Island: Oikos

With Christina von Braun (Institut für Kulturwissenschaft, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Aldo Haesler (Département de sociologie, Université de Caen), Paulo Tavares (Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London). Moderation: Doris Akrap (Editor at the tageszeitung)

Revisiting classical notions of a self-sufficient household as well as contemporary sociological imaginations of the “oikos” as a measure of social interconnectedness, this island asks: who are we in the Anthropocene? How does a collective unity conceive of itself, reconciling the different roles each plays across multiple registers, as individuals, members of a commonality, part of a city, subjects to a state and citizens of the planet? How does the notion of the Anthropocene address topics such as sustainability, resource management and good governance? To speak of the “social unit” also means to speak of politics. How would an Anthropocenic politics address democratic processes, struggles around representation, the distribution of rights, the circulation of materials, routings of mobility, aspirations to power and conditions of sovereignty, all of which come together to form a contemporary polis?

Doris Akrap (Berlin) has graduated in Cultural Studies at the Humboldt-University Berlin and in Religious Studies and Southeast-European History at the Free University Berlin. Since 2009 she is editor at the daily newspaper taz.

To the biography of Christina von Braun

Aldo Haesler (Caen) is professor of sociology and social philosophy at Université de Caen in France. His areas of research are theories of social change, philosophical anthropology and social philosophy. He was CEO of the Institut Montana (Switzerland) and currently is member of the research unit in philosophy “Identité et subjectivité.” His latest book is "Das letzte Tabu: Ruchlose Gedanken aus der Intimsphäre des Geldes" (2011)

To the biography of Paulo Tavares

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