Bayo Akomolafe is a prolific essayist, speaker and activist, a professor of psychology, a master wordsmith and executive director of the Emergence Network. An acute observer of our troubled times, Bayo has a gift for capturing the awkward confusion of our present circumstances in phrases like “the times are urgent, let us slow down.” In this conversation, Bayo invites us to sit with our awkward confusion as we explore vulnerability as strength, the acceleration of history, race and reparations, the “mind forged manacles” of our times, as well as agency in times in crisis, and much, much more. This was a real mind-bending or, more accurately, question-bending conversation, we hope that you enjoy it as much as we did.

Bayo Akomolafe writes at his website: https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/
And tweets @BayoAkomolafe:   / bayoakomolafe  

Some of the essays that we discussed in this conversation include:

• ‘Dear White People’: https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/post/de...
• ‘Let’s Meet at the Crossroads’: https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/post/le...
• ‘What Climate Collapse Asks of Us’: http://www.emergencenetwork.org/whatc...
• ‘The Times are Urgent: Let’s Slow Down’: https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/post/th...
• ‘I, Coronavirus. Mother. Monster. Activist’: http://www.emergencenetwork.org/icoro...

The Emergence Network website can be found here: http://www.emergencenetwork.org/

You can find out more about his course in ‘postactivism’: ‘We Will Dance With Mountains’ at this webpage: https://course.bayoakomolafe.net/

Access the transcript for this episode here:

00:00 - Introduction
01:55 - Wielding Vulnerability
07:21 - The Danger of Covering up the Cracks
15:32 - Constellations of Events that Permit Straying
20:40 - (Mis)Understanding the Web of Interconnectedness
25:14 - Agency and Ecology
32:05 - Constraints on Knowledge Production
38:15 - Surrendering to Confusion
51:11 - The Absurdity of Justice
58:43 - Home: Necessarily Incomplete
1:05:37 - From Individuals to Becomings
1:15:54 - Staying with the Trouble
1:19:45 - Closing Remarks