This workshop brings together PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career scholars to examine the demands of justice and the prospects of democracy under conditions of increasing global tensions in a pluralist world. Questions of justice and democratic legitimacy are perennial, but they acquire new urgency in a world marked by colonial legacies, rising authoritarianism, and profound global inequality. Democratic institutions are under pressure around the world. At the same time, the communities most affected by failures of justice in the Global South, in historically marginalized populations, in societies navigating post-colonial transitions, have too rarely shaped the philosophical frameworks used to diagnose and address those failures. Solidarity, as a political value, a social practice, and a philosophical concept, sits at the heart of these debates. But solidarity across difference is difficult: it requires that we take seriously not only shared vulnerabilities but divergent histories, epistemologies, and visions of the good.
We invite contributions from different theoretical perspectives and philosophical traditions, with the broader aim of strengthening intercultural dialogue, with particular attention African philosophy and other Global South frameworks. We particularly encourage contributions that reflect on how emerging disruptive technologies are reshaping democratic participation, political agency, relations of solidarity, and conceptions and structures of injustice. Topics may include (this list is not exhaustive): Theories of justice: distributive, epistemic, relational; Democratic legitimacy, participation, and representation; Solidarity as a political and ethical value; Non-Western, African, and decolonial approaches to justice and democracy; Intercultural methodology in political philosophy; Justice and democracy in the governance of AI and digital technologies; Historic injustice and democratic repair.
Submission guidelines
Graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career faculty are invited to submit (1) an abstract of 300–500 words and (2) a short biographical note to k.maheshwari@tudelft.nl and ngossothierry@yahoo.fr
Costs Involved:
Registration fee: 300 euros, which will include campus accommodation (4 to 6 days) and food. Additional visa and travel costs.
The Yaoundé Seminar will run parallel to the 8th International Society of Business, Economics and Ethics (ISBEE) World Congress. Those joining the Yaoundé Seminar will be able to participate at both events.
