Friday, 12 November 2021, 3-6 pm, diffrakt | centre for theoretical periphery
Workshop with
Luke Collison
Achille Mbembe’s critical adoption of certain concepts from Carl Schmitt’s works emerges from a parallel aim to unveil the hypocrisies of self-hagiography concomitant with the success of the liberal-political framework embodied in the “end of history”. In this workshop, through a series of readings and extracts drawn from Mbembe’s work and Schmitt’s infamous Nomos of the Earth, we will investigate the spatial themes of the Post-Colony: it’s zones, spaces, borders and territories as well as the logics of power through which they are derived.
Participation in the workshop is limited. To register and receive the reading materials, please send a brief message to mail@diffrakt.space.
Pandemic: The event is an in-person event and the number of participants thus, in accordance with current COVID-19 regulations, strictly limited. Following the 2G rule, masks will not be required, but all attendees will have to present either proof of vaccination or proof of recent recovery. The room is equipped with air filtration devices, but given the dynamic situation, we would also like to ask you, if possible, to test yourselves with a rapid test ahead of the event.
ZONES | out of place
Born out of the research group Zones: Topologies of Power co-organised by Jeanne Etelain at diffrakt, ZONES | out of place is a two-day programme set to bring together recent work from scholars, artists, and activists. Over the past decades, the category of place has been torn between, on the one hand, its erosion through the homogenising forces of globalised capitalism and, on the other hand, its retreat into the reactionary versions of rising nationalisms. Yet, from Special Economic Zones to Temporary Autonomous Zones, we witness the proliferation of new spatialities referred to as “zones” that seem to challenge both the smooth globe of networked capitalisms and the striated territories of sovereign states. While the zone seems to have become a basic category of contemporary experience, acquiring a political resonance, its potentialities and limits still remain unknown…