Below is the schedule for Multilateralism from the Margins: Mapping Challenges, Contestations, and Prospects for Cooperation and Solidarity in Global Interactions.
This in-person event, held from October 6-7, 2024 at the Northwestern University in Qatar, is hosted by Security in Context and the Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South at Northwestern University in Qatar.
Agenda
Sunday, October 6
9:00 – 9:30 am - Welcome Coffee
9:30 – 10:30 am - Workshop Introduction
In this session, we will introduce the project and our research consortia Security in Context, as well as the objectives and framing for the roundtable. Each participant will then be invited to introduce themselves for a few minutes each. In each session thereafter, discussions will be guided by a set of questions and one or two participants will lead off the discussion with some short thoughts of their own (no more than 10 minutes). With this format, we hope to facilitate and foster a collaborative informal space for free- flowing, but structured, discussions. We will be in touch with people over the next few days to request willingness to lead off one of the discussions (we will, of course, base the request on your research profile and interests).
Five key questions will guide each session:
1. What are the hegemonic principles and practices that govern this particular political and policy space? Who are the dominant actors?
2. Who benefits and who is marginalized in current processes and practices in this political and policy space? This can include global, regional, and local actors and spaces.
3. What are the critiques and alternative strategies being proposed? Who are the actors proposing these strategies? Do they offer a potentially more inclusive “alter-space” or are they budding hegemons (they could be both)? This can include global, regional, and local actors and spaces.
4. What would more inclusive politics, processes and policies look like? What are the obstacles and challenges to achieving these?
5. What are the possibilities of creating an agenda for multilateralism from the margins? Who or what constitutes “the margins” for you?
10:30 am – 12:00 pm - Session 1: International Trade and Development
International trade agreements, lending and debt, banking and finance sustain a global order where resources and labor from the Global South continue to be extracted for the benefit of the Global North. But south-south cooperation and alternative sources of development finance from Global South actors such as the GCC and China are growing. Will - and if so how will -these new processes challenge and change the global political economy? We will discuss the issues through the prism of our “five key questions.”
12:00 – 1:00 pm - Lunch
1:00 – 2:30 pm - Public Panel | Multilateralism from the Margins
2:30 – 3:00 pm - Break
3:00 – 4:30 pm - Session 2: International Law and Institutions of Global Governance: NU-Q, Room 2-323
International law lies at the heart of global governance and multilateralism. In recent decades, Third World Approach to International Law (TWAIL) scholars have offered a powerful critique grounded in an historical analysis of power dynamics and “international subalternity” (Imseis, 2023). This session will focus on the role of international law, multilateral organizations (such as the UN, regional organizations, and inter-state institutions in the Global South) through the prism of our “five key questions.”
7:00 – 9:00 pm - Dinner
Monday, October 7
10:00 – 10:30 am - Welcome Coffee
10:30 am – 12:00 pm - Session 3: Militarism and Violence
War and conflict is central to global, racial capitalism - in terms of creating it and “policing” it. It has been created and constantly recreated through imperialist violence in its various forms, including settler colonialism, the European empires, and Pax Americana. It is maintained through coercive interventions in its various forms including military ”boots on the ground,” assassinations and coups, militarism, and the global arms trade. This session will focus on the role of militarism and violence through the prism of our “five key questions.”
12:00 – 1:00 pm -Lunch
1:00 – 2:15 pm - Public Panel | Gaza: One Year Since October 2023
2:30 – 4:00 pm - Session 4: Protecting the Commons: Accelerated Extractivism, the Environment, and the Climate Crisis
“Accelerated extractivism” is embedded in global racial capitalism and drives the current over-exploitation of minerals, fossil fuels, forests, water, and land. This is leading to the destruction of our global commons and inducing the climate crisis. Through the prism of our “five key questions,” this session will discuss the crisis and strategies which can divert our current drive towards global annihilation.
4:00 – 4:15 pm - Break
4:15 – 5:45 pm - Session 5: Social Movements and Activism
Institutions, policies, and practices for regulating global interactions are also sites of continual contestation and struggle over the distribution and governance of resources, power, and control. These take place at multiple levels: global, regional, state, and local. We envisage social movements and activism at all three levels will be a central part of each session. But in this, our final session, we will focus specifically on emerging ideas, movements, and alliances that offer hope for progressive coalitions.
5:45 – 6:15 pm - Closing Remarks and Next Steps
7:00 – 9:00 pm - Dinner
