctorate with a study on diversity within the Dutch police force and researched ethnic profiling in the Netherlands. He has written essays on identity and exclusion for De Correspondent. His book Mijn ontelbare identiteiten (My Countless Identities, 2023) was awarded the Jan Hanlo Essay Prize Groot, the Sociologische Bril (Sociological Perspective) and the E. du Perron Prize. His latest book, “Galmende geschiedenissen” (2025), is about who is allowed to speak and who is silenced, about which dead we remember and which stories we bury deeper. He wrote the introduction to the Dutch edition of Edward Said's Orientalism and is a university teacher at VU Amsterdam.
• Samira Bendadi is a journalist at MO* and has worked for both radio and television in the past. Her expertise lies mainly in the field of migration and citizenship. In addition to her focus on migration in Belgium, she has produced numerous reports in various countries in North Africa and the Middle East. In recent years, she has focused in particular on the situation in Libya and Sudan.
  
  Her journalistic work is always based on a human rights perspective. Whether it concerns in-depth reports, analytical contributions or interviews with writers and artists, both in Belgium and Europe or the Arab world, the political context and its impact on human rights are always central to her approach. Bendadi is the author of Dolle Amina’s. Feminisme in de Arabische Wereld (2008). In 2019, she was co-curator and co-author of the book Textiel in Verzet (Textiles in Resistance), a publication accompanying the exhibition of the same name on textiles, migration and resistance, commissioned by the Fashion Museum (MoMU).

This lecture will be in Dutch.

This lecture is part of the Dark Nights series at the GUM Forum. More information about accessibility can be found on their website. A sign language interpreter will be present for this lecture. If you have any further questions about accessibility facilities, please contact the organisers: anais.vanertvelde@hogent.be. Questions can also be asked at the reception desk on site.