The Edges in the Middle, VI: Báyò Akómoláfé, Madhulika Banerjee, and Minna Salami

Photo by Karthi Keyan of a woman creating a kolam as shared about in the episode.

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 this conversation between Báyò Akómoláfé, Madhulika Banerjee, and Minna Salami. 

Speaking on the theme, “Democracy and Its Exquisite Others,” Báyò, Madhulika, and Minna delve into an exploration of what it means to truly participate in democracy, as an embodied, collective action. In this thoughtful and informed episode, they investigate the idea of “Eurocracy'' and unpack what the eurocentric definition of democracy has meant for the world as a whole. Envisioning other ways of creating democracy,  Báyò, Madhulika, and Minna describe festival democracy, democracies of contestations and dancing, and democracies of the more-than-human.

Combating the idea that we must perform hope and instead pointing out hope as a carceral thing when it prevents us from feeling the spectrum of emotions, Bayo, Naomi, and Yuria instead turn to the idea that we might find solace within the web of our relations - both human and more-than-human. The identity of the collective web highlights our ecological belonging. What forms of life and narrative may emerge and transition as we move towards stories of belonging? 

This conversation contemplates the waves of grief and gratitude that mark our lives. In order to change, we must surrender, and with this we must find ways to make space and sanctuary for the transition. As we settle into the composting of old frameworks and the emergence of something else entirely,  how do we treat one another as we fall down and falter together?

“We have inherited traditions in which there have been a democracy between different living beings, but a lack of democracy within human culture.”

— Madhulika Banerjee / The Edges in the Middle, VI

“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 “Dauntless” and “Seek to Share” by Sitka Sun, and “Love is on the Way” by Karen Less feat. Brothers Amor (in extended episode) generously provided by The Long Road Society Record Label and “Buried in Teeth” by Maree Siou.

Báyò Akómoláfé (Ph.D.), rooted with the Yoruba people in a more-than-human world, is the father to Alethea and Kyah, the grateful life-partner to Ije, son and brother. A widely celebrated international speaker, posthumanist thinker, poet, teacher, public intellectual, essayist, author of two books, the founder of The Emergence Network, and host of the postactivist course/festival/event, We Will Dance with Mountains.

Madhulika Banerjee is a professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Delhi. Her research interests center on the politics of knowledge and its role in shaping the discourse and practice of development, with a particular focus on the global south.

Minna Salami is a Nigerian, Finnish and Swedish feminist author and social critic. Her research focuses on black feminist theory, contemporary African thought, and the politics of knowledge production. 

Episode References

“New Paper Links Climate Change to Shrinking Brain Size in Humans” | ScienceAlert

Cultivating Democracy by Mukulika Banerjee | Oxford University Press

“The world is becoming increasingly authoritarian - but there is hope” | University of Gothenburg

Visit the original conversation
https://belonging.berkeley.edu/video-democracy-and-its-exquisite-others-madhulika-banerjee-minna-salami-and-bayo-akomolafe

The Edges in the Middle Series:

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