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- Convenors:
-
José Gómez
(Abertay University)
Marco Paladines (Leuphana University)
Cesar Miguel Salinas Ramos (Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos)
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- Format:
- Combined Format Open Panel
Short Abstract
We invite submissions that address crisis not only as an exceptional event, but as a specific form of observation that, in many cases, reproduces epistemic and political power structures. We aim to critically explore how crises are constructed, stabilized, or contested materially and symbolically.
Description
Nowadays, through the rise of authoritarian and reactionary governments, the concept of "crisis" has been strategically instrumentalized to justify austerity policies, repress minority groups, dismantle social rights, and legitimize messianic figures presented as saviours. We propose a critical discussion of the very notion of crisis from the perspective of STS and its multiple genealogies, as its ubiquity and performative power demand renewed theoretical reflection.
Elena Esposito argues that traditional critical theory treats crisis as a normative diagnosis: a historical anomaly that demands treatment and a solution (Esposito, 2017). This generates epistemic blindness, since it not only describes the crisis but also legitimizes political actions with promises of redemption. In contrast, systems theory allows us to observe crises as improbable, contingent, and susceptible to being dislocated from other possible perspectives. Instead of assuming that crises automatically reveal historical turning points, we ask: what forms of blindness does the critical gaze produce when it is organized exclusively around the concept of crisis? What normalities does it render invisible by assuming that every crisis must be overcome, managed, or resolved?
We invite submissions that address the notion of crisis not only as an exceptional event, but as a specific form of observation that, in many cases, reproduces epistemic and political power structures. We invite exploring how crises are constructed, stabilized, contested, or even abandoned within material and symbolic infrastructures. Likewise, we want to consider epistemologies that can offer alternative perspectives that reject the promise of redemption or a return to normalcy, allowing other ways of experiencing risk, harm, hope and uncertainty.
The panel invites discussions of crisis as a civilizational ritual, as a narrative technology, and as a mechanism for updating the social order, going beyond the notion of crisis as an endpoint for managing emergency policies. We will have a paper panel followed by an open roundtable for creative discussion.