Dear all, 

Last Friday session was fantastic. Thank you fur such an intense debate. 

We are now entering a connected but very specific topic, geopolitical divides in the light of decolonizing design methodologies. I propose a small change in the primary readings, based on the nature of the discussions we are having as a group. I propose that we have these 2 primary readings:

1. Eyal Weizman + Forensic Architecture: Violence at the Threshold of Detectability

5.-Weizman-Forensic-Architecture-2017.pdf

2. Either:

Achille Mbembe: Necropolitics

mbembe_necropolitics 2003.pdf

Or: 

Edouard Glissant’s chapter ‘Errantry, Exile’ (p. 11-22) from “Poetics of Relation”

edouard-glissant-poetics-of-relation.pdf

Please chose one of these 2 pieces. 

Please be aware that this week the texts speak very different idioms. Eyal Weizman is an architect and the language participates of a very material-oriented perspective. Edouard Glissant is a poet and writer, his idiom is quite a unique use of language between reflexion and poetics. Achille Mbembe is a philosopher. Notice as well that there is a crucial political tension between their different political situations. Mbembe speaks from the non-western south. Glissant is very much situated on the side of the victims of the colonizing forces. Weizman works from the colonial legacy of the UK, but questioning, and to certain extend trying to decolonize, western institutions.