Prefiguration in Contemporary Activism

A CTIS/CIDRAL Workshop: 4 December 2014 

Keynote Speaker: Marianne Maeckelbergh (Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leiden University, Netherlands; Co-founder of Global Uprisings)

Click here for programme and abstracts

Prefiguration, or ‘prefigurative politics’, involves experimenting with ways of enacting the principles being advocated by an activist group in the here and now, rather than at some future point when the conditions for the ‘ideal society’ have already been created, thus collapsing the traditional distinction between means and ends.

This workshop, featuring keynote speaker Marianne Maeckelbergh (Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leiden University, Netherlands), will explore organisational and structural practices that prefigure activist principles and actualise them in the present. It will also extend the definition of prefiguration to encompass experimentation in textual, visual and aesthetic practices.

The workshop is followed (on 5 December) by a half-day masterclass for PhD students, led by the keynote presenter (unfortunately – due to restrictions on space – the masterclass is open to PhD students based at the University of Manchester only).
This event is hosted by:
CTIS Manchester
and
The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Arts and Languages
http://prefigurationactivism.wordpress.com