The Radical Recentralisation of the World with Eliane Brum & Jonathan Watts

Wednesday June 4th
Doors & drinks 6.30pm; Talk starts 7pm

Brazilian writer, journalist, and documentary filmmaker Eliane Brum and British journalist Jonathan Watts will be talking about the journalism platform they've set up in the Amazon, and the radical idea behind it.

Eliane and Jonathan, who have made their home in the Amazon Forest, will advocate a radical recentralisation of the world. They will argue that we need to shift our current hegemonic understanding of “centre” and “periphery,” thinking instead of enclaves of Nature and the values of their peoples as central. The centres of the world are where life is, not where markets are.

The will argue that the collapse now taking place of our natural world is the result of a particular understanding of ourselves and the other beings with whom we share what they call our "planet-house". That this understanding is a kind of language - one that is eurocentric, anthropocentric, colonialist, patriarchal, white, and binary. And that we need urgently to adopt another language: the language of Indigenous peoples, and other traditional communities, who have never separated themselves from Nature.

They will explain how this idea led them to create Sumaúma, a trilingual journalism platform based at the epicenter of rainforest destruction. Launched in 2022, today Sumaúma runs a co-training program for forest-journalists, where traditional journalism intersects with the cosmogonies of Brazil’s original peoples, and seeks to recenter journalism through a radical, daily, recentralisation of the world.

Eliane is the author of nine books including "Banzeiro Òkòtó: The Amazon as the Center of the World" (Graywolf/Indigo, 2023).

The evening will include a break for a vegan supper and discussion.

Kairos, 84 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4TG

Doors open at 6.30pm for drinks. Talk and discussion starts at 7pm.

£8 Kairos Club Member, £15 Non-member, £10 Struggling financially, £20 Supporter, £8 Under 25. Food complimentary. (To apply for membership, visit our Membership page.)

Before requesting a discounted ticket, please consider sincerely: Are you struggling to meet your basic needs? Would you have to make a genuine sacrifice to buy a full priced ticket? Do you have reduced earnings through a lifestyle choice or rather because you're dedicating your time to unpaid work relating to the climate and nature crises or as a result of structural inequality?

Please note that most of our events take place in our basement space and we do not have a lift so our venue is not fully accessible. Please get in touch if you have accessibility issues via events@kairos.london.

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