Ecology, knowledge, and peoples-centred human rights, Dr Jason Allen-Paisant

The zoom link will be sent out via the mailing list of the Centre for Culture and Ecology (normally on Tuesdays before the event). You can be added to the list by emailing cce.admin@durham.ac.uk. If you want to join for just this talk, you can email cce.admin@durham.ac.uk or k.d.oloff@durham.ac.uk.

This talk will be chaired by Professor Richard Scholar (Durham).

Talk Abstract

In this talk, I am asking whether ecological collapse is a result of the conceptions of knowledge that are available to us. My starting point is the idea that forms of knowledge and of knowing shape the way we view “things” and “objects” in the world that surrounds us. Given the ethical problems that arise from our modern relationship to “objects”, the talk enquires whether the pathway to more ecologically responsible behaviours involves widening the horizon of what knowledge is or can be. By asking this question, I wish to consider the links between ecological justice, epistemic freedom, and “peoples-centred human rights”, a term I borrow from Ajamu Baraka.

About Dr Jason Allen-Paisant

Dr. Jason Allen-Paisant is a lecturer in Caribbean Poetry and Decolonial Thought at Leeds University, with joint appointments in the School of English and the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies. He is also currently the Director of the Institute for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies. His academic research lie in theatre and performance studies, critical theory, and poetry. His creative writing (poetry, memoir, critical life writing) addresses issues of time, race, class, and the environmental conditions that underpin anti-Black racism. Thinking with Trees,his first full-length volume of poems, is forthcoming this summer with Carcanet Press. He is currently at work on two book projects: Thinking with Spirits: Engagements with Aimé Césaire and Gathering(s): The Caribbean Body in Performance.