Political Imagination: Materiality, Politics and Pedagogy

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Political Imagination: Materiality, Politics and Pedagogy

Political Imagination: Materiality, Politics and Pedagogy

International conference in Själö Island in the Turku Archipelago, Finland

10-12 June 2022



Keynote speakers:

Rhiannon Firth, University College London

Eeva Luhtakallio, University of Helsinki



This conference addresses political imagination and its material, political and pedagogical dimensions. It explores the manifestations of political imagination and utopian thought, including the ways in which political alternatives are imagined, performed and lived out today in a host of places and spaces. We approach political imagination as a driver of social change and a practice of transformative politics and social critique. Political imagination is a generative force that is inherently intersubjective, affective, material and social. It can animate and mobilise diverse political projects, agents and effects. By envisaging alternatives to the existing social order, political imagination can enable social dreaming and destabilise conventional ways of thinking that tend to restrict us to a narrow repertoire of political possibilities. Material arrangements, such as architecture, technologies and material objects, shape the ways in which we can imagine and make alternative futures happen. Political imagination is also a skill that needs to be taught, stimulated and cultivated, highlighting the centrality of pedagogy in the practice of imagination.



The unsustainability of our current social formation has become glaringly clear, not least by the pressing climate emergency, and there is an acute need to envisage alternative ways of organising our common life. Our current conjuncture is often characterised as post-political, anti-utopian and thoroughly dominated by forces of neoliberalism that make it difficult to articulate alternatives and organise resistance. This interpretation, however, risks obscuring much of the subversion that takes place in diverse nooks and crannies of society. Resistance, contestation and struggle are not only brewing and bubbling under the post-political lid, but also increasingly rolling into the streets and squares, gardens and kitchens, art galleries and theatres, and workplaces and media. In lieu of or in parallel with political disenchantment, we are witnessing an upsurge in acts and gestures that challenge the capitalist factory settings of economic growth, waged work, limitless consumption, and persistent gendered, classed and racialised forms of oppression and exploitation, and envisage and prefigure post-capitalist futures.

The conference sets out to map and advance our understanding of these diverse acts and gestures of transformative politics, along with the complexities and ambiguities they involve. It seeks to facilitate discussion about conceptual, methodological and empirical aspects of political imagination and utopian thought as a vital part of transformative politics and social change, and strengthen our collective capacity to imagine better futures. It invites participants to explore, debate and articulate visions, ideals and struggles for alternative social formations.



Please email abstracts of 250 words, together with a max. 150-word biographical note, including name, institutional affiliation and position, phone number and postal and email addresses, to: (polimaconference /at/ gmail.com)

Abstract deadline: 15 March, 2022. Participants will receive notifications of acceptance by 30 March 2022.

The number of participants will be limited to 50.



Conference fee: 300 EUR (200 EUR for PhD students), includes accommodation, breakfast, lunches, dinners and refreshments for the duration of the conference.



For further information, please contact the organizing committee: (polimaconference /at/ gmail.com)

The workshop is organized by the research project “Political Imagination and Alternative Futures (POLIMA)”, https://polima.fi/ https://polima.fi/



The organizing committee: Suvi Salmenniemi, Inna Perheentupa, Pilvi Porkola, Salome Tuomaala-Özdemir and Hanna Ylöstalo.

Health and safety of our conference guests is important for us. The conference will be held in accordance with current guidelines on COVID-19 by the Finnish government. We will keep you posted on these guidelines and travel instructions.

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