The Centre for the Study of Democracy has been home to many research seminars and events throughout the years. See below for a list of some of our past CSD Seminar Series events as well as book launches.
Previous seminars and events
Faiz Am'n Mela (Faiz Peace Festival)
Date: 26 October 2019
Faiz Am'n Mela (Faiz Peace Festival) is the annual event Faiz Cultural Foundation - UK organises to promote equality, peace and progressive discourse through dialogue, art, literature and culture.
This event celebrated the life and work of three iconic progressive poets of South Asia, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Sheikh Ayaz and Kaifi Azmi.
Talking Politics? Brexit and Everyday Family Relationships
Date: 5 November 2019
“Whether it was women or whether it was men, it was just electric”: Exploring Men's Erotic Encounters in the Dark Rooms of Sex Clubs
Date: 19 November 2019
Mobilising Against Brexit: Strategies and Frames in British Pro-Remain Activism
Date: 26 November 2019
NATO 70th Anniversary: Leaders' Meeting in London - What's it all about?
Date: 27 November 2019
Coinciding with NATO's 70th anniversary summit, the School of Social Sciences organised an event on 27 November with some of the key people working on NATO in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Citizen Media and Practice: Currents, Connections, Challenges
Date: 10 December 2019
Speakers were Hilde Stephansen (University of Westminster) and Emiliano Trere (Cardiff University). The discussants were Nick Couldry (LSE) and Clemencia Rodriguez (Temple University).
“French Politics: A Neighbour’s ‘History of the Present’” invites Kaoutar Harchi
Date: 28 May 2020
The Centre for the Study of Democracy and the Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture invites Kaoutar Harchi (Labex CAP/INHA) for the third cycle of the seminar series “French Politics: A Neighbour’s ‘History of the Present’”, entitled “Can France Think of Itself as Postcolonial?”
“French Politics: A Neighbour’s ‘History of the Present’” invites Seloua Luste Boulbina
Date: 4 June 2020
The Centre for the Study of Democracy and the Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture invited Seloua Luste Boulbina (Univ. Paris-Diderot/LCSP) for the third cycle of the seminar series “French Politics: A Neighbour’s ‘History of the Present’”, entitled “Can France Think of Itself as Postcolonial?” Seloua Luste Boulbina's paper explored what would it mean to decolonise today's France.
The Automated Citizen? Civic Participation in a Datafied Society - Arne Hintz
Date: 6 October 2020
Citizens are increasingly assessed, profiled, categorized and scored according to data assemblages, their future behaviour is predicted through data processing, and services are allocated accordingly. This happens largely without our understanding and avenues to intervene, and it therefore raises significant questions about democratic processes, active citizenship and public participation. This presentation discussed the role of the 'automated citizen' in this context. Further, it explored emerging mechanisms for citizens to intervene in the development and implementation of data systems, from oversight bodies to citizen assemblies, and thereby highlight new forms of civic participation in an increasingly datafied society.
CSD Seminar Series Autumn 2020
Date: 6 October 2020 - 4 November 2020
Out of Time: The Queer Politics of Postcoloniality - Rahul Rao
Date: 13 October 2020
Towards a theoretical synergy: interrogating critical race theory and decolonial thought - Ali Meghji
Date: 4 November 2020
There is a burgeoning interest in the differences between the sociology of race and decolonial thought. This talk developed such discussions by focusing on decolonial thought and a seemingly incongruous paradigm within the sociology of race – critical race theory (CRT).
Coloniality and Dehumanisation in Contemporary Times: A Talk Series
Date: 7 October 2020
Our first talk in this series looked at the region that is homeland of Uyghurs, referred to as Xinjiang in China, and the condition of inhabitants there.
Yellow star, red star: Holocaust remembrance after communism – Jelena Subotic
Date: 11 November 2020
Yellow Star, Red Star asks why Holocaust memory continues to be so deeply troubled – ignored, appropriated, and obfuscated –throughout Eastern Europe, even though it was in those lands that most of the extermination campaign occurred. The talk was based on Jelena’s book Yellow Star, Red Star which has won a number of awards.
Decolonising the Anthropocene: The Politics of Ecology and Indigeneity - Elisa Randazzo
Date: 24 November 2020
This paper argues that a theoretical encounter between Western ecological scholarship and Indigenous scholarship sheds light on the problematically depoliticising effects of the holistic Anthropocene meta-narrative which prevail in critical approaches to Anthropocene thought in social sciences.
#Homohindunationalism: Panel on the politics of sexuality amidst growing global authoritarianism
Date: 25 November 2020
This event was an exploration of the larger theme of homonationalism globally – a term originally coined by Jasbir Puar to explain the association between nationalists and members from the LGBTQ community. In some places, right-wing nationalisms that would in the past dehumanise LGBTQ persons have sought to reframe themselves and appropriate and discipline LGBTQ movements. Islamophobia is deployed by many instances of these homonationalisms.
Radical Conservatism and Global Order - Jean-François Drolet
Date: 2 February 2021
This talk will drew on a research project on radical conservatism and global order that Jean-François has been working on with Professor Michael C Williams from the University of Ottawa over the past three years. More specifically, it reflected on a distinctively American articulation of radical conservative thought that goes by the name of ‘paleoconservatism’.
Queer Chimerica: Global China and the Political Economy of Ku'er
Date: 9 February 2021
This talk traces a third genealogy of "queer" by examining the ways in which the production of queerness and the development of LGBT industry are inseparable of Cold War racial capitalism and labour precarity, exemplified by the post-Cold War interdependence of China and United States.
Creating Decolonial Atmospheres in the Classroom
Date: 17 February 2021
This session explored the value of working to create ‘decolonial atmosphere’s’2 in order to remake our teacher-student relationships along decolonial lines. We discussed the meaning and markers of decolonial atmospheres and how this praxis can be engaged with.
Thinking capitalism in the 21st century - Albena Azmanova
Date: 19 February 2021
Albena Azmanova (University of Kent) presented the paper ‘Thinking capitalism in the 21st century: the tasks of radical critique’.
Engaging Sankara on the Ruins of Epistemicide - Olivia Umurerwa Rutazibwa
Date: 9 March 2021
Olivia Umurerwa Rutazibwa, Senior Lecturer International (Development) Studies, University of Portsmouth, UK / Senior Research Fellow, Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS) presented the paper ‘Engaging Sankara on the Ruins of Epistemicide: Discovering, Reporting and Teaching Thomas Sankara as Anticolonial Archive’.
Race, Caste and the Origins of Indian Diplomacy - Vineet Thakur
Date: 17 March 2021
In this talk that draws from his forthcoming diplomatic biography of V.S. Srinivasa Sastri, he looked at the emergence of Indian diplomacy in the early 1920s.
“Southernizing” Criminology: Problems and Possibilities - Máximo Sozzo
Date: 25 March 2021
Máximo Sozzo (Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Argentina) presented the paper ‘“Southernizing” Criminology: Problems and Possibilities’.
Mustafa Elmenshawi, ‘First Ladies of Authoritarianism’
Date: 12 October 2021
The protests which swept the Arab region as of 2011 strikingly singled out the leaders’ wives as the target of wrath. This paper argued that wives are key actors dually stabilizing and de-stabilizing their husbands as authoritarian leaders.
Centre for the Study of Democracy Seminar Series Autumn 2021
Date: 12 October 2021 - 7 December 2021
The Centre for the Study of Democracy and the Department of Politics and International Relations organised a full programme of research seminars with visiting speakers.
Finn Mackay, ‘Researching Female Masculinities in the Gender Wars’
Date: 26 October 2021
In this talk Finn discussed experiences of researching AFAB (assigned female at birth) transgender, transmasc, non-binary, gender non-conforming, butch, stud, and masculine-of-centre masculine identities and borders for the newly published book Female Masculinities and the Gender Wars.
Paolo Gerbaudo, ‘The Great Recoil: Politics after Populism and the Pandemic’
Date: 9 November 2021
What comes after neoliberalism? Looking back to the role of the state in Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Hegel, Gramsci and Polanyi, in The Great Recoil (Verso, 2021), Paolo Gerbaudo fleshes out the contours of the different statisms and populisms that inform contemporary politics.
Francis Pakes, 'Out in the cold: Prisons in Iceland and the experience of foreign national prisoners in them'
Date: 23 November 2021
Francis Pakes will discuss the unique nature of prisons in Iceland, which are small, calm, and often set in remote, perhaps even idyllic, settings.
How can citizens and the local council build a green future for the City of Westminster?
Date: 6 December 2021
In the event the paper was presented, followed by a discussion with an expert panel, including Leonie Cooper Am, Ben Davies, and Cllr Pancho Lewis. Professor Dibyesh Anand from the CSD chaired the discussion and attendees were encouraged to give their views.
Jeffrey Ian Ross, 'Playing in Traffic: The Next Decade of Convict Criminology'
Date: 7 December 2021
This talk is designed to review the accomplishments of CC, examine challenges that it currently experiences, and suggest how members of the network might deal with them in the future.
The Centre for the Study of Democracy Spring 2022 Seminar Series
Date: 8 February - 5 April 2022
Border Abolitionism: Migration, Containment and the Memory of Struggles and Rescue
Date: 23 February 2022
This presentation developed a border abolitionist perspective to migration governmentality, with a specific focus on the confinement continuum that those racialised as "migrants" are subjected to.
The Politics of Border Abolition: Temsula Ao and the Northeast Borderlands of India
Date: 8 March 2022
This paper investigated the incursions of the Indian state into what are often called its ‘northeast borderlands’. It uses Temsula Ao’s ethnographic, political, and literary work to complicate understandings of both ‘the border’ and ‘intervention’.
Restoring the Values of Policing
Date: 14 March 2022
Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe discussed some of the strategies and campaigns that are now in place to restore public confidence. She talked about a career in the police for students considering joining the force and held a Q&A session for questions relating to MET campaigns to build trust and recruit graduate students.
Objectively Justified: Racial Disparity as the Inevitable Consequence of Criminal Injustice
Date: 22 March 2022
Global Race War: International Politics and Racial Hierarchy
Date: 5 April 2022
Barder traces the emergence of this global racial hierarchy from the early 19th century to the present to explain how a historical racial global order unraveled over the first half of the 20th century, continued during the Cold War, and reemerged during the Global War on Terror. Imperial, racial, and geopolitical orders intersected over time in ways that violently tore apart the imperial and sovereign state system and continue to haunt politics
today.
Pride: Protest or Celebration?
Date: 27 June 2022
This virtual panel discussion hosted by Q+ Network at the University of Westminster reflected on the politics of Pride between celebration and protest. Has Pride become a tool of domestication? How does queer liberation fit within contemporary Pride events?
Politics of Impunity
Date: 9 November 2022
This event is part of a series which showcases new research and publications in a variety of disciplines relating to democratisation, bordering practices, justice, anticolonial and antiracist pedagogies and feminist organising.
Changing perception of the roles and capabilities of small states
Date: 9 November 2022
Researchers from the Centre for the Study of Democracy discuss the vital role small states play in changing and maintaining world order.
Decolonising sexual and gender-based violence in Higher Education
Date: 22 November 2022
This hybrid event marks the official launch of this 4-year project focused on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) in Higher Education (HE) – a widespread, pressing global problem that requires urgent attention and collective action so that it can be more effectively addressed in Universities and other HE institutions.
The Kurdish Women's Movement
Date: 2 December 2022
Dilar Dirik talked about her recently published book The Kurdish Women's Movement: History, Theory, Practice (Pluto Press, 2022). The book is an empirically rich account of the revolutionary women's movement in Kurdistan, which has been built over several decades inside a political struggle in the Middle East and the diaspora in a context of state violence and repression.
Mobility and Social Reproduction
Date: 8 December 2022
This talk interrogates from the standpoint of Critical Legal Studies the entanglements between freedom of movement and social reproduction. On the one side, the conceptual separation between production and social reproduction lays at the centre of legal regimes of mobility control, on the other side, gendered transgressions of borders destabilise the very categories upon which law and politics maintain this distinction.
For Us: trauma, colonialism and political solidarity among women survivors
Date: 12 December 2022
Natália Corazza Padovani discussed trauma, colonialism and political solidarity among women survivors of state violence in Brazil.
Towards a Green Democratic Revolution by Chantal Mouffe: Book Launch and Discussion
Date: 8 February 2023
In Towards a Green Democratic Revolution: Left Populism and the Power of Affects, Chantal Mouffe proposes the creation of a broad coalition of movements under the banner of a Green Democratic Revolution to confront the impending ecological crisis.
Communicating statehood: the case of Taiwan (3rd Conversations on Small States CoSS event)
Date: 23 February 2023
This event, the third in the series, focused on Taiwan. The speakers, distinguished for their work and expertise on Taiwan, addressed various aspects of how Taiwan as a small state has been managed at various levels and in a creative manner to assert its own identity.
Cyber riskscapes: Uncertainty, governmentality and digital security (Dr Tim Stevens, King's College London)
Date: 7 March 2023
Dr Tim Stevens, Reader in International Security at King’s College London's Department of War Studies, explored the diverse practises for managing cyber risk.
Majority nationalisms in South Asia (Professor Katharine Adeney)
Date: 30 March 2023
This paper, co-authored with Professor Wilfried Swenden at University of Edinburgh, lays out an understanding of majority nationalisms in South Asia.
'Democracy can’t breathe': a democratic theory of life (Dr Hans Asenbaum)
Date: 11 April 2023
Drawing on interviews and a focus group with BLM activists, as well as analysis of the social media hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, the article conceptualises life as the existence of a perspective that evolves through its fundamental interconnectedness. 'Life' is understood as a process of life-making. The article then outlines living democracy as an ever-evolving assemblage, formed of the constantly changing perspectives of its participants.
Speaking for Tibetan rights and freedom in the face of China’s rising power: Tim Loughton MP in conversation
Date: 19 April 2023
Hosted by the Centre for the Study of Democracy, Tim Loughton MP, the chair of All Party Parliamentary Group on Tibet, joined Professor Dibyesh Anand for a conversation exploring questions of human rights, advocacy, China and Tibet.
Valuing democracy: Sikyong Penpa Tsering in conversation on human rights, democracy in exile, Tibet and China
Date: 26 April 2023
Hosted by the Centre for the Study of Democracy, the senior most democratically elected Tibetan leader in exile, Sikyong Penpa Tsering, joined Professor Dibyesh Anand for a conversation exploring questions of human rights, democracy, China and Tibet.
Effective Governance and the Political Economy of Coordination book launch
Date: 17 October 2023
A discussion about the future inter-relationships between governance, policy and academic research. The book provides a novel conceptual and methodological approach to evaluating the effectiveness of governance and policymaking. As is presented, the approach, inspired by and drawing from the Austrian and Bloomington Schools of political economy, is applicable to a broad range of complex socio-economic challenges.
Is public ignorance a problem?
Date: 24 October 2023
A seminar organised by the Centre for the Study of Democracy, with speakers Dr Nick Cowen and Dr Aris Trantidis.
Resistance for re-democratisation
Date: 7 November 2023
A seminar organised by the Centre for the Study of Democracy, with speaker Dr Papia Sengupta.
Trumpism and the fate of the rule of law under the US Constitution by Kimberly Wehle
Date: 13 November 2023
How did the US get here and what are the possible outcomes? A comprehensive look at the possible fate of U.S. democracy.
(Counter-)Terrorism in the Global South
Date: 5 December 2023
A seminar organised by the Centre for the Study of Democracy, with speaker Dr Akin Oyawale.