2 oktober
Shrinking Futures: the gaze from the past in environmental activism
Presenters: Carl Cassegård, Karl Malmqvist and Åsa Wettergren
Chair: Henrik Börjesson
If you want to participate online please contact Åsa Wettergren.
Abstract
Our starting point in this essay is the dire situation of planet earth. Living in a time of unfolding catastrophes, the threat of a loss of imagined futures is a common occurrence that both spurs people into action on the one hand and induces reactions such as passivity and denial on the other. Which reaction occurs is, we argue, deeply interwoven with emotions and emotional reflexivity vis-à-vis time, especially the past. To illuminate this, we work out two ideal-typical ways of relating to the end with the help of Günther Anders and Giorgio Agamben. We will show the fruitfulness of these two conceptions by applying them to a case of mining resistance in Sweden. Our idea is to show how they help us understand ways people think and feel about the prospect of the destruction of their rural homes and the futures they have built up around them. We argue that the emotional reflexivity unfolding in the course of struggle – an unfolding that we theorize through the notion of the chain of evaluation – may provide guidance, as well as a sense of ethical commitment and meaningfulness, to activist struggle even in the face of such loss.
13 november
Emotional Imaginaries as a Resource in Navigating Social Change
Presenter: Mary Holmes, Professor in Sociology at University of Edinburgh
Chair: Åsa Wettergren, Professor in Sociology at University of Gothenburg
If you want to participate online please contact Åsa Wettergren.
Abstract
The novel concept of emotional imaginaries adapts Castoriadis’ theories about social imaginaries, to consider the ways in which we imagine past, present and future feelings, drawing on shared cultural meanings. For instance, people draw on songs, films, nightmares and dystopias to make sense of their emotions, especially in the face of change. This paper uses Mass Observation (MO) directive responses to examine how some British people employed emotional imaginaries in navigating past crises: the declaration of war in 1939, the events of 11 September 2001 and the COVID outbreak in 2020. These illustrative findings suggest that emotional imaginaries help them make sense of complex feelings and unknown terrors in troubling times. However, the examples show some MO writers rejecting dominant emotional imaginaries and others turning to relational forms of emotional reflexivity in navigating uncertainty. The concept of emotional imaginaries thus aids our sociological understanding of how making sense of feelings is important in navigating social change.
11 december
Love will tear us apart, again: rethinking hegemony with bell hooks and Aristotle
Presenter: Erik Andersson, Associate professor in International Relations School of Global Studies University of Gothenburg and Catia Gregoratti, PhD in Political Science Lund University
Chair: TBA
Abstract
To understand the (in-)stability of hegemony in the global political economy we see a need to rework the conceptualization of love. Previous attempts, such as ‘revolutionary love’ and ‘justice as love in public’, have used romantic love as a foundation for their argument. We argue that with bell hooks’ and Aristotle’s conceptualizations of love, a more productive analytical and political application of the concept becomes possible. We demonstrate this by applying our framework to the present unravelling of neoliberal hegemony, and how everyday political economy dynamics tie into macroeconomic and political dynamics. We show that love as a concept becomes more analytically productive, but at the same time less rosy and romantic, and not the motor for positive change or revolution that Das and Hardt & Negri state.