International Forum

The Interdisciplinary Centre for Global South Studies at the University of Tübingen, in cooperation with its partner universities invite scholars, activists, and artists to present their work at the 5th edition of the International Forum of Global South Studies. This year, the Forum encourages epistemological, theoretical and artistic interventions that explore the profound changes in conceptualising contemporary human-nature relations.

For a long time, these relationships were mostly thought and lived through the prism of the hegemony of Western epistemology. However, for several decades, the not only limited but also limiting and biased character of the latter has been the subject of many criticisms. We agree today that Western thinking has been a thought of separation and classification of species and worlds; it is an anthropocentric view, in which the human (the European, mainly), has granted himself the right to dominate other species, creatures and 2 worlds. As Viveiros de Castro expresses in Métaphysiques cannibales, in this logic of absolute opposition; nature itself has been constructed as an Other, the human species thus presenting itself as a « biological analogue of the anthropological West, confusing all other species and other peoples into a common private otherness. » (p. 8)

The consequence of such a thought is the entry into the era of the Anthropocene (Dipesh Chakrabarty), where human action is deemed important enough to cause a terricide (Moira Millán). A collateral consequence of this is the alienation of the human due, in particular, of social acceleration (Harmut Rosa), as well as the inability to build real relationships with both other humans and nature. How do we conceptualise human-nature relations differently given this crisis? The crisis itself, it must be remembered with Antonio Gramsci, is a state where the morbid reigns. How to think beyond this morbidity?

We propose to explore these questions building on the concept of proximity. On the one hand, the latter makes it possible to consider the situation in terms no longer of universe but of pluriverse (Arturo Escobar), considering that there are several worlds that coexist together and equally. On the other hand, the concept of proximity makes it possible to consider the plurality of knowledges within an ecology of knowledges (de Sousa Santos) within which there is no hegemonic knowledge rather inter-knowledges. It is thus a question of thinking beyond the dichotomies of human/nature, culture/nature, subject/object systematised by modern thought.

For its 5th edition, researchers, artists, activists are invited to submit their proposals (no more than 400 words), in line of one or more of these orientations, without being necessary restrained to them:

• New ways of understanding reality and the relations between humans and nature (new animism, new materialism, perspectivism, echology, etc.);

• Emergent narratives of Life in Africa, Latin-America and Asia as opposed to dominant narratives; • Politics of care and non-hegemonic practises linked to nature;

• Ecofeminism and decolonial praxis of everyday life;

• The impact of digitisation in the human-nature relationship;

• Rights of nature and legal frameworks for rethinking environmental protection;

• Social movements and community activism in relation to the ecosystem;

• Proximity in humans-nature relations and new utopian narratives and practices;

• Decolonial ecology (Malcom Ferdinand), pirate ecology (Fatima Oussak), etc.

• Inter-knowledge practices and how they contribute to reconfiguring the planetary

Call for Papers Release: July 26, 2024

Deadline for proposals: September 20, 2024

Approval information: October 6, 2024

Languages: French, English, Portuguese and Spanish

Proposal submissions: internationalforumtuebingenspam prevention@gmail.com