Paper short abstract:

The paper will explore the dynamic processes of re-imagining of the collective present and possible futures that were triggered by the global pandemic of COVID-19, focusing on the ongoing situation in Slovenia.

Paper long abstract:

The paper will explore the dynamic processes of re-imagining of the collective present and possible futures that were triggered by the global pandemic of COVID-19. Focusing on the ongoing situation in Slovenia, I will present a longitudinal investigation (a combination of online interviews, focus groups, and a mixed methods survey) of the imaginative processes of sense-making that people employ to cope with a disrupted chronotope; the pandemic has destabilised the present and derailed personal and collective trajectories, positioning people in a sustained state of liminality. While national imaginaries are often theorised as crystallised, reified, and structurally embedded, situations of collective ruptures allow us to study their dynamic unfolding – how imaginaries are used as resources to make the unfamiliar familiar and can provide a sense of ontological security, or they can be destabilised and re-opened for interrogation, negotiation, and radical imagination. We can observe both movements in Slovenians’ responses to the crisis; on the one hand, there is renewed vigour in the visions of a nationalistic utopia, which fuels support for increasingly totalitarian restrictive measures. On the other hand, the radical reorganisation of everyday life has opened up new avenues for utopistics and visions of societal transformation. The interplay of utopian and dystopian outcomes has produced diverse new imaginings that see the future as an inevitable departure from the present and from the pre-pandemic status quo.