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