Transgressing the Indentured Promise with Dr. Ryan Persadie

Location: Room 240, University College at 15 King's College Circle

Date: Thursday, January 29, 2026

Time: 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM

Event Description:

Dr. Ryan Persadie's presentation turns to an archive and fieldsite he refers to as "queer fetes," diasporic party-spaces associated (Anglophone) Caribbean carnival practices that emerge out of Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Asian feminist legacies of resistance, emancipation and political consciousness. Focusing specifically on the "queer fete" as a site of anti-colonial and feminist place-making, Dr. Persadie interrogates how embodied acts of Indo-Caribbean self- and place-making practices are simultaneously produced through enactments of transhistorical and transnational harm. Following three years of ethnographic fieldwork in Toronto and NYC, Dr. Persadie explores how queer Afro-Caribbean frameworks for LGBTQI+ party infrastructures were consumed by queer Indo-Caribbean party organizers to build distinctly Indo-Caribbean parties, known as “coolie fêtes”, while negating queer Afro-Caribbean participation in these spaces. To showcase the transnational dimensions of this lateral violence when enacted by queer Indo-Caribbean (or what as Dr. Persadie refers to as "qoolie) party producers, he offers the conceptual framework of the “indentured promise." The indentured promise describes post-indenture ideologies of social ascension made possible for queer Indo-Caribbean communities through socially reproducing logics of anti-Blackness. At the same time, these performances of lateral violence functioned to maintain division between Indianness and Blackness, producing harmful monolithic readings of queer Indo-Caribbean community space as separate from queer Afro-Caribbean political organizing. Following this, Dr. Persadie explores how Indo-Afro relational politics performed within Toronto-based, Indo-Caribbean-led queer parties have been alternatively used to resist such hopeless binaries and enact transnational solidarities, particularly in relation to Palestinian communities impacted by ongoing genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. In this way, Dr. Persadie discusses how legacies of the indentured promise can be transgressed through performing a cross-racial (queer Indo-Afro) solidarity via singing and dancing to soca music.

About Dr. Ryan Persadie:

Dr. Ryan Persadie is an interdisciplinary feminist researcher, artist and award-winning educator. Currently, he works as a course instructor at the University of Toronto. His ethnographic research addresses queer self- and place-making practices within queer (Anglophone) Caribbean diasporas, and specifically LGBTQI+ Caribbean party cultures in Canada and the U.S. His research also explores relationships between transnational feminism, queer and feminist of color social movements, queer migration and diaspora, critical masculinity studies, performance and popular culture, and Afro-Asian intimacies in the Americas. His writing in these areas has been widely published in journals such as the Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, the Journal of Indentureship and its Legacies, the Middle Atlantic Review of Latin American Studies, Theatre Research in Canada, and MUSICUltures, among others. He completed his PhD in Women and Gender Studies and Sexual Diversity Studies at the Women and Gender Studies Institute in 2025. Outside of academia, he has spent the last ten years engaging in community organizing work with multiple community groups in Toronto and NYC. Since 2017, he has worked as a board member and Youth Mentorship Supervisor at the Caribbean Equality Project (based in Queens, NY).

Location Details:

The location of this event is room 240 located at University College (15 King's College Circle). The closest entrance is on the left side of Hart House Circle if you are walking north from King's College Circle. We will have signs directing people to the room.

About Sex Salon:

The Sex Salon is a monthly speakers series organized and hosted by graduate students from the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, and typically meets on the last Thursday of every month from 5:00 - 7:00 PM EST.

Accessibility Information:

Please let us know of any access needs at [email protected]

Wheelchair Access:

The venue is wheelchair accessible. The main University College building currently features two accessible entrances on the north and south sides of the building. Site map can be viewed here.

Washroom Access:

There are two all-gender bathrooms located on the same floor as the event room.

Food:

Light refreshments will be provided. If you have specific dietary needs or snack requests, please let us know in advance by emailing [email protected]. We will do our best to accommodate.

ASL Interpretation:

ASL interpretation can be arranged upon request. Please notify us at least one week in advance if you require this service by emailing [email protected].

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