CMS5 Conference: Movements of Transition: hegemonies, resistances, alternatives
Stream description
The transition from 'socialism' to a free market economy has probably been one of the most pivotal events over the past two decades, affecting the lives of millions of people inside and outside the countries and nations involved in this process. This transition has been part of a wider movement towards the widening and deepening of the logic of neo-liberal states, free markets and capitalist management around the world. In popular imagination this societal change process has been frequently portrayed as the archetypal journey from serfdom to freedom with certain teleological references to the 'end of history'. Reflecting the Zeitgeist of drastic transformations set in motion by the disintegrating Soviet model (and its variants), the free market ideology has captured the minds of its reluctant allies and foes alike. Unanimously embraced as an antidote to the inefficiency and irresponsiveness of state bureaucracies, and (the only) tool for wealth creation, but also as an emancipatory political force - the free market has been elevated to the status of the new master signifier in societal discourse. In this new 'post-historical' world the free market and its associated capitalist management processes in the state, economy and civil society have become the hegemonic articulation of organisation as such, promising freedom, democracy, wealth and even equality, responsibility and security.
Perhaps such grand transformation with high moral underpinnings at stake justifies the 'transitory' human costs: the tears, broken dreams and anxieties; the massive unemployment, religious hatred and nationalist wars; the military and daily violences, poverty and disillusions. Perhaps the TV images transmitted to unsuspected consumers in the making - those 'poor' souls who are yet to fully experience the promised land of Big Macs and big Mercs - might eventually materialise turning the catastrophic wastelands of the present into dreamlands of the future. Perhaps the many liberations that privatisation of state industries have brought about together with privatising common fates has been a price worth paying. Or we are made to believe so.
In contrast to prevailing ideologies, we would like to question this notion of transition as an imposition of historical, a-historical or pseudo-historical truths onto our reality and subjectivity. We see transition - transformation, reconfiguration, repositioning - as a particular change process, a personal and collective one at the same time, that is concerned with the real opening of and in society. Moving beyond nostalgia and critique, we look out for rupture/s in the symbolic order and wish to interrogate imaginary institutions of contemporary consumerist society with the hope of experiencing the real; the real being defined as a resistance to dominant discourses pertaining to market fundamentalism and neo-liberalism, and as a quest for alternative ways of being, organising and constituting public space.
Our aim is to challenge the distortion that equates collective and agonistic forms of action with tyranny and coercion, and to identify ways of resisting hegemonic discourses and share alternative experiences. We are interested in movements of transition that point to speculative openings: new ways of social organising, new ways of producing, new ways of being. We are excited to explore the creativity and innovation of social movements in all parts of the world resisting the neo-liberal market logic and, at the same time, experimenting with the organisation of new, alternative forms of life.
Trying to make sense of a wider change process involving new forms of citizenship and collective engagement, we would like to invite contributions that problematise, re-think and re-define different notions of transition, including:
- The historical epoch of social transformation from what was known as 'real existing socialism' to today's (post-)transition market economies - examining and evaluating the significance of social and organisational transformations in light of foreclosed and recreated opportunities for radical movements of transition;
- The liberalisation and structural adjustment policies implemented in many developing countries around the world - examining and evaluating the human, social, cultural and economic costs involved and documenting the movements of resistance against neo-colonial oppressions;
- The 'successful' Marx-to-Mao-to-Market transition as experienced in China - teasing out the historical complexities and hidden costs of this change process with particular emphasis on the different types of resistances possible in today's Chinese society;
- The 'forced' and violent transition in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo - not to mention Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada and the many other countries where Western hegemony has invaded foreign territories in the name of liberation, freedom and democracy.
While we would not like to confine our inquiry to the historical transitions outlined above, we would particularly welcome analyses of:
- Comparative aspects of transition across countries and geographical areas and between different models of transition (eg 'successful' and 'failed' ones);
- The roles of, and the relationships between, the state, economy and civil society in organising societal transitions and change processes;
- The mechanisms for establishing hegemonic regimes and organising counter-hegemonic resistance movements;
- The role of particular organisations (eg NGOs, charities, affinity groups, direct action groups, media organisations) in facilitating hegemonic as well as counter-hegemonic transitions;
- The modes of organisation in what can be regarded as alternative states, economies and civil societies.
We expect a range of creative and innovative engagements including contributions such as:
- Theoretical papers presenting counterintuitive and provocative analyses and ideas using a range of frameworks (eg feminist, post-colonial, neo-Gramscian, post-Marxist, etc);
- Empirical engagements presenting data and texts in novel and non-conventional ways;
- Individual accounts by researchers, practitioners, artists and activists presenting their own personal and auto-biographic stories and experiences of transitions;
- Artistic projects using techniques of performance, video, poetry and photography;
- Activist accounts of social movement organising, resistance and alternative institution building.
Convenors
Dr Marianna Fotaki
Manchester Business School
marianna.fotaki@mbs.ac.uk
Dr Steffen Böhm
Essex University
sgbohm@essex.ac.uk
Professor John Hassard
Manchester Business School
john.hassard@mbs.ac.uk
Professor Maria Ceci Misoczky
School of Administration, Federal University do Rio Grande du Sul
Porto Alegre, Brazil
mcamisoczky@ea.ufrgs.br
Nebojsa Milikic
Editor of ''YEAST'', the youth web-magazine for politics and culture
Belgrade, Serbia
neboya@b92.net
