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
