International Center for Cultural Studies

Reframing Internationalism: For a Politics of Freedom and Equality in an Age of War and Transition

2023-08-11

August 11 (Friday), 09:30-11:00

Keynote: Sandro Mezzadra (University of Bologna, Italy)
Moderator: Brett Neilson (Western Sydney University, Australia)

Abstract
Based on a book that I am writing with Brett Neilson I will first discuss the fractures, conflicts, and wars that are currently shaping the capitalist world system. I will introduce the notion of multipolarity to make sense of such predicament, critically discussing different uses of it and emphasizing the need to rethink the relations among what G. Arrighi calls “territorialism” and capitalism. This discussion will provide the background for a rethinking of internationalism, going beyond the pitfalls and shortcomings that characterized its history in the 20th century. I will first stress the ways in which – contrary to most approaches in IR and “geopolitics” – social movements and struggles are a key factor in the production and constitution of political spaces. Secondly, I will emphasize the need to rethink internationalism even though we may need to invent another name for it. In doing that, I will be in dialogue with feminist, antiracist and postcolonial thinkers and I will tackle a whole set of theoretical questions – ranging from the relation between internationalism and “cosmopolitics” to the vexed issue of the universal.

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https://acsi2023.web.nycu.edu.tw/