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Centre for the Studies of Law and the Humanities workshop: Minor Democracies and their infrastructures

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Venue: Birkbeck Central

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Democracy’s infrastructures have expanded.While democracy’s conventional structures (e.g.,houses of elected representatives, courts) and infrastructures (demonstrations, petitions, plebiscites, referendums) are still intact they are simultaneously wavering under the growth of populism, finance and information economies (Vogl). In the 21st century nevertheless, we see the growth of minor democracies (Deleuze) that appear in a variety of forms such as people assemblies, mutual aid groups, and cooperative business (Harcourt). Such minor democracies existed, at least since the 19th century, but their resurfacing and visibility urges us to study their role and effects in our times. We would like to approach this phenomenon with curiosity and openness and ask the following questions:

  •  Are these minor democracies the ideal or utopian version of our current democratic structures and infrastructures?
  •  Do they operate as ‘support systems’ or ‘bandage’ (so in ways that are complementary) to our current formal democracies?
  •  Do they replicate formal democracy’s practices? (e.g., voting, deliberation, etc.,)Do they function as reparative and therapeutic spaces
  •  Or are they antagonistic to the formal sites and institutions of democratic politics

Confirmed Participants:  Brandon Labelle,  Danae Theodoridou,  Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos (University of Westminster),  Julia Chryssostallis (University of Westminster),  Ayça Çubukçu(LSE),  James Martel (SFSU) Piyel Haldar (Birkbeck),  Patrick Hanafin (Birkbeck), Elena Loizidou (Birkbeck), Lina Dzuverovic (UAL) and Karolina Majewska-Güde (University of Warsaw) representing And Others, Helena Reckitt  (Goldsmiths) representing (FDGR).

Program

DAY 1

24th of June, Birkbeck Central, Room: BCB 408

10.00- Coffee/tea

10.10-10.30 - Elena Loizidou ‘Expansive democracies-to assemble (intro paper)’

10.30-11.45 - Ayça Çubukçu ‘After Negri: Rethinking the Politics of Assembly’

                   - Danae Theodoridou ‘Performance and Embodied Understandings of Democracy’

11.45-13.30 - Piyel Haldar ‘Gandhi and village democracies in India’

            - Patrick Hanafin ‘ 'Biological Citizens and the Struggle for Reproductive Rights in   Italy’

                  -  Brandon La Belle ‘On the Hobo Nation: a sketch of destituent power’

13.30-14.30 - lunch break (bring your own lunch)

 

14.30-16.00 - Julia Chryssostalis ‘On the acoustics of the space of appearance”

                  -  Helena Reckitt- ‘Feminist Duration Reading Group’

DAY 2

Thursday 25th of June, Birkbeck Central, Room: BCB 408

10.00-10.30 - coffee/tea

 

10.30-11.45 - Lina Dzuverovic and Karolina Maljewska-Gude ‘And Others’

                  - James Martel ‘Minor democracy, minor lands: the tè minè system and the second Haitian Revolution’

11.45-12.45- Andreas Philipopoulos Michalopoulos- ‘Hydrojustice: floating bodies’ (performance)

12.45-13.45- Starting conversation about the future of the project with an online meeting to be followed soon.

Contact name: Elena Loizidou

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