Interrogating Empires

by Jai Sen

As much as empires exist out there, regulating our lives, they also exist within our minds. Unless we comprehend these empires as being not only out there but also as within us, and locate ourselves in relation to them, there is no way in which we can even begin to understand the world, let alone imagine the changes that are required towards making it a more open, just, peaceful, and joyful world./ This book is a close look at some of the empires that govern our lives and that we are constantly socialised to believe in and accept, by society, by family, by education, by the market and the media, and by the institutions we are all part of at one point or another in our lives : The empires of patriarchy, casteism, racism, nationalism, and religious communalism and where each of these is quite aside from what is popularly referred to as global­isation , even as they interlock with it. /Organised as five open spaces of conversation and debate, each one distilled from the content of seminars organised at the University of Delhi, the Open Space Seminar Series, the book attempts to itself be an open space that challenges readers to engage with themselves and with the worlds around us. The debates also explicitly and implicitly raise the question, and concept, of power of realms of power, of how power is exercised, and of the nature of power and therefore also questions of emancipation and of liberation./At the same time, since these are the major themes or areas of concern of the World Social Forum, the debates also equip us to understand and take part in this important emerging world institution in a far more informed way.

342 pages, Paperback

Published December 20, 2012