Scholar-activist wins Nine Dots Prize with ‘provocative’ interpretation of legislation
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cholar-activist Joanna Kusiak has received the Nine Dots Prize for her “provocative” essay utilizing the 2021 Berlin referendum to argue that the rule of legislation has at all times been fragile.
The Cambridge-based researcher will obtain 100,000 {dollars} (£80,447) and a guide cope with Cambridge University Press for her response to the query “Why has the rule of law become so fragile?”
Every two years the prize is awarded to a guide that isn’t but written, with the board setting a query and alluring folks to reply with a 3,000-word essay and a guide proposal.
The prize cash permits winners to analysis, develop their concepts and switch their essay responses right into a full-length guide printed by Cambridge University Press.
Ms Kusiak’s successful essay takes the case of the 2021 Berlin referendum, wherein voters determined to expropriate greater than 240,000 properties from company landlords into public possession, to exhibit the potential of radically authorized politics as a means of deepening democracies and renewing the rule of legislation.
She fought off competitors from 600 submissions from greater than 50 nations to win the prize for artistic pondering that tackles up to date societal points.
The Polish-born winner mentioned: “The rule of law promises that all people are free and equal, yet too often it fails to deliver on its promise, getting entangled by power.
“My book, provisionally titled Radically Legal, showcases how social movements in Berlin and Warsaw work with the law to renew its emancipatory potential.
“My proposal was the work of love, and I feel elevated by winning the Nine Dots Prize.
“I am a scholar-activist, which means that I only engage with the topics that I believe are socially important.”
The guide, which may even have a look at the story of the Berlin motion and the connection between legislation and justice, is about to be printed in May 2024.
Nine Dots Prize board member and choose Professor David Runciman mentioned of the successful entry: “What’s so exciting about this proposal from a new voice is the way it mixes the urgency of contemporary politics with the complexity of recent history.
“Nowhere has the rule of law been subject to more violently different interpretations than in Berlin over the last century.
“This exploration of the fight over property rights in the city uses the past to illuminate the present and uses the present to suggest an alternative future. Not everyone will agree with what’s in this book, but it is sure to provoke fierce argument, which is what the Nine Dots Prize is for.”
As a part of the prize win, Ms Kusiak, who lives in Berlin, is invited to spend a time period on the Centre for Research within the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (Crassh), Cambridge University.