Three Essays on Politics

We are living in turbulent political times. While social struggles for equality, rights and justice have had a positive impact on our world, we face new challenges and many of our old problems remain unsolved. Democracy is in crisis across the globe and the decolonial project remains as urgent and incomplete as ever. What has become clear is that we cannot rely on existing frameworks, institutions and elites to come up with the solutions. We need to think differently, creatively and boldly. We need to cultivate new forms of collective action and new forms of solidarity across division. And we need to develop new intellectual and practical tools to help us build the sort of world we all want to live in.
These three essays are a humble offering towards this aim. They form the first in a series aimed at reinvigorating critical and engaged debate about both the theory and praxis of progressive politics.
This booklet is produced as part of the ‘Building New Social Imaginaries Project’ funded by the UK AHRC and run by Dr Kiran Grewal, Goldsmiths College University of London and Dr Sivagnanam Jeyasankar, Swami Vipulananda Institute of Aesthetic Studies, Eastern University of Sri Lanka. The essays are the joint work of Dr Kiran Grewal, Ms Kaushalya Ariyarathne and Ms Hasanah Cegu Isadeen.
We thank the Law and Society Trust, Colombo, our civil society partner for administrative support provided towards the project.