Call for Papers: RGS–IBG Annual International Conference 2014, London, 26–29 August 2014
Session: Anti Production & Co. Unthinking capitalist realism (Perish the thought)
Organizers: Marcus A. Doel, David B. Clarke, and Richard G. Smith
Sponsor: History and Philosophy of Geography Research Group (HPGRG)
Expected format: Two 100-minute sessions, comprising eight 20-minute papers (inc. 5-minutes each for Q&A), and two 20-minute discussants
“It cannot be stressed enough: THERE IS NEVER ANYTHING TO PRODUCE” (Jean Baudrillard, The Ecstasy of Communication)
The advent of the term ‘co-production’ should be a cause for concern for all Left-leaning Geographers. With its conjoining of a generalized busyness on the one hand (production) and a harmonious coming together on the other hand (co-), the term’s dissimulation and occlusion of the agonistic division of labour and the expropriation of the commons seems perfectly attuned to the ideological obfuscation of capitalist realism, zombie neoliberalism, and objective violence. Since everything is supposedly produced (made to appear, manufactured, assembled, fabricated, and constructed), we are all seemingly compelled to produce together; and we are all ostensibly in it together (humans and nonhumans, producers and consumers, dead labour and living labour, and so on and so forth). Such is the fantastical and phantasmagorical meaning of ‘co-production’ – an assembling assembly, toiling away for the common good. This session will challenge this cozy, heart-warming, and peaceable notion of ‘creative togetherness’ by welcoming a return of the ideologically repressed: the dis- and the de- against the co-, and the se- and the re- against the pro- (disjointure and deconstruction; seduction and sedition; reduction and retraction; et cetera).
We would welcome papers that challenge the notion of ‘co-production,’ particularly with reference to:
* Capitalist realism
* Zombie neoliberalism
* Objective violence – symbolic and systemic
* Anti-production and general economy
* Seduction and the mirror of production
* The violence of critical theory and fatal theory
* Being forced to think otherwise
* Deconstruction and poststructuralism
* Revolutionary and counter-revolutionary theory
* Schizoanalysis and psychoanalysis
* Commonization of knowledge production
* The destruction of meaning
* Uncreative thinking
* Interpassivity and desubjectification
Please send a proposed title, an abstract (up to 200 words), and your contact details to Marcus Doel, Swansea University ([log in to unmask]), by 25th January 2014.
Marcus A. Doel, David B. Clarke, and Richard G. Smith
Centre for Urban Theory
Department of Geography
College of Science
Swansea University
Singleton Park
Swansea SA2 8PP
United Kingdom
Tel. +44(0)1792 513090
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Twitter: @MarcusDoel
“Through the mirror of production the human species comes to consciousness in the imaginary’” (Jean Baudrillard, The Mirror of Production)
Further details about the Annual Conference can be found at <http://www.rgs.org/AC2014> and about HPGRG at <http://hpgrg.org.uk/>.
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