The Edges in the Middle, VII: Báyò Akómoláfé, Sa’ed Atshan, Cecilie Surasky
Photo of unravelling textile fragment from ancient Levant discovered in Nahal Hemar Cave; courtesy of antiquities.org.
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, Sa’ed Atshan, and Cecilie Surasky.
Starting from the premise that all people belong and all lives are grievable, Bayo, Cecilie, and Sa’ed explore how honoring each other’s grief may allow us to reclaim each other’s humanity and perhaps shed light on a path forward to belonging in Israel-Palestine, for Muslims, Jews, and Christians, and for all people around the world. Bayo, Sa’ed, and Cecilie will journey into what it might be like to glimpse at the world through tears: what visions are possible when we postpone the compulsion to see everything clearly?
Together, Bayo, Cecile, and Sa’ed share personal stories of grief, meditations on the power of a grief that catalyzes, and thoughts on what radical accompaniment may look like in times marked by rigid othering. This conversation does not attempt to singularly solve, but rather to pay deep attention, to sit with, and to look with open eyes at the crises unfolding at our hands. What multifaceted grief can attest to the pain of these times, can keep us from retribution, and rather hold us together?
“Democratizing the space for grieving, for public grieving, for theorizing grieving, for practicing grieving in a deeply de-colonial manner and in a deeply queer-feminist manner, I think can get us closer to the healing that we all deserve.”
“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 “Long Shadow,” “Presence,” and “Blood Diamond” by Sitka Sun, generously provided by The Long Road Society Record Label.
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.
Sa'ed Atshan, is an Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and Anthropology at Swarthmore College. His areas of research include contemporary Palestinian society and politics, global LGBTQ social movements and Christian minorities in the Middle East.
Cecilie Surasky, before joining the Othering and Belonging Institute was deputy director of Jewish Voice for Peace, where she led campaigns to build grassroots supports for policies that uphold the unalienable human rights of Palestinians.
Episode References
Michael Rothberg - Comparative Literature - UCLA
Rabbis for Human Rights | English
Visit the original conversation
To view the originally recorded conversation, visit https://belonging.berkeley.edu/video-across-lines-grief-bayo-akomolafe-professor-saed-atshan-and-cecilie-surasky
THE EDGES IN THE MIDDLE Series:
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Bayo, Cecile, and Sa’ed explore how honoring each other’s grief may allow us to reclaim each other’s humanity and perhaps shed light on a path forward to belonging in Israel-Palestine, for Muslims, Jews, and Christians, and for all people around the world.