Cultural production, social movements and virtuous spirals; Using cultural production to influence social transformation. An ethnographic case study of a transmedia and translocal experiment.

Project Information

IMAGINACTIVISM

Grant agreement ID: 661561

DOI

10.3030/661561

Project closed

EC signature date 14 April 2015

Start date 1 December 2015

End date 30 November 2018

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 251 857,80

EU contribution

€ 251 857,80

Coordinated by

CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - IMAGINACTIVISM (Cultural production, social movements and virtuous spirals; Using cultural production to influence social transformation. An ethnographic case study of a transmedia and translocal experiment.)

Reporting period: 2017-12-01 to 2018-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Despite global concern about the quality of citizen engagement with grand challenges of climate change, resource depletion, and population growth, individuals & communities are acting to live more sustainably and align with alternative values. This project explores the thesis that they have been moved to such actions by fictional or artistic cultural productions that offer alternative visions of the future. The concept ‘imaginactivism’ is being developed to articulate this thesis.
The overall objectives of the project are to:
• ground conceptual work on ‘imaginactivism’ through empirical case studies
• articulate and disseminate the methods used to academic audiences
• disseminate a road map for linking cultural production and social and political action to key stakeholders

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

I have conducted case studies on: the proposed screen adaptation of a science fiction (SF) novel; The Fifth Sacred Thing & the production and circulation of an edited collection of SF by social justice activists; Octavia's Brood. I have disseminated my research through conferences, invited talks, articles and book chapters. I have designed & delivered participatory public engagement.
Overview of Results
It is hard to disentangle the chicken and egg relationship between imagination and activism in imaginactivism. Respondents talked about developing activist consciousness as concurrent with their discovery of inspiring fiction. Serendipity and conviviality are also important; people discovered inspiring fiction through engagement with other activists. There is a spiralling and iterative quality to imaginactivism. The creators of Octavia’s Brood built on their shared sense that SF was a tool for activism through collaborative creation of fiction and touring workshops in which process was as important as outputs. Imaginactivism also recognises the importance of pleasure in collaborative imagining and organising; people prefigure the joyful world they imagine inhabiting, including through the use of much-loved cultural production as a rallying tool, rather than simply critiquing or resisting the status quo.
Conferences
2016, Science Fiction Research Association Annual Conference (SFRA), University of Liverpool. Keynote Talk: “Imaginactivism: SF and Social Justice Projects. Can We Practice Research Activism?”
2016, European Association for the Study of Science and Technology Conference (EASST), Barcelona: “Earth Activist Training as Feminist, Multicultural, Antiracist Technoscience”
2017, SFRA Annual Conference , University of California at Riverside: “California Dreaming: Utopian and Dystopian Calls to Action in Parable of the Sower and The Fifth Sacred Thing”
2018, EASST Conference, University of Lancaster: “I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess”:the meeting place/time of the spiral dance"
2018, Utopian Acts Conference, Birkbeck College, University of London: "The Imaginactivism of Counterpublic Intellectuals"
Articles / chapters
“Instantiating Imaginactivism: Le Guin’s The Dispossessed as Inspiration” (2017) in Ada: A journal of gender, new media and technology, (electronic journal)
“Bound in the Spiral Dance: Writing Lives in Feminist Community” (Forthcoming 2019) in A/B: Auto/Biography Studies Special Issue: Engaging Donna Haraway: Lives In The Natureculture Web Volume 34, Issue 3
“Imaginativismo: Explorações do Impulso Utópico dos Feminismos da Ficção Científica e do Ativismo do/a Leitor/a/Escritor/a” (Brazilian Portuguese Translation of “Imaginactivism: Explorations of Science Fiction Feminisms’ Utopian Impulse and Reader/Writer Activism”) in Morus - Utopia e Renascimento Volume 13, 2018
“Imaginativismo: Explorações do Impulso Utópico dos Feminismos da Ficção Científica e do Ativismo do/a Leitor/a/Escritor/a” in Trânsitos Utópicos. Edited by Ildney Cavalcanti, Ana Cláudia Martins, Felipe Benicio and Marcus Matias. Publisher: Edufal, Forthcoming 2019
“California Dreaming: Utopian and Dystopian Calls to Action” in Utopias sonhadas/distopias anunciadas: feminismo, gênero e cultura queer na literatura. Edited by Luciana Calado Deplagne and Ildney Cavalcanti. Publisher: Editora UFPB, Forthcoming 2019
“Imaginactivism: Science Fiction and Social Justice Projects” (Forthcoming 2020) in Systems and Knowledge: Scholarship, Ecology and Mind in Science Fiction, Essay collection edited by Chris Pak and Will Slocombe, Oxford: Peter Lang
Public Engagement/Knowledge Exchange
2017, University of Oregon, “Imaginactivism: An afternoon conversation with renowned author and activist Starhawk”
2017, University of California, Santa Cruz, “Imaginactivism: Magic, Figuration & Speculative Fiction in the Pursuit of Justice”, Speculative Fiction Workshop & “Imaginactivism: Magic, Figuration & Speculative Fiction as Calls to Action: A Dialogue with Starhawk and Donna Haraway”
2018, ONCA Gallery, Brighton, Invited launch speaker for We Almost Didn’t Make It, an interactive installation by Beverly Naidus with support from the ARTifACTs collective: “Imaginactivism: Using art and fiction to cultivate the arts of living on a damaged planet”
2018, Cathays Community Centre, Cardiff, November 2018, “Imaginactivism: Creativity and Social, Racial & Environmental Justice”, Research Presentation and Collaborative Visualisation and Storytelling Workshop

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Imaginactivism is a fruitful term to capture the circuitous links among fictional and artistic cultural production and activism becoming evident in many initiatives around the world. In addition to my case studies, one can note the many occasions globally where activists have demonstrated wearing the iconic handmaids’ robes seen in the TV adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale. Attempts to build connection across academic, activist and cultural and media sectors are supported by social media and through the entanglement of activists and researchers in fan appreciation of cultural production and its capacity to move people. As populist disruptions of electoral politics globally have upset international consensus around global challenges of resource depletion, climate change and population growth, the countervailing upsurge in public demands for social justice and legislative action on climate change and mass extinction can learn from the ways that the focus on organisational process from decades of non-violent direct action has been combined with a focus on inspiring cultural production.
Emergent findings as I researched my case studies led me to create hybrid research and dissemination opportunities, as well as to respond to serendipitous invitations as it became apparent that I too am entangled in the networks I have been tracing. The spiralling and iterative quality that characterises Imaginactivism also applies to my own work.In February 2018 I attended the Amsterdam festival of non-western science fiction “Other Futures” and participated in a masterclass taught by Walidah Imarisha, co-editor of Octavia’s Brood. Another participant, director of ONCA Gallery in Brighton, invited me to discuss Imaginactivism in dialogue with environmental artist Beverly Naidus, who I had previously interviewed for The Fifth Sacred Thing case study, at the opening of her exhibition. Having my work translated into Brazilian Portuguese through my involvement with the Brazilian network Literatura & Utopia also makes it available to underserved audiences beyond Europe and the US.

Mini Lit Review