2013 saw the blooming of LILA, the Foundation for Translocal Initiatives. Through our Special Lectures, our Lumieres screening-debates and especially the PRISM Lecture Series, LILA could be discovered as a space of reflection and connection, at the heart of societies already dynamized by fast-paced changes. In this context, thought, critical assessment and exchanges should not be meant to counter this energy, but to decide collectively as to the directions that it should take. LILA wants to ensure that such spaces of serene and profound assessment can materialize. We present: Inter actions, the LILA Debate Platform.
Why Inter actions? Because we truly believe that exchanges and debates cannot remain dead letters: they must not only turn into actions, but start to be thought as the locus of action itself. In our epoch, critical voices have been multiplied manyfold, from non governmental organizations to think-tanks, and of course, the academia. But without the appropriate platform, across and beyond specific formats and audiences, the echo of these voices hardly matches the intensity of their powerful intuitions. Inter actions pertains to the second phase of our multi-dynamic programme LILA PRISM. After having brought to the public sphere the urgent insights of 15 of the most important actors in today’s world, we want, now, to keep the flame alive and make those perspectives bring actual change in society. Inter actions will host the exchanges between some of the best experts on major contemporary questions, from India and abroad, and emerging voices from the civil society and universities. Inter actions will thus be a space of refreshing perspectives, complementing the already established classical media. It aims at bringing to the foreground at once the experts whom, we believe, deserve even greater recognition and larger audiences, and their true respondents: society at large, through the agents who will receive their torch tomorrow. It is the urgency of such debates, as well as this passing of generations, that LILA wants to facilitate. This is where Inter actions is like no other existing media, in India or internationally.
For a new vision, a new structure. How can a true debate take place in a written form? We thought of an innovative format permitting this encounter. Each debate will be structured in two main columns.
| On the left, the initial opinion from an expert, a recognized specialist on one of today’s major societal challenges. We want this contribution to be relatively short, and addressing the readership directly as to the complexity and depth of the issues in question. While the LILA PRISM Lecture Series 2013 focused on disruptions, we want, now, to look at continuities. Therefore, we would also expect the experts to bring forth and mention some actual, effective solutions that have been found in their field. This way, Inter actions will not be one more media only listing problems, but one that also rewards remarkable initiatives and brings them to everyone’s attention. | On the right, a response from emerging students or agents of the civil society. The expert’s opinion will be shared with the respondent a few days prior to publication. In this contribution, the respondent, who would critically assess the propositions and arguments of the expert’s opinion, would also attempt to bring a second perspective to the question debated. As Inter actions grows, we will set a system through which visitors can contact us and present the themes on which they would like to be given a platform of expression. The classical media already permit a space for our plurivocal societies, but not everyone can partake, and different perspectives often go in their own direction, without coming across each other and actually trying to find common paths at the level of arguments and propositions. This is what we want Inter actions to become. |
A space for reader’s comments will naturally be proposed under the debate. We plan initially to have one debate per week, with new themes and new writers each time. However, if one debate reveals a need to prolong the discussion, we will extend the theme over several debates. New voices as well as the original contributors will be invited to partake in it.
Have a look at our reports from the LILA Lumieres events:
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| Tamil poetry across languages. | A mesmerizing evening around Kathakali. | All in support of the great Indian athlete! |