{"id":9066,"date":"2016-12-06T23:12:39","date_gmt":"2016-12-07T04:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=9066"},"modified":"2021-06-14T07:33:14","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T12:33:14","slug":"reassembling-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2016\/12\/06\/reassembling-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Reassembling democracy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s the abstract I’ve just sent in for the keynote I’ll be giving at the Reassembling Democracy: Ritual as Cultural Resource<\/a> conference in Oslo in February:<\/p>\n

Reassembling A Broken World: Toward Practices of Anthropocenic Mindfulness<\/strong><\/p>\n

If democracy is to be reassembled, with the aid of ritualized practices, how is it that it has been disassembled in the first place? Can and should its assembly be retained over the course of its journey from the civic principle organizing an ancient Mediterranean polis to the globalizing (and anti-globalizing) ‘cacocracy’ we find around us today? Is ‘globalization’ perhaps the sign of its demise, and a nascent something — decolonization, ecologization, Gaia, the Chthulucene, or something as yet unclear<\/span> — the sign of its re-emergence in a new, post-globalist (or post-capitalist) guise?<\/p>\n

This talk will take the notion of ‘reassembly’ to be a literal description of what might be done with a broken world, where ‘world’ refers to the relations between a human ‘demos’ and a non, post, or ex-human (as in ex-urban) ‘oikos,’ a ‘demoicracy’ that has fallen into dis- or mis-rule. (Except that ‘oikos,’ the household, dwelling-place, or familial property, is altogether too tame a term\u00a0for conjuring the partners to be invited toward the reassembly of a new, earthly demos; Stengers’s and Latour’s ‘Gaia’ and Haraway’s ‘Chthulu’ come closer to the mark.)<\/p>\n

I begin with a few places at which this brokenness is most evident: ‘zones of alienation,’ to use the term enshrined in the example of Chernobyl, that mark the ironies of technological catastrophe and of what happens when the human is (mostly) removed from the scene of the crime. In light of such zones and the geographies of sacrifice and violence they mark out, I creatively revisit Buddhism\u2019s Four Noble Truths by replacing dukkha <\/em>(suffering) with the ‘excess suffering’ attributable to anthropocenic trends including atmospheric carbon forcing, plasticization, nuclear militarization, and globalization of a growth-obsessed, colonial-capitalist world system.<\/p>\n

I argue that at the heart of this struggle is an effort to create ‘adequate images’ (in Werner Herzog’s terms) for our time, but that, when seen through a process-relational, material-semiotic ontology of the image, this means adequate practices<\/em> of image making, relational attending, and experimental ‘assemblage.’ A key component in this is the development of forms of ‘engaged anthropocenic mindfulness,’ whereby the affective propensities necessary for a reassembly of such a new demos, and ultimately a new kind of democracy, can be cultivated.<\/p>\n

Further information on the conference can be read here<\/a>. It looks\u00a0to be fabulous.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s the abstract I’ve just sent in for the keynote I’ll be giving at the Reassembling Democracy: Ritual as Cultural Resource conference in Oslo in February:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[691847],"tags":[123667,212,281,4448,454954,454956,454955],"class_list":["post-9066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion-spirituality","tag-anthropocene","tag-chernobyl","tag-democracy","tag-ecopolitics","tag-reassembling-democracy-conference","tag-sacrifice-zones","tag-zones-of-alienation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-2me","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8049,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2015\/03\/09\/appearances\/","url_meta":{"origin":9066,"position":0},"title":"Appearances","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"My review of Graham Harman's recent book\u00a0Bruno Latour: Reassembling the Political, has been published online in the journal\u00a0Global Discourse. It's part of a book review symposium, which will be accompanied (in the print issue) by the author's reply to his\u00a0interlocutors. The journal has been publishing a lot on Latour's political\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10282,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2020\/03\/02\/the-unbinding-rebounding-of-boundaries\/","url_meta":{"origin":9066,"position":1},"title":"The (un)binding & (re)bounding of worlds","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 2, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The following is a short essay I wrote for the Peder Sather\/Reassembling Democracy workshop on \"Environmental Change and Ritualized Relationships with the Other-than-Human World,\" held at UC Berkeley this past December. There are physical boundaries between humans and specific nonhumans\u2014fences, walls, windows (of homes, gardens, kennels, zoos, abbatoirs, safari vehicles,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthropocene"","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/03\/WALLS_new_winter.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/03\/WALLS_new_winter.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/03\/WALLS_new_winter.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8278,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2015\/06\/09\/harmans-reply\/","url_meta":{"origin":9066,"position":2},"title":"Harman’s reply","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Graham Harman's reply to my critical response to his book Bruno Latour: Reassembling the Political, which appeared as part of\u00a0a book symposium in\u00a0Global Discourse\u00a0earlier this year, is readable\u00a0online,\u00a0here.\u00a0 I won't address the details of that\u00a0reply here. Some of them relate to our divergent\u00a0interpretations of Latour, and since Harman has\u00a0now written\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1166,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/12\/19\/two-democracies-planet-compost\/","url_meta":{"origin":9066,"position":3},"title":"two democracies… (& planet compost)","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The responses to the final COP-15 \"deal\" from the environmental and social justice communities seem, at this point, to be largely negative. It's a start, some acknowledge, but it's pretty late to be starting, and it's really pretty vacuous -- a lost opportunity. My last post tried to put a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"tumblr_ktgfafCyYp1qzhl9eo1_500.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2009\/12\/tumblr_ktgfafCyYp1qzhl9eo1_500.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11064,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2020\/09\/11\/thought-exercise-democracy-reality\/","url_meta":{"origin":9066,"position":4},"title":"Thought exercise (democracy & reality)","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"September 11, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"See how far you follow my line of thinking here: (1) Democracy (institutional and not just majoritarian\/representational) is better than the alternatives. Let's live with it (and defend it). (2) Democracy as practiced in the U.S. today is partial, compromised, and somewhat muzzled, but still better than the alternatives. Let's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Manifestos & auguries"","block_context":{"text":"Manifestos & auguries","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/manifestos-and-auguries\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2020\/09\/114315398_02550029b3-266x400.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7193,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2014\/01\/20\/a-cultural-cold-war-wind\/","url_meta":{"origin":9066,"position":5},"title":"A cultural cold war wind","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I predicted back in 2010 that globalizing and technological trends would lead disparate religious traditions to find common ground on socially divisive issues like abortion and gay rights. Just as environmentalism, feminism, and indigenous rights were partnering various more liberal church groups with environmental and social justice organizations, contributing to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cultural politics"","block_context":{"text":"Cultural politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/cultural_politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"NjJiZDU3N2MyNSMvaGxXTUp4b0szWFJ4WVN1YWpVUUhZWllNc3pZPS84NDB4NTMwL3NtYXJ0L2ZpbHRlcnM6cXVhbGl0eSg3NSk6c3RyaXBfaWNjKDEpL2h0dHAlM0ElMkYlMkZzMy5hbWF6b25hd3MuY29tJTJGcG1idWNrZXQlMkZzaXRlJTJGYXJ0aWNsZXMlMkY2MTY4OSUyRm9yaWdpbmFsLmpwZw== (1)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2014\/01\/NjJiZDU3N2MyNSMvaGxXTUp4b0szWFJ4WVN1YWpVUUhZWllNc3pZPS84NDB4NTMwL3NtYXJ0L2ZpbHRlcnM6cXVhbGl0eSg3NSk6c3RyaXBfaWNjKDEpL2h0dHAlM0ElMkYlMkZzMy5hbWF6b25hd3MuY29tJTJGcG1idWNrZXQlMkZzaXRlJTJGYXJ0aWNsZXMlMkY2MTY4OSUyRm9yaWdpbmFsLmpwZw-1-e1390225539131.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9066"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9288,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9066\/revisions\/9288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}