The Edges in the Middle, III: Báyò Akómoláfé and Indy Johar
Illustration by Denis Williams from “Three Plays” by Wole Soyinka (Ibadan, Nigeria: “Mbari Publications,” 1963)
Continuing the conversation series, “The Edges in the Middle,” presented in collaboration with UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute, For The Wild is delighted to share Báyò Akómoláfé in conversation with Indy Johar of Dark Matter Labs.
Speaking on the theme “A New Theory of the Self,” Báyò and Indy dive into the milieu of life forms entangled together on earth. The conversation asks listeners to reconsider the objective nature of self and the word around us that has been so deeply ingrained within the architecture of society. Indy and Báyò consider our modern crisis as one of the self – a particular version of the objective and singular self that creates space for violence and waste. If we perceive the world through dead and objective things, as Indy supposes, then that is what we become.
Rejecting these notions of completion and singularity, Báyò and Indy engage in a conversation that calls attention to the aliveness of the world, to the agency and intelligence of our entangled minds, and to life as an ongoing process. How might we move beyond constraining ideas of order, power, and control in order to recognize and take part in relational ecological emergence?
“Identity is an impositional order, like racialization... an order structured through power, and control, and the preservation of control and preservation of divisibility. It’s completely at odds at the relational sense of actually where we are, where we need to be.”
“The Edges in the Middle” is a series of conversations between Báyò Akómoláfé and thought companions like john a. powell, V, Naomi Klein, and more. These limited episodes have been adapted from Báyò’s work as the Global Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley's Othering & Belonging Institute. In this role, Báyò has been holding a series of public conversations on issues of justice and belonging for the Institute's Democracy & Belonging Forum, which connects and resources civic leaders in Europe and the US who are committed to bridging across difference to strengthen democracy and advance belonging in both regions and around the world. Báyò's conversations encourage us to rethink justice, hope, and belonging by sitting amidst the noise, not trying to cover it up with pleasant rhythms. To learn more about the Democracy & Belonging Forum, visit democracyandbelongingforum.org.
Describing The Edges in the Middle, Báyò Akómoláfé writes, “These explorations are not ‘safe’. These encounters will probably be offensive (we hope they are). This is not a preaching to the choir. This is a jumping-off-from-tightropes into potentially risky and emancipatory waters. This is a material inquiry of the unsayable, a leaning into the places we are not supposed to go to, a reconsideration of the ordinary, and a refusal to reify anything touched as finished, declared, transmitted, or final. As a ritual of inquiry at the end of the world, this is a material-discursive-pedagogic attempt at breaking through the sensory monoculture of compliance and cyclicity. Most importantly, this is a call for you to create-destroy with us, to with-ness, to greet more-than-human entities, to be pierced through, to be undone.” With this, we encourage you to listen to these conversations with curiosity and open exploration. How might we grow from challenge, from inquiry? What might the trickster bring to the table?
♫ The music featured in this episode is "Shapeshifter Skies" and "Blood Diamond" by Sitka Sun, generously provided by The Long Road Society Record Label.
Photo of Báyò Akómoláfé
Photo of Indy Johar
The Edges in the Middle Series:
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