Showing papers on "The Imaginary published in 2018"

Urban nature and the ecological imaginary

Abstract: The essay “Urban Nature and the Ecological Imaginary” was originally published in 2006 as part of an edited collection entitled In the Nature of Cities: Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism. We consider a series of different ways in which urban nature has been conceptualized under modernity, ranging from functional interactions to more aesthetic or decorative elements. We suggest that much contemporary urban discourse is still suffused with a variety of organicist ideas derived from the nineteenth century that have been further elaborated under the impetus towards an “ecological imaginary”. This chapter explores an alternative conceptual lexicon that is better suited to the cultural and historical specificities of capitalist urbanization.

Imaginary Design Workbooks: Constructive Criticism and Practical Provocation

Abstract: his paper reports on design strategies for critical and experimental work that remains constructive. We report findings from a design workshop that explored the "home hub" space through "imaginary design workbooks". These feature ambiguous images and annotations written in an invented language to suggest a design space without specifying any particular idea. Many of the concepts and narratives which emerged from the workshop focused on extreme situations: some thoughtful, some dystopian, some even mythic. One of the workshop ideas was then developed with a senior social worker who works with young offenders. A "digital social worker" concept was developed and critiqued simultaneously. We draw on Foucault's history of surveillance to "defamiliarise" both the home hub technology and the current youth justice system. We argue that the dichotomy between "constructive" and "critical" design is false because design is never neutral.

Memory studies in a moment of danger: Fascism, postfascism, and the contemporary political imaginary:

Abstract: Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s concept of the “moment of danger,” this essay considers the contemporary return of the memory of fascism and Nazism among both far-right political movements and libera...

Psychology in the social imaginary of neoliberalism: Critique and beyond

Abstract: This is an introduction to the special issue on the impact of neoliberalism on the sociality, politics, and governmentality of contemporary psychological life. The articles suggest that Euro-Americ...

Resetting journalism in the aftermath of Brexit and Trump

Abstract: This article considers the lifeline of the Anglo-American imaginary in news. It tracks its evolution, consolidation during the Cold War era and centrality in the UK/US coverage of Brexit and Trump in 2016-2017. It argues that not only has the imaginary prevailed but it continues to shape contemporary coverage to the detriment of public understanding of current events.

Architectural Modes of Collective Existence: Architectural Sociology as a Comparative Social Theory:

Abstract: This article proposes a cross-cultural, comparative architectural sociology as a means of sociological analysis. It also emphasizes the social positivity of architecture. After a short overview of architectural sociology and its history, the article outlines a sociological theory which sees architecture and related practices as a constitutive ‘mode of collective existence’. The article argues that architecture (in a broad sense) is not a mere ‘reflection’ or ‘mirror’ of society, but rather a constitutive and transformative medium of the imaginary institution of society (Castoriadis), its assemblages (Deleuze), as well as its subjects (Foucault). In other words, it claims that architecture is a material and symbolic ‘mode’ through which societies and individuals are constituted and transformed. As architecture is a cultural technique, which is primarily enacted in relation to bodies, perceptions and affects (rather than in a discursive, reflective way), the social effects of architecture can best be unders...

Imaginary Engagement, Real-World Effects: Fiction, Emotion, and Social Cognition:

Abstract: Prior research has shown that cumulative written fiction exposure is correlated with (Mar, Oatley, Hirsch, de la Paz, & Peterson, 2006; Mar, Oatley, & Peterson, 2009) and 1-time exposure to literar...

Untangling the radical imaginaries of the Indignados' movement: Commons, autonomy and ecologism

Abstract: The 'movements of the squares' involved first and foremost an awakening or re-discovering of the radical imagination both in the square encampments, and in later projects created with the movements' decentralizations The new alternative projects born after the square have materialized the movements' radical imaginaries in urban environments, extending and deepening concerns of broad political change over everyday life Based on ethnographic work on the Indignados' movement in the city of Barcelona, this paper delves more particularly into three Indignant urban projects It untangles three common and interlinked radical imaginaries both embodied and actualized in participants' social practices, and further orienting their future visions: commons, autonomy and ecologism Scrutinizing their meaning, it also sheds light on connected issues such new ways of interfacing with local state authorities and redefining the boundaries between the public and the common It shows that the ecologism imaginary cannot be properly grasped if disconnected from the other two imaginaries, and argues that a transformative eco-politics can only be claimed as such if it is able to articulate such an integrated vision typical of 'socio-environmental movements'

Investigating the Macedonia naming dispute in the Twitter era: implications for the Greek identity crisis

Abstract: The Macedonia naming dispute has been an important issue in Greek affairs. It constitutes both an irresolvable, decades-old international problem and a significant, yet undertheorised, analytical topic. In this context, our aim is to critically explore, highlight and discuss the deep-seated and pervasive patterns, representations, attitudes, beliefs, ideas and norms within the Greek social imaginary, as these emerged on Twitter in real-time, during the mass “Macedonia rally” on February 4, 2018. More specifically, drawing on the dialectical interaction between Twitter posts, sociopolitical behaviours and interpretative analytic frames linked to interdisciplinary theoretical discourses, we attempt to understand and interrogate the intellectual structures, value system and operational categories of a large number of Greek groups on the ‘Twittersphere’. Based on the assumption that, in the last instance, the rigid refusal of the majority of the Greek people to accept a ‘composite name’ solution is connected with the tacit social imaginary of the Greek society, the present paper brings to the fore a complex identity problem. This problem relationally refers to the internal workings of the individuals, the psyche and the unconscious, but also to hidden and unreflected symbolic backgrounds, macro-social processes, and cultural legacies. Our following Twitter network analysis, focused on selected hashtags regarding the ‘Macedonia rally’, point out the character of social dynamics and ascertain the findings of the interpretative research strand.

Drawing on the discursive resources from psychological contracts to construct imaginary selves: A psychoanalytic perspective on how identity work drives psychological contracts:

Abstract: The study contributes novel theoretical perspectives for a more comprehensive and processual understanding of psychological contracts in the context of identity work. It builds on a psychoanalytic, specifically Lacanian, perspective to analyze 106 psychological contract narratives by employees of a wide range of organizations. Based on this analysis, the study suggests that psychological contracts can be understood as providing discursive resources on which narrators draw in complex and non-linear fashion to construct imaginary selves. Their inevitable unsettlement prompts both imaginary and symbolic responses that seem independent of the viability and type of psychological contract narrated. This suggests that identity work drives psychological contracts in surprising ways and empowers individuals as contract and identity-makers. Implications for psychological contract research are discussed.

Accursed Play: The Economic Imaginary of Early Game Studies:

Abstract: Revisiting early critical responses to computer and video games as a cultural form—before the establishment of games studies as an academic field in the early 2000s—reveals a consistent fascination...

From collective representations to social imaginaries: How society represents itself to itself

Abstract: This paper aims to reconsider the relevance of Cornelius Castoriadis’ concept of the social imaginary as a way of re-invigorating the study of ‘collective representations’ within the social...

Psychoanalytic Thinking: A Dialectical Critique of Contemporary Theory and Practice

Abstract: A video of Don Carveth discussing the book and its subject matter can be accessed using the following web URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW7tGq0uEtU Since the classical Freudian and ego psychology paradigms lost their position of dominance in the late 1950s, psychoanalysis became a multi-paradigm science with those working in the different frameworks increasingly engaging only with those in the same or related intellectual "silos." Beginning with Freud’s theory of human nature and civilization, Psychoanalytic Thinking: A Dialectical Critique of Contemporary Theory and Practice proceeds to review and critically evaluate a series of major post-Freudian contributions to psychoanalytic thought. In response to the defects, blind spots and biases in Freud’s work, Melanie Klein, Wilfred Bion, Jacques Lacan, Erich Fromm, Donald Winnicott, Heinz Kohut, Heinrich Racker, Ernest Becker amongst others offered useful correctives and innovations that are, nevertheless, themselves in need of remediation for their own forms of one-sidedness. Through Carveth’s comparative exploration, readers will acquire a sense of what is enduringly valuable in these diverse psychoanalytic contributions, as well as exposure to the dialectically deconstructive method of critique that Carveth sees as central to psychoanalytic thinking at its best. Carveth violates the taboo against speaking of the Imaginary, Symbolic and the Real unless one is a Lacanian, or the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions unless one is a Kleinian, or id, ego, superego, ego-ideal and conscience unless one is a Freudian ego psychologist, and so on. Out of dialogue and mutual critique, psychoanalysis can over time separate the wheat from the chaff, collect the wheat, and approach an ever-evolving synthesis. Psychoanalytic Thinking: A Dialectical Critique of Contemporary Theory and Practice will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists and, more broadly, to readers in philosophy, social science and critical social theory.

Creativity and Language in Social Sciences

Abstract: [The Proceedings of CIL 2017: Forth Edition of International Conference of Humanities and Social Sciences – Creativity, Imaginary, Language, Craiova, Romania, 19-20 May 2017 (www.cilconference.ro)]

The Rational Mastery in the Work of Cornelius Castoriadis

Abstract: In this article, I make the claim that the notion of rational mastery in the work of Cornelius Castoriadis is of outmost importance for fully understanding his philosophy. Yet, this notion has largely been ignored by the literature thus far. For this reason, I intend to highlight here the importance it assumes in Castoriadis’ philosophy. To this end, I argue that the notion of rational mastery in Castoriadis’ philosophy consists in an imaginary signification of progress that develops from modernity onwards in the form of unlimited expansion of technology and economy. I continue by presenting Castoriadis’ criticism of rational mastery. I then expand his criticism into the broader context of what I claim to be the social-historical perspectivism of Castoriadis’ logic-ontology of Magmas. Finally, I conclude with the demonstration of Castoriadis’ project of individual and collective autonomy as the counterweight to rational mastery of unlimited expansion of technology and economy against nature and so...

Assembling Ourselves Differently? Contesting the Dominant Imaginary of Doctoral Supervision

Abstract: At the start of the third millennium, feminist intellectual and political energies are converging on the ethical project of contributing to the construction of social horizons of hope. The challeng...

The Cultural Imaginary of “Middle Society” in Early Republican Shanghai:

Abstract: This article explores the cultural imaginary of “middle society” in China through popular writings of the early twentieth century. It pays particular attention to popular print media in early Repub...

The Sports Hero in the Social Imaginary. Identity, Community, Ritual and Myth

Abstract: This paper aims to introduce the sociological processes and mechanisms defining the social imaginary of sports hero, who is a sportsperson acquiring a special status by virtues of his/her extraordinary and exemplary skills, achievements and biography. The sports hero inspires long-term identification and he is symbol of a community, of its values, ideas and collective meanings, while his body incorporates socially appreciated and celebrated qualities. In the dramaturgical and ritual dimension of sport, an athlete can become a collective symbol, and, over time, an hero with mythical features. However, it is only through media narratives that a sportsperson can be heroic and mythical. Thus, the social imaginary in the narrative construction of the sports hero as a central role. The stories revitalise myths, archetypes and beliefs displaying human passions, ambitions, contradictions, conflicts and so on.

The Imaginary Landscapes of Jim Crace’s Continent

Abstract: In each of his twelve novels, Jim Crace, who likes to refer to himself as a \"landscape writer\", created a distinct yet recognisable imaginary landscape or cityscape, which led critics to coin the term \"Craceland\" to denote this idiosyncratic milieu. Through Craceʼs remarkable ability to both authentically and poetically render these milieux, they appear other and familiar at the same time. Moreover, he occupies these places and spaces with communities in transition, which include people who are caught on the verge of a historical shift that necessitates certain social, economic, political and cultural changes that affect all spheres of their private and public lives. Consequently, they shatter essential aspects of their identities. A crucial role in this process is assumed by the locations through which these individuals move or reside, either permanently or temporarily. Crace’s debut novel, Continent (1986), comprises seven thematically linked stories that are variations of a fictitious realm, an imaginary seventh continent whose inhabitants are going through an identitarian crisis which is, symptomatically for Crace, reflected in their spatial experience. The aim of this paper is to provide a geocritical analysis of the novel and explore how it dramatises the intricate interaction between the geographic and topographic properties of landscapes and the protagonists’ psyches.

The pirate in the pump: children's views of objects as imaginary friends at the start of school

Abstract: The main aim of this paper is to use a phenomenological approach (Merleau-Ponty, 1962. Phenomenology of Perception. Evanston: Northwestern University Press; Merleau-Ponty. 1968. The Visible and the Invisible: Followed by Working Notes. Evanston: Northern University Press) to contribute a new theoretical understanding of what imaginary friends mean for children in the context of starting school. The paper addresses the specific area of ‘object-friends’ and draws on examples from an empirical and consultative study of a small sample of five and six-year-old children’s everyday experiences of friendship in school. The paper argues that if practitioners consider embodiment approaches and listen attentively to the knowledge and information that children share about their imaginary friends, this could be used to nurture children’s early learning.

Puppets, Compatriots, and Souls in Heaven: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Chiang Kai-shek's Early Wartime Rhetoric:

Abstract: The study adopts a critical discourse analysis approach to Chiang Kai-shek’s (CKS) internal nationalist propaganda and authoritarian discourse practices, investigating his New Year and National Day speeches in the 1950s. Authoritarian characteristics are evident in strategies such as legitimation, reification, or myth-making, in the antagonist categorisation of Self versus Other, in Self-glorification and the idolisation of the dead, in the hegemonic creation of commonality and unity, and in the metaphorical conceptualisation of reality. Patterns of idolising the dead serve to impose and legitimise CKS’s worldview among his citizens. Another pattern is CKS’s invention of imaginary compatriots within the “enslaved China” waiting for the best time to overthrow the “bandits’” rule. Reference to these imaginary agents indirectly presents to his audience a false but better impression of the Self, and a dimmer view of the communist bandits. A third pattern is CKS’s metaphorical use of language, such as references to communist China as a puppet regime of Russia.

The Indispensability and Impossibility of Teacher Identity

Abstract: For many, the term ‘teacher identity’ carries purely positive associations, as something that provides a reassuring source of professional solidarity and support. Yet identity is something of a paradoxical and problematic notion. In thinking through the problematic of identity, and its relation to teachers’ lives and work, I draw on psychoanalytic theory, where identity, far from being characterized by harmony, completeness or self-sufficiency, is a site of conflict, fragmentation, and alienation. For psychoanalysis, this alienation derives from the external location of our primary sources of identification, including imaginary identifications with the specular image of the other and symbolic identifications with the demands and desires of the Other embodied in law, language and discourse. In other words, we are never quite ‘at one’ with ourselves because the source of ourselves – our identities – lies outside us. I explore the implications for teachers of the paradoxical nature of identity as at once indispensable and impossible.