Raj Patel in conversation with Christian Schmid, Debjani Bhattacharyya, and Neil Brenner

28.02.2022
WHEN, WHERE, AND WITH WHOM IS THE ANTHROPOCENE?
The countryside is a term that deserves to be troubled. By using the tools of world-ecology, it's possible to understand non-urban land as profoundly implicated in multiple urban projects, and spatial fixes. Examining Yanomami territory in what is currently northern Brazil and southern Venezuela demonstrates the complex politics of late capitalism that make and unmake this frontier as countryside.

RAJ PATEL is an award-winning author, film-maker and academic. He is a Research Professor in the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. He has degrees from the University of Oxford, the London School of Economics and Cornell University, has worked for the World Bank and WTO, and protested against them around the world. Raj co-taught the 2014 Edible Education class at UC Berkeley with Michael Pollan. In 2016 he was recognised with a James Beard Foundation Leadership Award. He has testified about the causes of the global food crisis to the US, UK and EU governments and is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems. In addition to scholarly publications in economics, philosophy, politics and public health journals, he regularly writes for The Guardian, and has contributed to the Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Times of India, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Mail on Sunday, and The Observer.

The event is part of the lecture series
SESSIONS ON TERRITORY—Urbanism & the Countryside.

CONCEPT AND REALISATION
Chair of Architecture and Territorial Planning, ETH Zurich Department of Architecture
Prof. Milica Topalović
Dr. Nitin Bathla
Dr. Nazlı Tümerdem
Hans Hortig

VIDEO RECORDING AND EDITING
Aymane Hayyene Filali

GRAPHIC DESIGN
Goda Budvytyte

SESSIONS ON TERRITORY is a series of public debates on the political economy of architecture and territory. Focusing on agriculture, the upcoming series will draw upon relationships of care and reciprocity with soil and biodiversity from the past and present, to help move beyond consumerist techno-fixes, and toward more self-sufficient and ecological land practices. Through a series of debates with invited guests, the seminar will explore the critical agrarian questions emerging under 21st-century (extended) urbanisation. Every intervention by a guest speaker is followed by a panel discussion with invited respondents.

Please find all lectures here: https://topalovic.arch.ethz.ch/Course...

CHAPTERS

00:00 Intro
10:24 Raj Patel's presentation
49:25 Milica Topalović starts the discussion
52:24 Debjani Bhattacharyya
57:56 Christian Schmid
1:08:01 Neil Brenner
1:17:09 Raj Patel responds
1:17:58 Discussion with the audience
1:28:28 Raj Patel responds
1:40:10 Discussion with the audience
1:46:00 Raj Patel responds
1:49:30 Last Comments: Debjani Bhattacharyya
1:51:14 Last Comments: Christian Schmid
1:57:28 Last Comments: Neil Brenner