{"id":1113,"date":"2021-06-03T19:51:56","date_gmt":"2021-06-03T16:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cbg-lab.uom.gr\/en\/?p=1113"},"modified":"2021-11-25T10:58:50","modified_gmt":"2021-11-25T07:58:50","slug":"cosmopolitics-heteropolitics-and-epistemologies-of-the-south-discourses-on-decoloniality-in-greece-between-theory-and-activism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cbg-lab.uom.gr\/en\/?p=1113","title":{"rendered":"Cosmopolitics, Heteropolitics, and Epistemologies of the South: Discourses on Decoloniality in Greece, between Theory and Activism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"700\" height=\"394\" src=\"https:\/\/cbg-lab.uom.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/06\/alcazar.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1114\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cbg-lab.uom.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/06\/alcazar.jpg 700w, https:\/\/cbg-lab.uom.gr\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/06\/alcazar-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><figcaption> In the Alcazar neighborhood, Thessaloniki. Research &amp; photo credits: Miltiadis Zerboulis. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Date:<\/strong> June 9, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Time:<\/strong> 5-8 pm (GMT+3)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Organizers: <\/strong>d\u00ebcolo\u0438\u0131ze hell\u03ac\u015f in collaboration with Culture \u2013 Borders \u2013 Gender Lab, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Link: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/zoom.us\/j\/8954478253\">here (Meeting ID: 895 447 8253)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Convenor: F. Tsibiridou<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This workshop will be organized by the initiative Decolonize Hellas, \nunder the cluster of Cosmopolitanisms\/Cosmopolitics. Within this context\n and, more broadly, within our critique on the self- and \nhetero-colonizing processes of the hegemonic discourse of Western \nepistemology and white supremacy, we look into the meanings and \ntransformations of classic Cosmopolitanism, as they have appeared in the\n era of Colonization and as they survive in the present. In the wake of \npostcolonial critique and intersubjective multiculturalism, while also \ncounter-pointing the classical or more contemporary notions of \ncosmopolitanism, we aim to bring in discussion the notions of race and \nracism, patriarchy and colonial technologies along with intersectional, \nfeminist and other transindividual and embodied activist experiences of \nheteropolitics \u2013 an effort inspired by glocal movements of \ndecolonization and sustains an open dialog with the epistemologies of \nthe South. We look for cosmopolitical practices in social movements, \nanti\/counter-courses, research perspectives and artistic interventions, \nin planning and cooperative projects, in politics enacted differently. \nWe attend to subaltern voices and histories, as they survive in \nmarginality or in a constant state of borders and liminality, forming \nthe politics of everyday life, knowledge and questioning of academic \nthought and practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We will answer questions such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Could we find nearby examples of local and supralocal \nepistemologies, analogous to the epistemologies of the South, that are \nentangled with cosmopolitical practices of decolonization?<\/li><li>How do the categories of familiar precarity (minorities, refugees, \nmigrants, women, precarious lives and other forms of exclusion), as well\n as the reflective observation of the boundaries of exclusion, conjoin \ncreatively past cosmologies and technologies, mingling practice with \ntheory?<\/li><li>How can all the parallel familiar histories of personal experiences,\n local cosmologies, ethnographic research, oral history, and feminist \nmethodologies be articulated with art, technical knowledge and \ntechnology?<\/li><li>To what extent do practices of inclusion, care and heteropolitics \ntalk back to personal self-interest, to the capitalist exploitation, the\n colonial matrix of structural racism, of occupation and enclosures, of \npatriarchy, and of domination over nature?<\/li><li>What leeway do we have for decolonizing knowledge and politics in \nGreece and its neighborhoods, referring to the values of humanism but \nalso in search of a universal ideal that will not divide but instead \ninclude?<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Participants: Michalis Bartsides, Alexandros Kioupkiolis, <\/strong>Ioanna Laliotou, Iris Lykourioti, Penny Travlou, Fotini Tsibiridou, Aimilia Voulvouli, Miltiadis Zerboulis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Abstracts and Short Bios:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cOn cosmopolitics: ethnography and counter publics, marginal Balkan cosmologies and creative Aegean epistemologies\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Fotini Tsibiridou <\/strong>(Prof. of Social Anthropology, Head of the Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Abstract<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The presentation explores the genealogies, meanings, and dimensions  of cosmopolitics, as it is being crystallized between research and  activism in the heart of Latin America, while also tries to fuel the  debate over epistemologies of the South in the context of decolonization  today. We look on the importance of intersectionality and precarity in  shaping actions and initiatives that challenge hegemony,  authoritarianism and the colonization of knowledge about self and  others, while striving for the coexistence of life in the planet.  Drawing on the example of an ethnographic research on social movements  and feminist methodologies in the center of the Global city-Istanbul,  but also on the experience gathered from engaging with the collectivity  of the Social Workshop of Thessaloniki, from 2008 and for 9 years on,  the presentation firstly seeks to identify the coincidences, differences  and deviations from the lucophonic world. The encounter of <a href=\"https:\/\/decolonizehellas.org\/\">d\u00ebcolo\u0438\u0131ze hell\u03b1\u015f<\/a>  with the possibilities of cosmopolitics opens up new paths for the instrumental and creative exploration of marginal and forgotten cosmologies, such as those still found in the Balkans and Anatolia,  which could introduce alternative epistemologies of  cosmo-eco-techno-political knowledge (such as those found within the  Aegean Sea), in a certain analogy with the Epistemologies of the South.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The presentation proposes examples of alternative publics and  anti\/counter-courses that will blend academic knowledge and research  with activist practices. Instead of simply highlighting voices,  differences and tolerance, as postcolonial critique often does, we  reflect on the dynamics of alternative epistemologies in the path of  cosmopolitics, a reflection capable of transforming the demands of  cosmopolitan humanness and its civilizing mission into more equal,  inclusive and non-divisive ventures of coexistence in everyday life that  strive for self-knowledge and emancipation. Alternative epistemologies  of conjoint histories and practices of cosmopolitics, that promote  inclusion and care and often have a feminine aura, as they are articulated with feminist methodologies, shape, hesitantly or more  vigorously, a deviation from the rationalization imposed by the  compliance to the matrix of Western colonization of race, class, gender,  region, periphery, heteronormativity and any other trope of exception.  Experiences that creatively use marginal Balkan cosmologies or the  palimpsest of untold stories that anthropology and oral history often encounter in the Balkan area and in the Aegean islands and coasts,  assemble stories and experiences of a new kind of citizenship: life  stories and place mythologies that are forbidden, forgotten and  disavowed by dominant ideologies and theologies, traumatic memories of  subaltern subjects, and muted, dark creatures and materialities. In this  context, the presentation will go though stories, experiences, and  actions, suitable for research, teaching and alternative publics, that  go beyond the Western binary of majorities and minorities and challenge  the white supremacy of the empire, the European advantage and the  technological superiority as the only alternative of the chain of  production, challenge also the urban gentrification projects that  sacrifice cities on the altar of uncontrolled development and growth,  and the over-exploitation of nature by man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Fotini Tsibiridou<\/strong>&nbsp;is Professor of Social \nAnthropology at the Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies at\n the University of Macedonia and acting Director of the Laboratory for \nthe Study of Culture, Borders and Gender. She has done fieldwork in a \nformer refugee village and among the Pomaks in Greek Thrace, in \nMacedonian and Peloponnese villages and the Sultanate of Oman. She has \nalso researched nationalism and multiculturalist discourses and \npractices in Greek Thrace, as well as gender, citizenship and creative \ncounterpublics in Istanbul. Currently (since 2018), she is researching \ntwo topics: post-Ottoman religiosity and gendered subjectivity in the \nframe of post-colonial critique (Balkans, Turkey, the Middle East), and \nfeminist and other decolonizing methodologies deployed in creative \nprotests and resistance practices in Mediterranean cities in the way \nto\/of cosmopolitics. She is the cofounder of the&nbsp;CREABALK \u2013 Creative \nBalkans&nbsp;network. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uom.gr\/en\/ft\">https:\/\/www.uom.gr\/en\/ft<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cCosmopolitical Technegeographies: Epistemologies of the South and artifacts-artifices. Toward a decolonization of design\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Iris Lykourioti<\/strong> (Assistant Prof. Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly \/ A Whale\u2019s architects)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Abstract<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <em>Epistemologies of the South<\/em> developed by Santos (2012)<em>,<\/em>\n like decoloniality, apart from being theoretical paradigms that \nemphasize criticism, constitute a program for broadening the realities \nand potentialities of our present, past (<em>sociology of absences<\/em>) and future (<em>sociology of emergences<\/em>). They aim at the creation of future systems of social production and epistemological formation (<em>ecology of knowledges<\/em>).\n They can facilitate the transcendence of binary perceptions of social \nphenomena and the abyssal social and geopolitical inequalities that have\n been produced through the centuries of the historical complicity \nbetween capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy within the program of \nmodernity. <em>Epistemologies of the South<\/em> function as a \ntheoretical-epistemological system that aspires at bridging theory and \npractice (co-production of emancipatory theories and practices) under a \n\u2018rear-guard\u2019 model (intertwined with social movements, demands and \nresistances), rather than an \u2018avant-guard\u2019 model (emancipation stemming \nfrom the instructions given by an inspired-specialized elite). <em>Epistemologies of the South<\/em> can be understood as artisanal work (craft) as opposed to architectural work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Taking <em>epistemologies of the South<\/em> as a point of departure \n(together with theories and practices such as degrowth, peer-to-peer \nproduction and ecofeminism), we attempt to imagine \ndesign-and-construction futures for producing our contemporary material \ncultures. We are interested in those futures of making that give \nprecedence to justice, self-sufficiency and emancipation for those \nsubjects that are involved in the making processes (access to materials,\n social and labor rights, knowledges). In the framework of the \nresearch-postgraduate program <em>Technegeographies <\/em>held at the \nUniversity of Thessaly and within the methodologies we apply for making \nspaces and material objects in our design work (A Whale\u2019s architects \noffice for architecture), we experiment on the basis of two principles: \na) the coalescence (not competition) between traditional techniques, \ntechnical knowledges and technical infrastructures and cutting-edge \ntechnologies both widely distributed in both urban and rural \nenvironments, and b) the broadening of bibliographical references to \nboth works of folklore\/popular\/traditional and erudite\/high arts, crafts\n and architectures. Both principles intend to develop coalescent\/hybrid \ntechne-epistemic paradigms in the making of things. We are interested in\n understanding the technical conditions of material production within \nthe contradictions of the Greek peripherality and of crafting potential \ntechniques-<em>artifices<\/em> that can reverse those conditions. We think that those hybrid techne-epistemic paradigms can deliver <em>artifacts <\/em>that\n are socially sustainable and socially integrated because they are based\n on the abundance (not the scarcity) of widely distributed technologies \nand technical knowledges, at the scale of small independent production \nunits. Thus they can relieve-reverse structural discriminations and \ndivides between manual and intellectual work or between the city and the\n countryside. Furthermore they can generate types of \u2018artifices\u2019 \n(innovation) by cultivating inventiveness at a wider scale, socially and\n geographically. They do that by undoing enclosures (processes of \ndecolonization) of technical knowledge and ingenuity that both condition\n the chances and rights that societies have for good life and well being\n (\u03b5\u03c5 \u03b6\u03b7\u03bd, buen vivir, sumak kawsay \u03ba.\u03b1.). We consider that such <em>artifacts <\/em>and <em>artifices<\/em>,\n as products of inclusive, pluriversal, not elitist processes of making,\n constitute cosmopolitical schemes for the creation of decolonized, \ncosmopolitan habitats and decolonized aesthetic paradigms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Iris Lykourioti<\/strong> (b.1970, Athens) is an \narchitect (NTUA 1996, 2001) and Assistant Professor at the Department of\n Architecture, University of Thessaly, Greece. In 2005 she co-founded&nbsp;A \nWhale\u2019s architects,&nbsp;an office based in Athens and Brussels doing \nobjects, edifices and research on how the former are being produced and \nused. Taking into account the anthropogenic character of the production \nof edifices and the importance of artisanship as fundamental knowledge \nin social economy and culture, they support the distribution of free \nlance labor in the production of design objects. Rather than adjusting \nreadymade industrial items, they design and produce buildings and \nprototype objects in collaboration, exclusively, with qualified artisans\n and small or family industries. In 2014 the work of A Whale\u2019s \narchitects has been selected by Blueprint Magazine among the eight most \ninnovative architectural practices in Greece. \u0397er current academic \ninterests focus on four main fields: a) on epistemological topics \nrelated to architectural composition and material production, b) on \nspace, historiography and theory related to gender issues, c) on popular\n culture and, d) on the political dimension that determines the \nrelationship between knowledge (omitted history), and the design and \nproduction of space and material objects, based on the theoretical \nframework described as Epistemologies of the South. She has edited \nbooks, published articles and exhibited architectural projects and \nresearch internationally.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cContemporary democratic alter-politics and grounded political theory\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Alexandros Kioupkiolis (<\/strong>Associate Professor of Contemporary Political Theory at Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece<strong>)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Abstract<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Recent decades have witnessed the rise of a diverse alternative \ndemocratic politics which strives to foster equal freedom in our times \nbreaking both with the mainstream representative politics of parties and\n governments in the political system and with typical traditions of \ncivic activism. The \u2018alter-politics\u2019 (Hage 2015) assigns priority to \npractice over ideological doctrine, and it champions a visionary \npragmatism, which appeals to the people at large. Contemporary \ndemocratic alter-politics binds together \u2018prefiguration,\u2019 social \ninnovation and counterinstitutions with mass mobilization and \ninvolvement with state institutions. It combines assembly-based \ndemocracy with representative governance, and it crosses the divide \nreform\/revolution. It is both place-based and globally networked. \nFinally, this alter-politics is infused with another logic and ethic, \nwhich forswear dogmatism and purism, they attend to complexity, \ndiversity, messiness and contradiction, they acknowledge the lack of \neasy fixes to vexing challenges, they cherish plurality, openness, \nreflexivity and experimentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In our research project \u2013<em>Heteropolitics<\/em>\u2013 we have undertaken a\n more empirically grounded research into contemporary social movements, \ninstitutions and practices that contrive alternative ways of doing \npolitics and of self-governing communities in crisis-ridden Southern \nEurope (Greece, Italy and Spain). In this research venture, political \ntheory is animated by the idea that an interplay of political thought \nwith anthropology and ethnographic fieldwork can help us to \u2018decolonize\u2019\n political theory by rethinking and reimagining politics for the cause \nof equal freedom and the commons through an ethnographic intercourse \nwith everyday political activity and thought. This intercourse is vital \nfor fleshing out more grounded, applicable, specific, variable and \nconcrete conceptions of the political. It is also commendable from the \nstandpoint of a democratic political theory whose practice would be \ninspirited itself by the values of freedom and equality in the polity. A\n democratic political theorist does not see her work as the production \nof conceptual analyses and normative assessments from a position of \nauthority, of \u2018the subject who knows\u2019 the truth and conveys this truth \nor prescribes it to the laypeople. S\/he regards, rather, her profession \nas thought, analysis and discussion which partakes in an ongoing \npolitical conversation with other citizens, on a footing of equality, \nwhereby the theorist contributes as an equal citizen to collective \ndebates and deliberations. Hence, the theorist needs to engage with the \nideas and practices of her fellow citizens, interlocutors and political \nrivals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Alexandros Kioupkiolis<\/strong> is Associate Professor of\n Contemporary Political Theory at Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, \nGreece. He has studied Classics (BA, University of Athens), and \nContemporary Political Theory (MA, Essex University, DPhil, Oxford \nUniversity). His research interests are focussed on radical democracy, \nthe commons, social movements, and the philosophy of freedom. He has \ndirected an ERC COG project on these topics (Heteropolitics, 2017-2020) \nand has published numerous relevant books and papers, including the \nmonograph Freedom after the critique of foundations (Palgrave Macmillan \n2012), and the co-edited collective volumes Radical democracy and \ncollective movements today (Ashgate 2014, with G. Katsambekis). Recent \npublications include the papers \u2018Commoning the Political, Politicizing \nthe Common\u2019 (Contemporary Political Theory 17.3, 2018), \u2018Movements \npost-hegemony: how contemporary collective action transforms hegemonic \npolitics\u2019 (Social Movement Studies, 17.1,&nbsp; 2018), the co-edited volume \nThe Populist Radical Left in Europe (Routledge 2019, with G. \nKatsambekis), and the monograph \u03a4he Common and Counter-hegemonic \nPolitics (Edinburgh University Press 2019).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cVivid social spaces or monumentalization? Gentrification \npolicies and the production of \u00abnon places\u00bb at Thessaloniki\u2019s historical\n centre\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Miltiadis Zermpoulis<\/strong> (Dr. of Social \nAnthropology-University of Macedonia, Researcher\/ Deputy Head of the \nInstitute for Transcultural Competence at the Police Academy of the Free\n and Hanseatic City of Hamburg)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Abstract<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This presentation is founded upon the discussion about \n\u201ccosmopolitics\u201d and \u201ccosmologies\u201d in the daily life of the city in order\n to point out unpopular discourses, social practices and agencies from \nbelow that had been reproducing socially the space around the old town \nHall, well known by the citizens of Thessaloniki as \u201cKervanserai\u201d. \nProcesses and politics of gentrification and \u201ccultural\u201d salience of the \nspace according to national and colonial monumentalization strategies \nendanger the spatial reality of an urban memory palimpsest and an \nintersectional life in the neighborhood. For almost a hundred years, \nresidents, shopkeepers, visitors and buildings (monumental or not) had \nbeen forming a vivid network of interaction, producing and reproducing \nsocially this famous neighborhood of antique shops, cheap and occasional\n consumption, and also night life for ordinary people \u2013 right at the \nhistorical center of the city. The last fifteen years this space \nreflects a sense of abandonment and dereliction. It seems that this \ndereliction and disarray of the spatial social network is connected to \nhegemonic gentrification&nbsp; policies that overlook the social relations \nand the modern history of the space, banishing violently actors and \npractices that are constitutive of this neighborhood. Regarding these \ndifferently articulated discourses and practices which help imagine and \nmark the future of this space our presentation is willing to \nproblematize the special meaning of being and becoming a monument in the\n theoretical frame of colonization. We openly discuss alternative uses \nthat can free and unblock the space and its materialities from the \nsymbolic and national politics of cultural and racial supremacy, and \nreligious conservatism. A process of \u201cdemonumentalization\u201d and \n\u201cdesymbolization\u201d of the urban space and its materialities can be, on \none side, useful \u201ccosmopolitically\u201d for a more democratic and equal \nparticipation in the city and, on the other side, can prevent its social\n dereliction. Such an attitude under the terms of decolonization could \nprobably create continuities for day-to-day intimacies, activating the \nreflection on repressed ways of life in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Miltiadis Zermpoulis<\/strong> holds a PhD in Social \nAnthropology from the Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies \nat the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki. Between 2017 and 2021 he\n worked for a migrant organization in North Rhine \u2013 Westphalia, Germany.\n From 1 June 2021 he works as research associate and deputy head of the \ndepartment at the Institute for Transcultural Competence at the Police \nAcademy of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. Miltiadis conducted \nfieldwork in Germany and Greece. His academic interests include material\n culture, anthropology of space, state culture, social classes, \npost-colonial theories, ethnic\/ religious minorities and migration.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201c\u2018The Women\u2019s Centre of Karditsa\u2019: Heteropolitics and the \nPolitics of Care in the context of an ecosystem of Social and Solidarity\n Economy\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Aimilia Voulvouli<\/strong>, Social Anthropologist, Post-doctoral researcher, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Abstract<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The presentation will trace the \u2018heteropolitics\u2019, that is, \nalternative forms of political participation, of anintersectional \nventure namely, the Cooperative Ecosystem of Karditsa (CEK), which \npromotes collective self-management of common resources and has the \npotential tocatalyze democratic transformation towards more liberal and \negalitarian societies. In this framework, I will briefly present CEK as \nan intersectional venture that produces another politics of \nself-management and horizontality, alternative to the vertical \nhieararchy of state-centred politics and then I will focus on the \nWomen\u2019s Centre of Karditsa (WCK) which is one of the founding entities \nof the ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u03a4he Womens\u2019 Centre of Karditsa stimulates the political imaginary of \neveryday interactions permeated by the affective engagement of ones\u2019 \nwork subject and the ethics of care that circumscribe their work. These \nresult in the practice of affective micropolitics that enact the \nunimaginable, proliferate innovations and animate micro-transformations \nthat have the potential to effect macro-transformations, initially in \nthe ecosystem and gradually beyond its borders. At the same time, it \ncultivates a collective condition of existence where the subjectivities \ninvolved are re-produced through the decolonization of the political \nfrom the hierarchical state-centred model but also through the \nassumption that the \u2018personal is political\u2019. In this way, the Ethics of \ncare are transformed into a \u2018politics of care\u2019 that prefigurates \npolitics in common (commoning) and challenge economic, social, cultural \nand gender hierarchies and hegemonies and address issues of equality, \njustice and democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Aimilia Voulvouli<\/strong> (B.A. Univerity of the Aegean,\n MA SOAS, Ph.D UCL), is a social anthropologist, currently a \npost-doctoral researcher at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. \nShe has conducted ethnographic research in Turkey, Greece and USA. Her \nresearch interests include the study collective action, the commons, \nprecarity, and the politics of everyday lifeand she has published the \nrelevant monograph From Environmentalism to Transenvironmentalism: The \nEthnography of an Urban Protest in Modern Istanbul (Peter Lang 2008),as \nwell as contributions to collective volumes such asthe chapter \n\u2018Anatolian Tigers and Anatolian scarves: Neo-liberal entrepreneurship \nand neo-islamic ethics in a central Anatolian city of Turkey (in \nTsibiridou Fotini (ed.) Ethnography and Everyday practices in \u2018Our Own \nEast\u2019. Athens: Kritiki Publishing, 2020, in Greek), articles in journals\n such as \u2018The vicious circle of precarity: Being academic in the era of \nNeoliberalism and Authoritarianism\u2019 (Social Anthropology\/Anthropologie \nSociale, 2019) and \u2018From Tarlaba\u015f\u0131 to Gezi and beyond: The 2013 event in\n the conjuncture of Neoliberal times\u2019 (Greek Review of Social Research, \n2017).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cFor the decolonisation of ethnographic practice\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Penny Travlou<\/strong> (Lecturer in Cultural Geography and \nTheory, Edinburgh School of Architecture &amp; Landscape Architecture, \nUniversity of Edinburgh)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Abstract<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the introduction of the book \u201c<em>Epistemologies of the South<\/em>\u201d,\n Buoventura de Sousa Santos proposes a Manifesto for BuenVivir, \u2018good \nlife\u2019, in juxtaposition with a Manifesto for Intellectual Activists. He \nissues a call for resistance to TINA and the triad of the Global North, \ncapitalism, colonialism and patriarchy, by envisioning the \npossibilit(ies) of an alternative world. This is a double call: to \nacknowledge the importance of the epistemologies of the South, and to \nrecognise the necessity for political action. \u201c<em>It is a time of epistemological imagination aimed at refounding the political imagination<\/em> [\u2026] <em>to strengthen the social struggles against domination<\/em>\u201d (Santos 2018: 126-127).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following Santos\u2019 two manifestos, I will unpack how thinking from the\n South requires an epistemic decolonisation of the \u2018ethnographic \npractice\u2019. The question here is very simple: What are the methodological\n tools to think <em>with<\/em> others for an alternative world? The \npresentation will draw from multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in \nMedellin (Colombia) and Athens (Greece) \u2013 two cities that challenge the \ndichotomy of centre and periphery, Global North and South \u2013 during the \nlast 6 years, a time of socio-political upheaval. The study looks at \nintangible cultural heritage as currently constructed within the \nframework of everyday resistance and struggles to create cultural \ncommons, shared knowledges and practices, in the search for alternatives\n to capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy. Unlearning, radical \nimagination, thinking with others, are some of the methodological tools \nthat have been experimented with and tested throughout the ethnographic \nfieldwork, to allow an emerging pluriversal network of knowledges to \nbecome visible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Penny Travlou<\/strong> is a Lecturer in Cultural \nGeography and Theory (Edinburgh School of Architecture &amp; Landscape \nArchitecture, University of Edinburgh).&nbsp;Her research focuses on politics\n of public space, social justice, the commons, collaborative practices, \ncultural landscapes and ethnography. She has been involved in \ninternational research projects funded by the EU and UK Research \nCouncils. Since 2011, she has been doing ethnographic research on \ncollaborative practices in emerging networks (e.g. digital art \npractitioners, collaborative economy initiatives, translocal migrants). \nHer most recent research is on cultural commons in Colombia and \nsolidarity networks in Athens. Alongside her academic work, Penny is an \nactivist on social justice and urban commons.&nbsp;She is Co-director of the \nFeminist Autonomous Centre for Research (<a href=\"https:\/\/feministresearch.org\/\">https:\/\/feministresearch.org\/<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cFrom the internal exclusion to Cosmopolitics\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Michalis Bartsidis<\/strong> (Dr. of Political Pholosophy, Hellenic Open University, Scientific Director of the Nicos Poulantzas Institute).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Abstract<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the context of classical cosmopolitanism, what prevailed was the \ndominant universal ideal of the linear progress of humanity towards its \nunion, having as its aim the creation of a peaceful, civilized and \nfraternal world. This ideal served as a common representation of \nindividuals, groups and classes inspiring respective practices. However,\n before but mainly during the 20th century, a series of historical \nevents (colonialism, the Holocaust) and processes (collapse of modern \nunifying ideologies, migratory movements, perpetuation of various \ninequalities) dissolved this perspective leaving a field of \nheterogeneous representations of a divided humanity with multiple \ntemporalities. Today, the issue is no longer just the inequalities. It \nis their consolidation by articulating various exclusions in a \nparticular and paradoxical social, cultural and anthropological \ncondition: we live and act in a universality without a universal ideal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The absence of a universal ideal creates an internal blockage in the \nprocess of constituting individual and collective identities. In a \ncondition of <em>internal exclusion<\/em> the human subjects are \nhovering, almost hysterically we would say, without being able to use \nany model of transforming passions into reason and experiences into \nthought, thus narrowing the inner space, that is the vantage point from \nwhich they see the infinity of the world as more and more finite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Modern cosmopolitan Western values also functioned as hegemonic \ndemarcations, as hierarchies that were imposed on a vast variety of \nother knowledge, cosmologies and practices of the peoples, tribes and \ncommunities of the global South, leading to a constant \u201cknowledgecide\u201d \nof the multiple \u201cmetis\u201d(\u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u03b9\u03c2) of the world, resulting in loss of \nsovereignty as well as in loss of the possibility of emancipation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Going into the decolonial condition, these hierarchies, \ndiscriminations and exclusions that lead to excessive violence(and the \nresistance in a Fanonian modality), now continue within the boundaries \nof the western countries, somehow internalizing now the boundaries that \nwere imposed on others of the \u201crest of the world\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We oppose cosmopolitics to abstract ideals, as practices that \nchallenge social hierarchies, racial sovereignty, and cultural hegemony.\n According to an ontology that we can qualify as <em>transindividual<\/em>,\n the constitution of the subjects and the constitution of their mutual \nrelation are viewed as simultaneous processes. From that perspective the\n social bond is to be situated within us and at the same time outside \nus, on the level of common practices, experiences, images and \ninstitutions. Instead of divisive and separatist practices, we must \nprivilege the transindividual practices of inclusion, the experiences of\n care, solidarity, autonomy, emancipation and love that allow societies \nand individuals to the cross their&nbsp;<em>internal borders<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This project aims to study the World Social Forum \u2013 Thessaloniki \nSocial Workshop (2003, 2009-2013) as an example of alternative politics,\n and precisely as an experience of cosmopolitics with a particular focus\n on the \u201cCosmopolit seminar\u201d inspired by the experience of the Caracoles\n in Chiapa-Zapatistas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why is such a double movement of return or&nbsp;recursion and expansion, \nso important in the actual decolonial context? On the one hand, those \nmovements and examples constitute the lost knowledge that was defeated \nas soon as it emerged, but was the fruit of an encounter where we \nlearned to do politics in a different way. We can now recognise and \nintegrate this knowledge in an inclusive history. On the other hand, \nbecause by articulating these experiences with the planetary crisis, we \naim to contribute by local experiences to a transindividual \nnon-anthropocentric theory, as an alternative cosmology and ontology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Michalis Bartsidis<\/strong>, is a Dr. of Political \nPhilosophy (University of Ioanina) teaches Philosophy at Hellenic Open \nUniversity. He is the Scientific Director of the Nicos Poulantzas \nInstitute. He has taught at the Department of Philosophy and Pedagogy of\n the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, at the University of Panteion\n and in other Postgraduate Programs. He defended his doctoral \ndissertation on: Philosophy and Politics in the work of Etienne Balibar.\n He elaborated and supported his postdoctoral position (postdoc) in the \nDepartment of Philosophy of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki on \n\u201cCrossing the \u201d internal border\u201d, Research \u03bfn Political Ethics\u201d. His \npublications and research interests move in the field of Political \nPhilosophy and Contemporary European Philosophy and include the volume \nTransidividuality, Essays on an ontology of relation, Athens, Nissos, \n2014.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cRefugeeness at Critical Times: affective cosmopolitanism and critical regionalism\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ioanna Laliotou<\/strong> (Associate Professor in Contemporary History Vice-Rector of Research and Lifelong Learning, University of Thessaly in Greece)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Abstract<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two pivotal concepts derived from postcolonial thought are retrieved \nin this presentation: affective cosmopolitanism and critical \nregionalism. Both these concepts have been pivotal in the context of \npostcolonial theory, globalism and political activism since 2000s. I \nseek to revisit these two concepts in the light of developments related \nto refugee movements in the Eastern Mediterranean and Greece during the \nlast decade. These two concepts are presented through bibliographical \nreferences to writings of thinkers such as Gayatri Spivak and Paul \nGilroy. Subsequently, there is an attempt to relate these concepts with \nthe contemporary realities of refugeeness and developments that took \nplace in Greece during the last decade. I propose to rethink refugeeness\n and postcolonial concepts in relation to two major parallel and \nintertwined planetary, but also local events: the 2008- fiscal crisis on\n the one hand and the current pandemic crisis on the other. During the \nlast two two years, the antinomies and related to refugee statelessness \nwithin the nation state were further aggravated by the pandemic \nconditions. The pandemic has opened up a new space of unprecedented \nstate intervention in the public and private lives of citizens, while \nreconfiguring the meaning of globalization. Questions of democracy, \nstatehood and statelessness, mobility, access, restriction and enclosure\n are now re-conditioned under the two-fold historical contingency of \nrefugee life and citizen life in a pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Ioanna Laliotou<\/strong> is Associate \nProfessor in Contemporary History at the Department of History, \nArchaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Thessaly in Greece. \nShe is currently Vice-Rector of Research and Lifelong Learning. She is \nauthor of Transatlantic Subjects. Acts of Migration and Cultures of \nTransnationalism between Greece and America (Chicago: Chicago University\n Press, 2004) and co-editor of the collective book Women migrants \nbetween the East and the West: Gender, mobility and belonging in \ncontemporary Europe (London: Berghan, 2007). She writes, teaches and \nresearches on issues related to cultural history, subjectivity, \nmobility, migration, refugeeness and visions of future and utopia in \ncontemporary society. Her most recent book is \u0399\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03af\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u039c\u03ad\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2. \u03a0\u03c9\u03c2\n \u03bf 20<sup>\u03bf\u03c2<\/sup> \u03b1\u03b9. \u03a6\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5 \u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd \u00ab\u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf \u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u00bb [History of the Future. How the 20<sup>th<\/sup>\n century imagined a different world] (\u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b1, \u0395\u039a\u03a4, 2017) is on The Future\n in History: how the twentieth century imagined the future (\u0391thens: EKT,\n 2016). She has been a Fulbright Visiting Scholar and an Andrew Mellon \nVisiting Professor at Columbia University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Date: June 9, 2021 Time: 5-8 pm (GMT+3) Organizers: d\u00ebcolo\u0438\u0131ze hell\u03ac\u015f in collaboration with Culture \u2013 Borders \u2013 Gender Lab, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki Link: here (Meeting ID: 895 447 8253) Convenor: F. Tsibiridou This workshop will be organized by the initiative Decolonize Hellas, under the cluster of Cosmopolitanisms\/Cosmopolitics. Within this context and, more broadly, &#8230; <a title=\"Cosmopolitics, Heteropolitics, and Epistemologies of the South: Discourses on Decoloniality in Greece, between Theory and Activism\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/cbg-lab.uom.gr\/en\/?p=1113\" aria-label=\"Read more about Cosmopolitics, Heteropolitics, and Epistemologies of the South: Discourses on Decoloniality in Greece, between Theory and Activism\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conferences-and-workshops","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbg-lab.uom.gr\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbg-lab.uom.gr\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbg-lab.uom.gr\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbg-lab.uom.gr\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbg-lab.uom.gr\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cbg-lab.uom.gr\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1115,"href":"https:\/\/cbg-lab.uom.gr\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions\/1115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbg-lab.uom.gr\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbg-lab.uom.gr\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbg-lab.uom.gr\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}