Conceptual Activism

This symposium explores the possibilities and limitations of conceptual activism. What does it mean to engage in politics through concepts? Does ‘conceptual’ imply that this kind of activism has less practical relevance or lacks material power? To what extent do concepts imply embodied practices and material relations? Which concepts are interesting from queer and trans theoretical and political perspectives?

The focus is on how the dynamics of queering and transing, or intersectional, decolonial practices, challenge the separation of academia, art, and activism. Inspired by Davina Cooper’s work, conceptual activism is seen as a way of imagining otherwise, involving the materialization and embodiment of concepts. Bringing marginalized concepts into practice can help to create alternative futures.

In today’s conflictual times, when the risks and dangers posed by climate change, biodiversity loss, and extractivist racial capitalism are often overlooked, with authoritarian politics and regimes acting as the driving force behind these issues, the symposium interrogates conceptual activism as a counter-hegemonic ontology and epistemology. The objective is to fight the normalization of material, symbolic and epistemic violence as modus operandi in everyday life and doing politics. The question is: Can queering and transing as a dynamic interweaving of power and desire advance trans*versal justice and sustain critical movements against domination?