PROGRAMS
Our programs are guided by focused research questions connected to the areas of the Human Condition in the 21st Century, the Future of Democracy, and Socio-economic Transformation. They are year-long collaborative research groups composed of about three fellows led by a program chair. Fellows live and work in the Warburg Ensemble for the duration of the program.
2024/25
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Beyond Capitalism: War Economy and Democratic Planning
How can we create a fairer, sustainable society amidst global crisis, using a democratic 'war economy' and redefined concepts of freedom and progress?
This program explores the concept of a democratically driven 'war economy' as a means to reshape society towards equality and sustainability amidst global crises. It aims to redefine notions of freedom and progress in response to the unfolding planetary catastrophe.
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Africapitalism: Shared Entrepreneurship for Economic Development
How are community-based businesses economically empowering rural and urban Africa?
Capitalism receives criticism for its negative impacts, despite its benefits. Efforts to reform it are underway. Based on the concept of Africapitalism, this program explores fit-for-purpose capitalism and promotes shared entrepreneurship rooted in communal ties, offering a blueprint for addressing poverty and inequality. The program emphasizes the importance of indigenous approaches to economic empowerment in Africa and aims to contribute to the global discourse on the transformation of capitalism.
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Futures of Capitalism: Radical Democracy and the Financial Imagination
How do the workings of financial markets shape our social reality, and how can practices of speculation and distortion become tools of radical democratic imagination?
The Futures of Capitalism program seeks to develop a new language for analyzing, critiquing, and reforming the complex configurations through which finance exerts its influence. Bringing together scholars and artists representing diverse fields of research and practice, our work will be organized around three interconnected streams, each reflecting a core tenet of capitalist dynamics: technology, society, and politics.
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The Future of Food: Power and Biodiversity
How can harnessing biodiversity enable progressive power shifts in the food system?
Without a significant, proactive, and sustained long-term change in the power forces defining food, which includes recognizing the pivotal role of biodiversity and the imperative to diversify food production and consumption, it is hard to imagine achieving sustainable, healthy, inclusive, and fair food systems. In this project, we will address these and other challenges by identifying obstacles arising from power asymmetries and offering multidisciplinary and systemic solutions. We will provide a comprehensive analysis on biodiversity and power, developing concrete multidisciplinary recommendations to promote food systems diversification.
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Planetary Governance
How can planetary governance reform proposals be implemented?
This program will tackle the implementation of the Climate Governance Commission's report Governing Our Planetary Emergency to refine, sharpen, and move forward with the implementation of critical climate governance reform.
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Bitter Victory: Is Victory possible in the 21st Century?
Terror, violence, and wars persist relentlessly, affecting every corner of our planet. Civil and civic, socio-political, economic, scientific, and cultural discourses are contaminated by the pervasive presence of militant rhetoric and warrior-like language. Our project aims to dissect and compare the evolution of victory doctrines and explore their implications on the termination of violence and establishment of peace.
