How can we reconstruct democracy as a community of life? This is an increasingly urgent moral question in a conjuncture where zombie neoliberalism lays waste to both human and non-human life, while autocratization eviscerates the very substance of democracy.

In collaboration with the Innovation Foundation for Democracy, the Centre for Asian Studies in Africa is hosting a three-day symposium to explore what the reimagining and remaking of democracy as a radical, future-oriented endeavour entail across the Asia-Africa axis of the world-system. During the three-day symposium, we will expand the compass of democracy and the political and train our lenses on collective practices and struggles, literary and visual imaginations and activist archives, and the public cultures and counterpublics that will constitute the core of democracy as a community of life across two continents that are home to 70% of humanity.

A full and detailed programme of the symposium is attached. As you will see, we have four exciting panels lined up, which will foster critical and comparative dialogues about the democratic potential of life- and world-making unfolding on urban margins and against the walling regimes of nation-states, the resources that literary and visual imaginations and activist archives provide for crafting new democratic vocabularies, and the vital importance of popular protest in the making of emancipatory political communities.

We would also like to call your attention to the following three events taking place in the afternoon across the three days of the symposium:

1. Date/time: 26 February, 4:00 pm, Venue: The Exhibition Space, Engineering 1, 

Keynote lecture: Prof Achille Mbembe (Wits University) will open the symposium with the keynote lecture Democracy as a Community of Life, Revisited. Prof Mbembe will reflect on what it entails to make substantive democratic futures across the Asia-Africa axis of the world-system.
 

2. Date/time: 27 February, 2:00 pm, Venue: The Lounge, Old College House  

Moderated conversation: Simon Allison (editor, The Continent) and Ishan Tankha (independent photojournalist, India) will engage each other in conversation about the significance of independent media and counterpublics in challenging autocratization. The conversation will be moderated by Prof Dinesh Balliah (Director, Wits Centre for Journalism).
 

3. Date/time: 28 February, 2:00 pm, Venue: The Exhibition Space, Engineering 1     

Film screening: Indian filmmaker Nausheen Khan will screen her documentary Land of My Dreams, which chronicles the story of popular protests against anti-Muslim citizenship laws in India. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker.

RSVP BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK