Honoring the Trickster with Dr. Báyò Akómoláfé

In our twelfth episode, we talk with Dr. Báyò Akómolàfè, the widely celebrated international speaker, posthumanist philosopher, and author who, despite all his accolades, defines himself primarily as a father and husband. A Yoruban public intellectual known for his intricate narratives on identity, change, and interdependence, Dr. Akómolàfè challenges us to explore how western conceptions of the "self" reinforce our separation from the flows and fields of life. It is by continuing to live in the field of this disconnection, he argues, that we continue to repeat the crises that we attempt to solve. Dr. Akómolàfè offers us poetry, imagination, history, and heart as we discuss compassion as the space of hyphenation, capitalism as a sensorium, and whiteness as a web of world-making intensities. Together, we attend to the wonderings at the root of Dr. Akómolàfè’s politics: what is the world opening up space for? And how can we gather there together? Dr. Akómolàfè ultimately proposes that staying with the cracks--the openings, the places that we fail--can be our portal into different ways of being in the world. Join us for a beautiful and challenging conversation that might just radically shift your relationship to the ways in which we are in relation. Dr. Báyò Akómolàfè, rooted with the Yoruba people in a more-than-human world, is the father to Alethea and Kyah, the grateful life-partner to Ije, son and brother. A widely celebrated international speaker, posthumanist thinker, poet, teacher, public intellectual, essayist, and author of two books, These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home (North Atlantic Books) and We Will Tell our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak, Dr. Akómolàfè is the Founder of The Emergence Network and host of the postactivist course/festival/event, ‘We Will Dance with Mountains’. He currently lectures at Pacifica Graduate Institute, California. He sits on the Board of many organizations including Science and Non-Duality (US) and Ancient Futures (Australia). In July 2022, Dr. Akómolàfè was appointed the inaugural Global Senior Fellow of University of California’s (Berkeley) Othering and Belonging Institute. He has also been appointed Fellow for The New Institute in Hamburg, Germany, and Visiting Critic-in-Residence for the Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles (2023). He is the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and has been Commencement Speaker in two universities convocation events. He is also the recipient of the New Thought Leadership Award 2021 and the Excellence in Ethnocultural Psychotherapy Award by the African Mental Health Summit 2022. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "Fierce Compassion" at antiracistconversations.com/fierce-compassion-podcast. For more information about our Antiracist Conversations book series, visit antiracistconversations.com Stay up to date with Sarah and Roxy's personal work at Sarahpeyton.com and Roxannemanning.com Like this podcast? Rate "Fierce Compassion" on this podcast app, leave a review, and share it with your friends! This episode was produced by hannah rubin.