The working group ‘Thinkers and theorizing from the South’ was initiated in late 2018, in order to cultivate conversations and discussions on thinkers and regional intellectual histories, and more widely on ways of thinking and theorizing the world from the perspective of ZMO’s regions of research (as part of the wider so-called ‘Global South’). Related themes are covered and discussed among ZMO colleagues, together with further Berlin-based researchers at Free University Berlin and Humboldt University of Berlin. In monthly meetings, we engage in interdisciplinary and inter-regional conversations, with a sense for the diverse (trans)regional intellectual traditions and languages, with an interest in the respective relevant key concepts, debates, genres, and arguments – all this also particularly with a view to current decolonial challenges, and to the need to redress the dominance of Eurocentrism in scholarship.
Since summer 2020, this group has linked up with the co2libri initiative on ‘Conceptual collaboration: Living Borderless Research Interaction’, funded by the Berlin University Alliance (BUA). Regular joint online meetings and discussions since then have included our colleagues based in Cape Town, Nairobi, Beirut, Delhi, Utrecht, and elsewhere.