Nicole Curato - "Democracy in a Time of Misery" Book Launch

The Centre for British Politics and Government (KCL), in partnership with the Political Studies Association’s Participatory and Deliberative Democracy Specialist Group, is hosting a talk by Dr Nicole Curato (Canberra), who will be discussing her new book, Democracy in a Time of Misery: From Spectacular Tragedies to Deliberative Action (Oxford University Press).

Democracy in a Time of Misery investigates how democratic politics can unfold in creative and unexpected ways, even at the most trying of times. Drawing on three years of fieldwork in disaster-affected communities in Tacloban City, Philippines, the book presents ethnographic portraits of how typhoon survivors actively perform their suffering to secure political gains.

The book invites readers to reflect on challenging ethical issues when examining political contexts defined by widespread depravity and dispossession, and the democratic ethos demanded of global publics in responding to others' suffering.

The event will be chaired by Dr Rod Dacombe, Senior Lecturer in Politics in the Department of Political Economy (KCL), with Dr Marta Wojciechowska, London School of Economics, acting as discussant.

The event is free and open to the public and will be followed by a drinks reception.

-

Dr Nicole Curato is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra.

She is the author of the books Democracy in a Time of Misery: From Spectacular Tragedies to Deliberative Action (2019, Oxford University Press), Power in Deliberative Democracy: Norms, Forums, Systems (2019, Palgrave, with Marit Hammond and John Min) and editor of the book Duterte Reader: Critical Essays in Rodrigo Duterte's Early Presidency (2017, Cornell University Press).

In 2015, she received the Australian Research Council's Discovery Early Career Research Award for her work on democratic innovations in post-disaster contexts.

She is a regular contributor to CNN Philippines, Al Jazeera, ABC News Australia, and has written for the New York Times, Current History, and The Conversation, among others.