The Citizenship and Justice platform, Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape; the DST-NRF/British Academy Research Professor in Political Theory, Wits and Cambridge, with the Mphil programme in Theories of Justice, University of Cape Town will co-host a conference titled Democracy: Genealogies, Concepts, and Practices from 17-18 December 2019.The conference will take place at the CHR at the University of the Western Cape.

This conference explores the relationship between the genealogy, the concept and the practice of democracy. It brings together scholars who work on the history of the idea of democracy, those who theorize its normative underpinnings as an abstract and often philosophical concept, and those who work on its concrete and ethnographic iterations. Traversing that terrain between theories of democracy and political practices especially in the global south, the conference is interested in the relationship between templates of democracy that various postcolonies inherited, the nature of popular sovereignty they afford, and the forms of authoritarianism, economic challenges, political conflict and state violence they experience.

Programme:

---

17th December

---

8.30 – arrivals and registration

9:00 – 9:30

Chair: Suren Pillay

Representative from the UWC executive: Umesh Bawa, Director, International Relations

Dean of Arts Faculty: Acting Dean Lindsay Clowes

Acting Director of the Centre for Humanities Research: Heidi Grunebaum

Welcome note: Suren Pillay and Lawrence Hamilton

9:30 – 11:00

Chair: tba

Protest Politics and Democracy

• Zachariah Mampilly
• Nusrat Chowdhury
• Michael Elliott
• Paulo Faria

Tea/Coffee

11:15 – 13:00

Chair: tba

Social/Civic action – Social Movements

• Dilar Dirik
• Faisal Garba
• Christine Hobden

---

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

---

14:00 – 15:30

Chair: tba

Majoritarianism and Populism

• Manjari Katju
• Farzana Haniffa
• Lasse Thomassen
• Tea/coffee

15:45 – 17:00

Chair: tba

Violence and Democracy

• Vatsal Naresh
• Ruchi Chaturvedi
• Bernard Matolino

---

18th December

---

9:00 – 10.30

Chair: tba

Democracy and social-economic equality, the social question

• Lyn Ossome
• Hari Ramesh
• Mahvish Ahmad
• Tea/Coffee

11:15 – 13:00

Chair: tba

Democracy and Representation

• Moshibudi Motimele
• Laurence Piper
• Lawrence Hamilton

---

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

---

14:00 – 15:30

Chair: tba

Republicanism after 1947

• Manjeet Ramgotra
• Yonas Ashine
• Shruti Kapila

15:45 – 17:00

Tea/Coffee

Roundtable Panel

Chair: Suren Pillay and Lawrence Hamilton

• Ian Shapiro
• Karuna Mantena
• Paulin Hountondji
• Godwin Murunga

17:00 Concluding Remarks and Thanks