The Dance of Exile & Settlement: Bayo Akomolafe

Full interview with Dr. Bayo Akomolafe, recorded by SAND founders Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo. Edited portions appear in The Eternal Song; this is the whole conversation. Bayo moves from his childhood in Lagos to the Orisha who wanted only to travel, from the psychologist's couch he calls too small a space for healing, to the nets slave ship captains strung along their hulls to stop people from jumping. Along the way: why decolonization isn't individual work, why wellness might be a net rather than a cure, what a monster does to a world that's stuck, and the story of a dried African lake whose dust still feeds the Amazon. Topics 00:00:00 — Introduction 00:12:00 — A recovering psychologist 00:18:30 — The plurality of healing 00:28:00 — The one world worldview 00:36:00 — Addiction, sleeplessness, and dreaming 00:40:30 — Decolonization, monsters, and the cracks 00:53:00 — Intergenerational trauma 00:57:00 — Wellness, and the nets on the slave ship 01:04:30 — Captivity is never total 01:08:00 — Arriving on shore 01:11:00 — Artificial intelligence 01:18:00 — The collapse of modernity, and dead bones Bayo Akomolafe Yoruba philosopher, psychologist, poet, and writer. Founder and Executive Director of The Emergence Network, host of the postactivist course series We Will Dance with Mountains, and inaugural Global Senior Fellow of UC Berkeley's Othering and Belonging Institute. He is a board member of Science and Nonduality. bayoakomolafe.net The Emergence Network These Wilds Beyond Our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity's Search for Home (North Atlantic Books, 2017) We Will Tell Our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak, with Molefi Kete Asante and Augustine Nwoye From SAND Liberation Psychology: Roots, Memory & Practice A nine-month journey with Dr. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Dr. Jennifer Mullan, Dr. Samah Jabr, Dr. Eduardo Duran, Linda Thai, Dr. Daniel Foor, Dr. Bayo Akomolafe, Alnoor Ladha, and Dr. Lynn Murphy. Bayo teaches Module 8, The Cracks Are the Medicine: Fugitive Healing in a Broken System, with Staci Haines. The Eternal Song SAND's documentary series on indigenous cultures, in which Bayo appears. Contact SAND [email protected] Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member