Short Abstract

Engaging the DSA2026 theme, this panel explores grassroots agency. We invite papers on how social movements, indigenous struggles, and informal actors challenge top-down paradigms and actively shape alternative futures, asking what must be reimagined in development for genuine justice.

Description

Our proposal for DSA2026, "Community Agency and Alternative Futures," explores how local groups and social movements challenge traditional development methods. The panel will explore how social movements, indigenous struggles, and informal actors are not just resisting dominant paradigms but are actively building viable alternative futures. We will invite papers that analyse how these groups define 'development' beyond economic metrics, mobilise alternative knowledge systems, and build resilient networks, ultimately reconfiguring power. By centring these bottom-up perspectives, the panel moves beyond critique to highlight tangible alternatives already in practice, addressing the conference’s call to deconstruct and reimagine development.

Complementing the panel, our 90-minute workshop, "Staging the Unseen," introduces theatre and micro-performance as innovative research tools. This hands-on session will equip participants with embodied methods from Theatre of the Oppressed to analyse concepts like agency and inequality. The structure includes an embodied icebreaker, a discussion on theory, and a practical lab where small groups create and share micro-performances based on their research. A final debrief will connect these practical skills back to participants’ work. The workshop demonstrates how arts-based methods can deepen analytical insight and offer compelling ways to engage academic and community audiences, providing a practical methodology for exploring the themes of our panel.

This Workshop has 1 pending contribution proposal.
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