2024-25 Seminars/Workshops

This online ISSR seminar took place on March 28, 2025. were the speakers in this session. Zoltán Lakatos from Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest and Toni Čerkez from Tallinn University, Estonia were speakers in this session.

Zoltán Lakatos presentation titled “Substantialism and beyond in the sociology of values” covered substantialist thinking and contemplated values that takes sociology beyond such thinking. Toni Čerkez discourse titled ” The ‘Great Tradition’ and cybernetics: Towards technodiversity and relationality” explored Toni’s thoughts and research on the topic that uses cybernetics as a metaphor.

Books discussed in the session: Theory of Valuation by John Dewey, 1949; Radical Embodied Cognitive Science Book by Anthony Chemero; Reassembling the Social An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory by Bruno Latour; How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics by N. Katherine Hayles.

Salmaan Kahn’s discussion is titled “Dialectics and the Machinery of History: Tracing the Purpose of Marx’s Eurocentrism”. They refer to the dialectical Marx  being seen as the redeeming figure in opposition to some of the criticisms waged at Marxian theory. He points out that dialectical Marx is mired with parameters that are Eurocentric and reductive. Compared with  relationality of the dialectic lending it with flexibility, and Kahn contextualizes how it confined Marx within the same structures that we otherwise would have identified just with the economist Marxists.

Finally Kahn leaves us with a pertinent question: if capitalism has so successfully traversed the world already, how important are these conversations anymore? Further observing that it plays into denying the historical agency of people from different communities.

Víctor Jiménez Rivera presents on the “European Integration and State Capture in Serbia: A Radical Relational Approach”. A pertinent discussion that relates to environmental degradation, western capitalism and more. Victor analyzes the Serbian protests against the lithium mine in Jadar and how a radical relational approach can help to better understand the dynamics there. 

He discusses the processes of European integration, of internal Serbian politics, and the intervention of these transnational actors driven by Western capital. Specifically looking at the Rio Tinto corporation, and  explores the discourse on the lithium project and the processes against it, protests against it, and the  knowledge production on it.  The presentation brings forth relational inspirations from social movements. Further, how this is being talked about as being embedded in these core periphery dynamics and these extractive processes by Western capital extracting resources from peripheral society. 

From a relational approach, Victor presents on how we can understand the essentialist and substantialist political discourse as a tool for the legitimation of the unequal relations between Serbia as a peripheral state, and the EU as a core actor in the world economy. As well as Rio Tinto as a multinational corporation backed by Western capital, and also internally within Serbia. Finally,  looking  at the role of the entrenched elite in Serbia vis-a-vis the broad political coalition that has formed against it in response to this.

Victor brings us an interesting intersectional study of environmentalist, transnational, urban/rural, and cross-class actors that has practical applications for protestors and social movements, specific to Jader and others. 

Books referred to in the session: Black Marxism by Cedric Robinson & An Anthropology of Marxism  by Cedric Robinson

Wasiq Silan spoke about “Decolonising Decolonization projects”.  They discussed that while decolonization is an ongoing global issue, neoliberalism undermines state and institutional efforts for decolonization. Referring to their paper “Decolonizing decolonization projects:neoliberalism, Indigenous services, and Indigenous strategic change in Taiwan and Canada, they  discussed how decolonization initiatives in human services and universities can inadvertently reinforce neoliberalism and elements of colonialism. The focus on managerial metrics overshadows crucial aspects like Indigenous self-determination and cultural safety.The discussion identified five essential components for effective decolonization, showing that neoliberalism often prevails over Indigenous sovereignty, and reflect a form of neoliberal colonialism rather than true decolonization.

Nzeyimana Nadège and Benjamin Klasche talk delved into, “A Critical Relational Approach to Climate Governance in Africa. Lessons from the Grassroots and Local Cosmology.” They spoke of an effective global governance that is essential to address the climate crisis but current methods have failed. In light of Mbembe’s view that Africa is key to developing a new planetary consciousness, through this discussion and their upcoming paper they advocate for a radical (or critical) relational research approach to environmental governance rooted in African perspectives. It seeks to explore alternative strategies inspired by African cosmology and philosophy like Bantu cosmology, emphasizing the importance of listening to those facing challenges. They propose leveraging African knowledge,  to avoid reinforcing the exclusivity often found in International Relations scholarship and to highlight neglected areas in the formation of global governance frameworks.

Each speaker was followed by a discussant and a robust Q & A session.

This online ISSR seminar took place on December 13, 2024. Christopher Powel from Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada and Monica Sanchez-Flores from Thompson Rivers University, Canada were the speakers in this session. Christopher Powell’s talk, titled Radical Relationalism Revisited, delved into the various dimensions of radical relationalism, offering a revised perspective on their 2013 article, “Radical Relationalism: A Proposal”. This included touching upon ontology, epistemology, ethics, politics, the self, and the spirit, and the interconnections between these themes within the radical relationalism framework.

Monica Sanchex-Flores’s talk Radical Relational Individuality (RRI): Decolonial Expansiveness and Freedom explores the colonial roots of concepts like individuality, human rights, and cosmopolitanism. Their talk deep dives into colonial histories that dehumanize racialized groups. They offer Radical Relational Individuality (RRI) as an embedded, and expansive framework that emphasizes the interconnectedness of embodied individuals with their environments, and relationships.

Books referred to in this talk- Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times by Carla Bergman and Nick Montgomery; Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship by Terrence Real