[ecrea] CFP Counterfutures: Left Thought and Practice Aotearoa

Counterfutures: Left Thought and Practice Aotearoa

Call for Papers

Essays, articles, polemics, interviews and reviews are now sought for 
issue one of Counterfutures:
Left Thought and Practice Aotearoa, to be published in February 2016. 
Counterfutures hopes to
provide a single meeting point for Left thinking and debate in Aotearoa 
New Zealand. It will combine
perspectives from activists, intellectuals, researchers and writers 
situated both inside and outside
university circles.

For issue one of Counterfutures we invite responses to the topic of 
‘Connections’. While it is true that
the globe is vastly interconnected, this state of interconnection 
coexists with profound barriers and
disconnects between rich and poor, debtor and creditor, ‘developed’ and 
‘developing’ nations, and
distances between those of differing ethnic, class, gender, and sexual 
identities. The emblem of
‘connection’ remains a potent one for the reimagining and reoccupying of 
the Commons. In this cusp
between new forms of connection and enduring patterns of disconnection, 
where does the Left stand?
Are different Left fractions disconnected from one another to such a 
degree so as to render the act of
recreating the Commons impossible? What now is the relationship between 
the Left and ‘the people’,
or with other classes or constituencies that it might hope to engage? 
Where is the Left now positioned
relative to the horizon of institutional politics, here in Aotearoa New 
Zealand and in the wider world?

We seek pieces that address the topic in one of (at least) four ways:

    * How can we draw a map of the connections as they stand in 
society, either as facts or possibilities? These might be connections 
between the dominant forces and institutions, or between spheres that 
are normally considered in isolation: culture, economics, politics and 
ecology. What connections can be mapped within Aotearoa, and how is 
Aotearoa connected to the wider world? Can we trace the connections 
between state and capital, and between actors within those spaces? What 
connections exist between different oppositional groups?
    *  What new strategic connections and subjectivities might be 
forged between different groups, agents and sites of Left struggle and 
organisation? What alliances could be formed to enable greater impact, 
and what links are best severed? Do we seek to connect ‘old’ and ‘new’ 
Lefts, parliamentary and extra-parliamentary oppositions, 
‘revolutionary’ and ‘reformist’ forces, Maori movements and movements 
based on ‘European’ theory, social movements and academic Leftists, 
class-based and (other) identity-based movements? If so, how?
    * How can we connect our current activities to the struggles, 
successes and failures of past movements? What can we learn from the 
experiences of (for example) workers’, Maori, environmental or women’s 
movements in the past? Which of their issues and strategies have 
relevance for us still? Are we living in an entirely new moment? What 
connections might be imagined between our present moment and its 
possible counterfutures? What next steps do those connections imply? Do 
we embrace the technologies and challenges of the interconnected world, 
or do we hope instead to delink from it in an attempt at separation or 
self-determination?

Papers, essays, interviews and polemics should be sent by 18 September 
2015 to
(counterfutures /at/ gmail.com). Contributions may, but need not, follow the 
conventions of academic
writing (refer to counterfutures.blogspot.com for reference styles).



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