Jai Sen, male, 63; born in New Delhi, India, and after moving around quite a lot, based here agai... more

Jai Sen, male, 63; born in New Delhi, India, and after moving around quite a lot, based here again.  An architect and urban planner by training and first practice, then an activist, I am currently in research, writing, and editing, and now see myself as a student of movement and an installation architect – creating spaces for more critical reflection and action : Through seminars, workshops, courses, books, films, fellowships, listserves, webspaces, and so on (see www.cacim.net and www.openspaceforum.net ). I have been involved in different things over the years : Successively in architectural and urban design (1960-70s), in local and city-level community activism and mass organisation work (70s-80s), in national and international advocacy networking (80s-90s), in research on popular movement in India and the history of the globalisation of social movement (90s), and in promoting critical thinking and action (2000s); and in social history documentation (from the 70s-continuing). I came to be progressively politicised, and radicalised, and perhaps in some ways emancipated, through this experience.  I have always been independent and unaffiliated in political terms, but over the years have worked with people and organisations coming from almost all kinds of persuasions, perhaps especially the independent left. Involved with the World Social Forum since its early days, I have over time become the author and editor/co-editor of several books and articles on the Forum and the globalisation of social movement, including World Social Forum : Challenging Empires (2004, second updated edition 2009), Talking New Politics (2005), and A Political Programme for the World Social Forum ?  Democracy, Substance, and Debate in the Bamako Appeal and the Global Justice Movements - A Reader (2007).  I presently have several books in process : Two immediately forthcoming books are Interrogating Empires and Imagining Alternatives (2009), and two more, with Peter Waterman, are Facing the Future : The World Social Forum, the Global Justice Movement, and Beyond and Changing Worlds : Emerging World Movement and the World Social Forum.  In 2006 I was a visiting scholar at the Institute of Political Economy at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, facilitating two courses there : Open Space and Dissent in Movement, and Other Worlds Other Globalisations (www.critical-courses.cacim.net ).  Presently, I am a Director at CACIM (the India Institute for Critical Action : Centre in Movement), based in New Delhi; www.cacim.net . What I hope for the Reimagining Societies project is that it will be, and will be seen to be, an open space, an uninhibited opportunity – both in time and space - where participants can freely, critically, and reflectively share ideas and visions of the societies we want to build and live in, without ideological pressures and assumptions.  If it can be this, it should be a great experiment.  I raise this concern because of the introductory link that was given to rebuilding and reimagining the (existing) Left.  Even if that is some people’s objective – and that is just fine with me – if the space is not open, and can’t go beyond this, then it won’t – in my understanding – achieve its objectives. Beyond this, it should also be a space for the sharing not only of ideas and visions but also of what contexts these ideas are related to and how they relate to them – in short, that it plays something of a role of a translator, or a space for translation.  So that we can all learn more deeply about other contexts and expand our understandings of and sensitivities to the world around us.  I think that this is essential.  This initiative has been taken by people from and in the US, who are understandably very engaged at the present moment with seizing the present moment and window of opportunity.  This is understandable, and important.  But this does not necessarily translate easily into a common world framework – and it should not be assumed that ‘the US’ means ‘everywhere’.  Having said all this, unfortunately the proposal has caught me at a bad time, so I will only be able to take part in this process in a limited way; but I will do so as much as I can. Third, while the default setting or the process proposed seems to be at the abstract (‘global’ / transnational / non-national) level, I think that it should be made clear that participants are welcome to also open up the process at particular local and national levels – and urged also to relate to similar existing processes going on, so that this process flows into wider and other currents of rethinking that are already going on and is in turn contaminated by them.  It should not be, or seen to be, stand-alone, and therefore by implication exclusive.  I am personally hoping that along with others from the part of the world I live in (India, mostly), we will explore how to open up a related process here, not only on the net but through physical contact as well.  I feel that this is important and necessary at many levels, not the least of which is that through doing this we can expand the range of participants in this process, especially younger people who have travelled less.  If we can manage this, we will perhaps also try to do our explorations not only through intellectual engagement but also by creating things, and doing things, individually and collectively.  Let’s see. less