Lecture series Un/making Crisis
CANCELLED: Breathing Well in Dhaka?
Cancelled: We are sorry to inform you, that the lecture on Monday (01.07.2024) is cancelled. We apologise for any inconvenience.
We are happy to invite all our students and colleagues to the last lecture of this semester's Lecture Series which focused on global crises. It was our pleasure to host this series which included speakers of diverse backgrounds and hopefully fueled discussions about this prevailing topic.
How does a city inspire and suffocate (more than) human life? What does it mean to breathe well in Dhaka, one of the most “unbreathable” mega cities on our planet? The air quality index (AQI) proves this point time and again, especially during the dry season of the year.
Breathing well in Dhaka, however, requires more than measuring air quality and the execution of air pollution control regulations (APCR). Interpreting and improving urban breathing interpellate the respiratory tropes and biosocial practices of both “inspiration” and “suffocation”. These inspirations and suffocations are respired by Dhakaite (more than) human life in a plethora of fractal crises: air pollution, respiratory disorders, distressed human-plant relations, un/learning indigenous breathwork traditions, and intersectional breathing troubles.
Breathing well in Dhaka? offers a set of preliminary reflections froma recent field visit to the city (2023-2024). The talk also draws from the utopian aspirations and dystopic predictions about a city where the lecturer spent more than three decades as an inhabitant and returned as a postmigrant ethnographer.