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<br>THINKSHOP
<br>
<br>Figuring disasters: methodological speculations in exorbitant worlds
<br>
<br>August 9-10, 2018
<br>
<br>Valparaíso, Chile
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>Organization:
<br>
<br>Manuel Tironi, UC Chile & CIGIDEN
<br>
<br>Gonzalo Bacigalupe, UMass Boston & CIGIDEN
<br>
<br>Scott Knowles, Drexel University
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>We live in a lively planet. As disasters multiply in frequency and intensity
<br>we become aware of our interdependencies with earthly powers we cannot
<br>control.  At the same time, we see the deep political and cultural
<br>entanglements shaping geoclimatic disruptions and their afterlives. Disasters
<br>render visible our precarity, our condition of being vulnerable to others,
<br>human or otherwise, with whom we exist, flourish, and suffer (Tsing 2015). As
<br>damage is predicated upon class, race and gender geometries, precarity, we
<br>have learned from disasters, has to be explicated locally and “in the
<br>presence of” (Stengers 2005) those who suffer. As political experiments,
<br>disasters also reveal the institutional arrangements and knowledge hierarchies
<br>webbing together normality, while at the same time rendering problematic the
<br>heuristic of the “event”, a trope often unable to unveil the complex
<br>temporalities—incremental, slow and multi-scalar—at play in disasters.
<br>
<br>Disasters, in short, are an analytics for thinking about and with a dynamic
<br>planet.
<br>
<br>But if disasters are an analytics, they are—they need to be—also a method.
<br>Disasters summon the need to invent new genres for the figuration,
<br>representation and visualization of distributed, processual, and
<br>more-than-human geoclimatic disruptions. New regimes of perceptibility (Murphy
<br>2006) are required for engaging disasters and the political challenges they
<br>bring along. We need new modes of implication—new tools, new registers, new
<br>arenas—to shift from the local to the planetary, from the political to the
<br>geological, from the eventual to the processual, and to make room for the
<br>panoply of voices, sensibilities, and knowledges implicated in the entire
<br>disaster cycle.  Insofar as disasters disrupt the livelihoods and ecologies of
<br>concrete communities and territories—particularly those subjected the
<br>violences of late liberal industrialism—we need also methods capable of
<br>invoking renewed ethico-political commitments in the face of geopolitical
<br>injustice. Importantly, we need methods facilitating co-laboring with people
<br>and communities outside academia.
<br>
<br>Attempting to open a speculative space for doing and thinking, this thinkshop
<br>asks: What methods need to be articulated, fostered, or invented for rendering
<br>disasters visible and actionable? What narratives, figurations, and
<br>visualizations do we require to engage with the multi-scalar, multi-temporal
<br>nature of geoclimatic disruptions? What does “data” mean in the wake of
<br>the Anthropocene, and how can it be transformed into something meaningful for
<br>the communities we work with? How can we collaborate with artists, performers,
<br>writers, and other creative practitioners to explore experimental
<br>methodologies? What contact zones between activism and science we require to
<br>invent new forms of collective action and reclamation in an exorbitant world?
<br>
<br>Format
<br>
<br>The 2-days thinkshop is designed as a space for open debate and hands-on
<br>activities. We aim at a small group of 15 participants. There will be no paper
<br>presentations. PhD candidates, Humanities, Arts and Social Science scholars at
<br>all levels, as well as artists, physical scientists, engineers, activists and
<br>other practitioners, are encouraged to apply.
<br>
<br>As a way to situate conceptual explorations, a central element of the
<br>thinkshop will be a field visit to the Messana Campamento
<br> (informal settlement) in Valparaíso, where we will know about
<br>and engage with the ongoing participatory mapping exercise using drones that
<br>the community is conducting for the visualization of multi-hazards (fire,
<br>landslides, contamination). The guided visit is designed to inspire
<br>participants and engage productively in a situated exploration of the
<br>questions raised by the thinkshop. We hope to not only learn from this visit
<br>but also generate ideas and/or products that could be used by this community
<br>and the researchers involved more permanently in the participatory research in
<br>the Messana territory.
<br>
<br>Location
<br>
<br>The thinkshop will be held at El Internado , a
<br>cultural space located in the seaport city of Valparaíso, about 120 km
<br>northwest of Santiago and Chile’s second largest metropolitan area. The
<br>cultural history of Valparaíso—it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage
<br>Site—has cohabited with an intense history of disasters. Eight large
<br>earthquakes have hit Valparaíso since 1730, the last one in 2017 (Mw=6.9).
<br>Today, due to the irregular expansion of the city and to indiscriminate land
<br>use for industrial forestry, Valparaíso also faces risks associated with
<br>wildfires, landslides and pollution.
<br>
<br>Accommodations
<br>
<br>All meals and accommodations, including transport to and from Valparaíso,
<br>will be covered by the organization. Accommodations in Santiago before and
<br>after the thinkshop are not covered, and there is no additional financial aid
<br>for travel expense.
<br>
<br>Application and deadlines
<br>
<br>Applications to participate are now open until June 1st 2018. Apply here
<br>. Accepted participants will be
<br>notified by mid-July. Any question please contact Manuel Tironi
<br>(metironi@uc.cl ).
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>Manuel Tironi
<br>
<br>Profesor Asociado
<br>Instituto de Sociología
<br>P. Universidad Católica de Chile
<br>
<br>www.cigiden.cl 
<br>www.antropoceno.co 
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