Radical Imagination

The idea of the imagination is as evocative as it is elusive. Not only does the imagination allow us to project ourselves beyond our own immediate space and time, it also allows us to envision the future, as individuals and as collectives. The radical imagination, then, is that spark of difference, desire and discontent that can be fanned into the flames of social change. Yet what precisely is the imagination and what might make it ‘radical’? How can it be fostered and cultivated? How can it be studied and what are the possibilities and risks of doing so?

This book seeks to answer these questions at a crucial time. As we enter into a new cycle of struggles marked by a worldwide crisis of social reproduction, scholar-activists Max Haiven and Alex Khasnabish explore the processes and possibilities for cultivating the radical imagination in dark times.

A lively and crucial intervention in radical politics, social research and social change, and the collective visions and cultures that inspire them.

Max Haiven is an assistant professor in the Division of Art History and Critical Studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and co-director of the Radical Imagination Project (radicalimagination.org). He is author of Crises of Imagination, Crises of Power: Capitalism, Creativity and the Commons (Zed Books, 2014) and Cultures of Financialization: Fictitious Capital in Popular Culture and Everyday Life. More information can be found at maxhaiven.com.

Alex Khasnabish is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology/Anthropology at Mount Saint Vincent University and co-director of the Radical Imagination Project (radicalimagination.org). He is the author of Zapatistas: Rebellion from the Grassroots to the Global (Zed Books, 2010) and Zapatismo beyond Borders, and co-editor (with Jeffrey Juris) of Insurgent Encounters: Transnational Activism, Ethnography, and the Political. More information can be found at alexkhasnabish.com.