Algeria 2011 – Photo by magharebia
Uprisings, Politics and Emotions
A Participatory Workshop
Hosted by the seaside at:
Bournemouth University
Thursday July 9th and Friday July 10th 2015
Keynote Speakers:
Dr. Imogen Tyler, Lancaster University (author of Revolting Subjects, Zed 2013)
Professor Barry Richards, Bournemouth University (author of Emotional Governance: Politics, Media and Terror Palgrave 2007)
From Hong Kong to Istanbul, from Ferguson to Madrid, we are living in a time of global uprisings. Images of smoke filled streets and cities up in flames dart around the world, populating news reports and twitter feeds. Fear, hope, comradery, terror, relief, trauma. These uprisings teem with emotion. Their affects are contagious, their indignation infectious. They bring with them new cooperative political formations, as well as new manifestations of fascism and repression. As researchers wanting to contextually understand these different uprisings, many of us find ourselves inflamed and overwhelmed by proliferating political commentary, trying to sort through the sensory overload.
What tools, approaches and methods do we need to understand political uprisings today? How can we make sense of them in relation to broader struggles for social change? Can we engage in research on uprisings and protests without falling into blind celebration or armchair critique? What lies between the big data predictions of future protest events and the past histories of unrest that remain unwritten or misunderstood?
Critical interventions in Social Movement Studies around emotion (Jaspers 1998, Flam and King 2005, Goodwin, Jaspers and Poletta 2009), along with the ‘affective turn’ of the early 2000s (Massumi 2002, Sedgwick 2003, Breenan 2004, Ahmed 2004, Gregg 2006) have offered a rich conceptual vocabulary for thinking and talking about the intersections of politics and emotion. Building on these fields of inquiry, this workshop seeks to bring people together to address the challenges and possibilities facing academic engagement with the politics and emotions of uprisings.
This event is supported by the Bournemouth University Politics & Media Group, the MeCCSA Social Movement Network and the Protest Camps Research Network.
Registration fees: £25 PG/under-waged; £45 standard
(fee includes 2x lunch, 1x dinner and screening reception)
Please send any questions to: afeigenbaum [at] bournemouth [dot] ac [dot] uk