Postactivism

As Category 5 hurricanes flail and thrash against anxious shorelines, and as heatwaves send thermometers across the planet to their screaming extremes, the story of impending civilizational demise grows stronger. In the cloud of dust unsettled, among the ruins, we are discovering ourselves and our planet as if for the first time.

Unpredictable weather patterns, dying ecosystems, deep uncertainty, complexity and unprecedented loss are just some of the features scientists and critical theorists say define this ‘Age of Man,’ or the Anthropocene – a period characterized by earth-wide changes brought about (in part) by “human” activity. But another startling observation now gaining notoriety, long acknowledged by many non-western indigenous traditions, is that humans are not and have never been separate from the environments that they usually treat as mere resources. Indeed, the qualities of agency, awareness, and intelligence we traditionally reserve for our species are now thought to be more-than-human ecological processes. In short, nature is ‘alive’–more alive than we are capable of noticing. This changes everything.

In this 3-part webinar series, Bayo Akomolafe invokes the wisdom of his native lands in West Africa: “The times are urgent, let us slow down.” Reading this humbling vocation to “slow down” as an invitation to rethink our imaginations of activism, justice and power, and attend to the more-than-human processes in and around us, Bayo will present his concept of postactivism.