Filipino artist Boy Dominguez presented his work at the ERPI conference, explaining its political messages.Nearly 300 academics and activists gathered over a weekend recently at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague for an extraordinary, highly animated conversation about ‘authoritarian populism and the rural world’. 80 odd papers prepared and read in advance were discussed in groups and plenary sessions. Not a single powerpoint was used, and horizontal, inclusive discussions were encouraged on the origins and consequences of authoritarian populism in different places, the forms of resistance and mobilisation emerging and the alternatives being practised and proposed. It was intense, stimulating and exhausting, and there’s much to digest. You can get a flavour of the excitement at #ERPI2018. Not a single powerpoint was used, and horizontal, inclusive discussions were encouraged on the origins and consequences of authoritarian populism.
The openDemocracy series of articles on India, Kurdish Rojava, the United States, Brazil, Indonesia, Myanmar, Colombia and South Africa give a taste of some of the issues discussed; although at the event there were contributions from around 50 countries. Comparing and contrasting everywhere from Cambodia to Canada and Brazil to Belarus was challenging: there are important convergences, but also major differences.
What, then, does the rise of such different forms of authoritarian populism mean for rural peoples around the world? Many themes emerged. Some were more conceptual and generic, some were quite specific to particular places. Below are five themes that struck me; necessarily a very personal and selective list.
