Thesis Outline GdG

WHAT?

“The people are multiple,

the people are also divided”

(Chantal Mouffe)

The thesis will be a research on conflictual models for community existence. In particular, I want to talk about alternatives to single hegemonic orders and implications of plural systems of rules and organizations. The sphere of the commons implies a rupture in the identity boundaries and expose individuals to a potential conflict. In this way, we can say that conflict is always a model of communities organizational structures. The minimization of the “struggle of the commons” through democratic, universalist and liberal models of participation cannot overcome the automatic conflictuality of individuals that forms a community. The processes of collaboration, bargain, discussion are processes that belongs to the same factors of conflict: in all of these situations the actors develop strategies to be understood and to predict the internal dynamics.

I will look into a few neoliberal models that promotes “active” collaboration like :

• sorting selection of political candidates
• consensus & majority

And try to look at the internal dynamics of two communities of people, one is the Poortgebouw and the other one is the village where I was born. I want to look at different political paradigms or exceptions that includes margins of improvisation within a regulated system.

Conflictual participation is the best-case scenario for an encounter between people and society. It implies a surprise effect and impossibility to rely on previous standards.

“What is interesting from conflictual participation is the critical engagement or the introduction of a post-disciplinary attitude, which can lead to a new production of knowledge”

Individuals that are naturally moved by individual self-interest, are still able to commit to a game of tactical collaboration?

How is this “game” interfacing with the existent law?

NAME DROPPING

*conflictual models
*on the role of order for groups of people
*which are the alternative to hegemonic order?
*acceptance of pluralism in/outside democracy.
*game theory
*common pool strategies.
*alternatives to the tragedy of the commons
*how people organize themselves and their actions in the sphere of the commons
*political paradigms, and exceptions: margins of improvisation within a regulated system.
*why democracy cannot work?
*on processes of immunization in community existence.
*the failure of participative processes
*on conflict and game theory 
*on commitment and co-operation
*theory of interdependence
*individual strategic threats, promises, expectations 
*how to achieve coordination?
*problems of conflict and collaboration: self-interest and common interests
*hegemonic nature of every social order

HOW?

Division Chapters

0. Introduction

1. INDIVIDUAL AS INDIVIDUAL

The first chapter will explain (under the metaphor of the “individual as individual”) the commandment of the human being as an individual form. The human being is not only an individual, but also a political animal. The reference for this chapter are system theory such as “The general system theory” of Ludwig von Bertalanffy,

2. INDIVIDUAL AS DIFFERENCE

“Can you get into the space I’m in?”

In this chapter I’ll outline the axiom of “individual identity as relational”. The creation of an identity always implies the establishment of a difference. With “difference” I mean the perception of something other. The perception of an outside.

3. INDIVIDUAL AS OUTSIDE

In this chapter i’ll explore how politics deal with identities as collective identities. Politics constitutes the form of a “we”, which automatically requires the demarcation of a “they”. The relation “we and they” is not necessarily antagonistic, but it can happen that the “other” questions our identity or threats our existence. In this case conflict can arise. Following the theories of Chantal Mouffe on Agonism, I will try to

4. THERE IS NO OUTSIDE

necessity of seeing the world as a pluralistic universe. A world of many perspectives and values than includes References: “Biotopology 1972” by Warren Brodey, on Radical Software numb.4; “There is no outside” from “Spatial Justice” of Roberto Esposito

5. INSIDE & OUTSIDE

5.1 Interviews (metalogues, to people from PG and Cembra): list of (impossible) questions:

- Why do we need to be governed?

- How do you obey?

- What does it mean to command?

- When laws are necessary?

- Why conflict happens?

- How do you remain disassociated?

6. EPILOGUE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Methods

- Theory, discursive part

- Interviews, reports and discussions

- Comics

I want to combine discursive and philosophical narrative with a series of comics that portrayed groups of people in different setups of the city. People in stations, streets, metro, supermarkets, traffic jams, suburbs etc. I will photograph those places and human dynamics from “above“, a distant and voyeristic point of view, an hegemonic position. The narrative of the strips will be an attempt to analyze the behavior of people in public space from their movements.

WHY?

Turn biopolitics into affirmative politics of communities. Look through the notion of public, commons and their specificities. How to create new spaces of freedom?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Roberto Esposito: Immunitas: The Protection and Negation of Life
• Roberto Esposito: Terms of the Political
• Giorgio Agamben: Homo Sacer / State of Exceptions
• Augusto Boal: Legislative Theatre
• Freek Lomme: Who Told You So?! The Collective Story vs. the Individual Narrative
• Chantal Mouffe: Agonistic
• Chantal Mouffe: Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism?
• Elinor Ostrom: Reformulating the Commons
• Annie Vigier & Franck Apertet (les gens d’Uterpan): Uchronia, duplicate > do not create, infiltrate > do not exhibit, exceed > do not belong, appear > do not claim, delegate > do not restrict
• Markus Miessen: The Nightmare of Participation

REFERENCES / ARTISTS

• Mireia c.Saladrigues:

• Sander Breure & Witte Van Hulzen: performance "How can we know the dancer from the dance?"

http://sanderbreure-wittevanhulzen.com/?cat=5

• Les Gens d'Uterpan

• Adelita Husni Bey

• Melle Smets

• Varinia Canto Vila

• Marinella Senatore http://www.marinella-senatore.com/index.php?/nui-simu-2010/nui-simu/