Please join us for a far-ranging exploration of global politics, participatory and alternative democracies, and the Rights of Nature in the context of converging societal and environmental crises.

Hosted by the Liminality Network, the live event will take place between 15:00-16:30 UTC on January 18, 2023. (Find out what time this is for you.) A link to the recording will be sent to anyone who registers below.

Over 90 minutes, we will:

1. Define what we mean by “the polycrisis.”
2. Hear from Walden Bello about the rise of authoritarianism and other trends in nation states around the world.
3. Learn from Ashish Kothari about models of participatory democracy and other alternatives in communities across the planet.
4. Find out from Mari Margil how diverse communities around the globe are enshrining the Rights of Nature and the more-than-human into law.
5. Explore how these political dynamics are interacting with converging, worsening environmental and societal crises.
6. Learn about the Liminality Network, a global and diverse community of people from academia, business, civil society, social movements, and philanthropy coming together to better understand and respond to the polycrisis.

About the Speakers

Ashish Kothari is the founder of Kalpavriksh, an Indian non profit organisation working on environmental and social issues at local, national and global levels. He was trained at the Indian Institute of Public Administration and coordinated India’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan. He served on boards of Greenpeace International. He is part of the coordination team of Vikalp Sangam, the Global Tapestry of Alternatives and Radical Ecological Democracy. He is the (co-)author of several books including Churning the Earth (2012) and a co-editor of “Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary” (2019).

Mari Margil serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights. In 2008, she served as a consultant to Ecuador’s national Constituent Assembly, helping to draft the world’s first Rights of Nature constitutional provisions. Margil works with national, state, and local governments, tribal nations, and indigenous communities in Australia, Sweden, the Philippines, Nepal, and elsewhere, to advance legal and policy frameworks regarding Rights of Nature. She has served as the primary drafter of a “Himalayas Bill of Rights” (Nepal) and other groundbreaking legislation.

Walden Bello is currently International Adjunct Professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton and Co-Chairperson of the research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South. Author of 25 books, he received the Right Livelihood Award in 2003. Walden’s recent work has focused on the rise of counterrevolutionary movements globally, the East Asian developmental state, and the global financial system. He has also written on the challenges to democracy and the rise of China as a global economic and political power.

Interviews

In addition to our three panelists, we will share recorded interviews with practitioners on the ground in communities around the planet engaging in alternative forms of community governance and representing the more-than-human voices in collective decision making.