Two new programs in fall 2023
2023/24 call for fellows: Black Feminism and the Polycrisis: Configuring a Novel Solution Space Through Intersectional Methodology
Research question
How can we use the unique insights and intersectional methods of Black feminism to respond to the complexities of the contemporary polycrisis?
About
“Polycrisis” is the word being used to diagnose some of the most important global concerns of our times. The Financial Times designated 2022 “the year of the polycrisis,” and defined polycrisis as the “collective term for interlocking and simultaneous crises of an environmental, geopolitical and economic nature.” While the diagnosis is certainly apt, much of the current analysis of the solution space focuses too narrowly on the consequences of the polycrisis while overlooking the systemic reasons that fuel it in the first place. There is a need for critical interventions and expanded views.
Black feminism has developed tools such as intersectionality which illuminate our world and offer new ways of co-existence. Intersectionality involves thinking about interlocking domains of power - and the way out of polycrisis requires such a multi-perspectival tool that travels in the complexity of relational patterns and systems. In this project, we aim to extend the kaleidoscopic toolbox of Black feminism by spelling out a heuristics for a novel solution space to the polycrisis.
By drawing on intersectional models, we bring a novel “polycritical” and “epistemically polyamorous” approach to the polycrisis. We will work along three dimensions: (I) develop intersectional theory and praxis including Global South perspectives, (II) formulate critical arguments about the polycrisis and its relationship to Europatriarchal systems of domination, and (III) offer concrete, imaginative visions for a better future based on applications of intersectional methodology to the polycrisis.
2023/24 call for fellows: Reclaiming Common Wealth: Towards a Law and Political Economy of Land Commons
Research question
What are pathways, processes and institutional designs for the generation and governance of land commons?
About
Institutional investments in land trigger discontents all over the world. In cities affordable housing becomes scarce and urgent ecological retrofits are put on hold; large-scale purchases of agricultural land lead to expulsions of rural populations and monocultures that harm ecologies and food sovereignty.
Critique of corporate ownership, large-scale investments in land and the assetization of infrastructures for the satisfaction of basic needs not only mobilize civil society and prompt protest. Initiatives for deprivatization and reclaiming land as common wealth also open up pathways for transformation. They point towards the social and ecological possibilities entailed in a reorganization of the ownership and administration of land. At the same time, attempts at deprivatization reveal the extent to which the lack of transparency of ownership structures and the assetization of land are products of legal design and enjoy far-reaching legal protection.
The proposed project seeks to address both, real utopias of common ownership as well as obstacles to their realization. Inquiry into pathways of transforming the current law and political economy of land shall be conducted within the theoretical frameworks established by research on commons and commoning. The project pursues three concrete objectives:
First, the project seeks to contribute to data commons concerning structures of property and ownership in land.
Second, the project critically assesses theories and concepts of property and value as well as methods of valuing land and real estate in order to make proposals for a revaluation of land as a commons.
Third, the project establishes a repository of the law and institutional design of (land) commons with a particular focus on Commons Public Partnerships.
About THE NEW INSTITUTE
On the basis of humanistic and social-scientific reflection on human becoming in the 21st century, THE NEW INSTITUTE develops concrete visions of future socio-economic and political realities. We gather thinkers and practitioners with interdisciplinary and intercultural backgrounds in academia, politics, business, media, the arts, and technology around projects that effect positive social change.
Who we are looking for
Scholars from the humanities and social sciences or practitioners in politics, business, art, media, or journalism with a commitment to the mission of THE NEW INSTITUTE, expertise in a field related to this project, and interest in collaborating across our programs.
