CRESCOur ResearchTopologies Of Social Change

Our research

Topologies of Social Change

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Overview

  • Rhizomatic Tree of Life. By<br>Joël-Evelyñ-François Dézafit-Keltz (CC)

    Rhizomatic Tree of Life. By
    Joël-Evelyñ-François Dézafit-Keltz (CC)

    In this research theme we are rethinking of notions of stability and change through an appreciation of the spatial and material qualities of relations, and change-making practices. Our projects aim to understand how specific concepts of space and materiality inform attempts to produce social transformation, and orient the descriptive practices of social scientists. Within this general frame we are particularly interested in how topographic and topological approaches are deployed and to what effect.

    What is a topographic approach?

    By the topographic we refer to the ways in which uneven territories of social practice are traced and described, the ways in which diversity and inequality are mapped and the regulatory practices through which the normative is constituted.

    What is a topological approach?

    Topological approaches by contrast orient attention to difference, disruption and flux and pick up on recent theoretical interest in those spaces which are not configured by networks, or made visible in the contours of topographical attention. Unlike the stabilizing agendas of topographical approaches, topological approaches seek to address the fluidity and elasticity of social life and the affective dimensions of social relations. We are particularly interested in what becomes marginalised, devalued or made imperceptible in conventional accounts of social transformation, and the possibilities that topological approaches might hold for illuminating the more affective, messy, and hybrid aspects of social change.

    How does this relate to existing theories of social change?

    In this vein our projects engage debates in the broad and over-lapping fields of science and technology studies, feminist theory, non-representational approaches in geography, contemporary ethnographic anthropology, archaeology, and critical organizational theory. We have a particular interest in exploring the resonances across our empirical studies through engagement with writers such as Deleuze, Bergson, Foucault, Haraway, Latour, Strathern and Serres.

    In order to explore bigger questions about difference, disruption and flux that our exploration of topological approaches to social change will work to uncover, we are focusing our discussions around the following three core preoccupations:

    Mobilising Matter and Engineering Social Change?

    Through a cluster of interrelated research projects we are concerned with investigating the effects of strategic investments in infrastructures, public spaces and cultural facilities which aim to promote social change and to tackle poverty. This research cluster explores the dynamics of regulation and creativity in the material transformation of territories and of bodies. Our aim is to bring together a range of discrete research projects which are looking at transformative projects of social change to extend our capacity to think critically about contemporary problems of social cohesion/exclusion and fragmentation. In particular we will be focusing on issues of how class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and age get mobilised and transformed in large-scale state/corporate interventions like regeneration and engineering projects. We are working collectively to explore the question of how to re-describe or re-approach sociological categories like class and community in such a way as to get beyond a focus on elective dynamics of participation. The research projects which support this conversation also examine how the invention of new materials – including new kinds of numerical orderings, emergent data aggregates, materials science patents, and new engineering products - emerge out of and become directed towards projects of social and environmental change. These projects are allowing us to explore the ‘potential’ of new kinds of materials such as chemicals, concrete, carbon, data, and DNA in terms of their transformative promise, and the dangers of their toxic or excessive effects as they appear as pollution, corrosion, climate change, identity theft, and other kinds of aberrations or mutations.

    Edges, Moral Borders, Visceral Boundaries?

    Topological approaches to social change potentially give us a language through which to explore how borders, boundaries and edges can be understood as important conceptual and empirical sites for investigating social transformation. They draw us to ask questions about the dynamic flux of social borders and the ways in which borders operate both as divisions and as leaky boundaries and indeterminate spaces, creating the conditions for the institution of legality whilst at the same time producing continual possibilities for transgression. The theme takes forward our interests in cultural values as they were developed in CRESC I  by allowing us to explore how moral landscapes are constituted in relation to topological dynamics. To explore these issues we are bringing together work on airports as borderland spaces and non-places with research on land-borders between and within nation states. As well as spatial borders, we will also be thinking about how the body might operate as another kind of border, opening up questions of the importance of sensation and affect to the study of social change and the moralisation of people and place. We will draw on work on genetics and fertility to explore how new biotechnologies are reconfiguring the ways in which bodies becomes sites where legality, nationality and other social and moral divisions are played out. This will be placed alongside research on families and personal relationships in order to examine how sets of moral, cultural and historical values legitimate forms of embodied practice and sexual conduct.

    Mediation, Affect and Presence?

    Here we are concerned with the importance of how to account for objects in descriptions of social relations, and the difference it makes to approach objects in terms of their topological dynamics. We are particularly interested in the topological dynamics of media objects, that is objects that act as mediators, communicators or mediums for social transformation. By approaching media as objects with topological dynamics, we are working to explore those dimensions of transformational process that are left unexamined in a communications model of media and their effects. Here we draw on research taking place on different media-objects – models, diagrams, maps, pamphlets, books, newspapers – in order to investigate how these objects mediate particular social phenomena, and how they might have a capacity to generate specific sense of place and of presence. We are also interested in the fragility of such effects and the inherent possibilities for subversion or reconfiguration. This reappraisal of media objects in relation to affect and presence also leads us towards the questions of how we might need to rethink of notions of ‘the public’ and of how different kinds of publics are constituted through affective forces as well as communicative influences.

    Theme Convenor: Penny Harvey

    penny.harvey@manchester.ac.uk

    Theme Researcher: Hannah Knox

    hannah.knox@manchester.ac.uk

Projects

Below is a list of the projects run by this research theme. Click on the title of the project for more information.

  • Mediation, Affect and Presence

    Here we are concerned with the importance of how to account for objects in descriptions of social relations, and the difference it makes to approach objects in terms of their topological dynamics. We are particularly interested in the topological dynamics of media objects, that is objects that act as mediators, communicators or mediums for social transformation. By approaching media as objects with topological dynamics, we are working to explore those dimensions of transformational process that are left unexamined in a communications model of media and their effects. Here we draw on research taking place on different media-objects – models, diagrams, maps, pamphlets, books, newspapers – in order to investigate how these objects mediate particular social phenomena, and how they might have a capacity to generate specific sense of place and of presence. We are also interested in the fragility of such effects and the inherent possibilities for subversion or reconfiguration. This reappraisal of media objects in relation to affect and presence also leads us towards the questions of how we might need to rethink of notions of ‘the public’ and of how different kinds of publics are constituted through affective forces as well as communicative influences.

  • Mobilising Matter and Engineering Social Change

    Through a cluster of interrelated research projects we are concerned with investigating the effects of strategic investments in infrastructures, public spaces and cultural facilities which aim to promote social change and to tackle poverty. This research cluster explores the dynamics of regulation and creativity in the material transformation of territories and of bodies. Our aim is to bring together a range of discrete research projects which are looking at transformative projects of social change to extend our capacity to think critically about contemporary problems of social cohesion/exclusion and fragmentation. In particular we will be focusing on issues of how class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and age get mobilised and transformed in large-scale state/corporate interventions like regeneration and engineering projects. We are working collectively to explore the question of how to re-describe or re-approach sociological categories like class and community in such a way as to get beyond a focus on elective dynamics of participation. The research projects which support this conversation also examine how the invention of new materials – including new kinds of numerical orderings, emergent data aggregates, materials science patents, and new engineering products - emerge out of and become directed towards projects of social and environmental change. These projects are allowing us to explore the ‘potential’ of new kinds of materials such as chemicals, concrete, carbon, data, and DNA in terms of their transformative promise, and the dangers of their toxic or excessive effects as they appear as pollution, corrosion, climate change, identity theft, and other kinds of aberrations or mutations.

  • Edges, Environmental and Moral Borders, Visceral Boundaries

    Topological approaches to social change potentially give us a language through which to explore how borders, boundaries and edges can be understood as important conceptual and empirical sites for investigating social transformation. They draw us to ask questions about the dynamic flux of social borders and the ways in which borders operate both as divisions and as leaky boundaries and indeterminate spaces, creating the conditions for the institution of legality and indeed of ‘the social’ itself whilst at the same time producing continual possibilities for transgression. The theme takes forward our interests in cultural values as they were developed in CRESC I by allowing us to explore how moral and material landscapes are constituted in relation to topological dynamics. To explore these issues we are bringing together work on airports as borderland spaces and non-places with research on land-borders between and within nation states. We are also looking at locations where the social and the organisational seek to include and uncertainly ‘engineer up’ the ‘natural’, including the animal and the environmental, as for instance in agricultural production and fish farming. As well as spatial borders, we will also be thinking about how the body might operate as another kind of border, opening up questions of the importance of sensation and affect to the study of social change and the moralisation of people animality, and place. We will draw on work on genetics, fertility and intensive farming to explore how new biotechnologies and agricultural systems are reconfiguring the ways in which bodies becomes sites where legality, nationality and other social and moral divisions are played out. This will be placed alongside research on families and personal relationships in order to examine how sets of moral, cultural and historical values legitimate forms of embodied practice and sexual conduct.

Publications

Below is a list of the publications produced by this research theme.

Refereed Journal Papers

Special Edited Journal Issue

Book

Book Chapters

Working Paper

Conference Papers

Research Briefings

People

Below is a list of CRESC staff working on this research theme.

Centre Directors

Penny Harvey

Affiliated Academic Members

Christine McLean
Damian O'Doherty
Kath Woodward
Jacqui Gabb
Jeanette Edwards
Nick Thoburn
Peter Redman
Peter Wade
Damian O'Doherty

Research Fellows

Hannah Knox
Madeleine Reeves
Niamh Moore
Gillian Evans
Gemma John
Annabel Pinker

administrator, Research Fellows

Michelle Bastian

PhD students

Medina Aitieva

administrator, Centre Directors

John Law

News

Below is a list of the news items associated with this research item.

  • Connected Communities: Michelle Bastian Grant Success
    Sun, 22/01/2012

    As part of the development of the new cross-council research theme 'Connected Communities' the AHRC has funded a number of Pilot Demonstrator Projects aimed at showcasing its distinctive approach. CRESC researcher Michelle Bastian has been involved in developing three of these collaborative Pilot Projects, each of which has recently received funding. She will be the PI on "Memories of Mr Seel's Garden: Engaging with historic and future food systems in Liverpool", which will bring together academics from four institutions, three community groups and local government stakeholders. Local volunteers will use oral histories, historic map research and archive research to develop a multi-layered account of historic food systems in Liverpool. The outcomes of the research will feed into a variety of outputs, including a historic walking tour for the iPhone.

    As Co-I on a second project "The Time of the Clock, the Time of Encounter: Pathfinders for Connection", Michelle will be exploring political and artistic interventions into public understandings of the clock. This will include analyses of the reception of devices such as the Doomsday Clock, the Clock of the Long Now, and the 100 months Clock, as well as work with community art organisation Encounters Arts.

    Michelle was also involved in the development of a third Pilot Project "Connection, Participation and Empowerment in Community-Based Research: the Case of the Transition Movement" which will examine the interface between the Transition Movement and academic researchers in order to develop mutually beneficial protocols and networks that support collaborative community research. This work will complement Michelle's involvement in the development of the Transition Researchers Network, which will have its second meeting in February.

    Finally, she has also received follow-on funding from the AHRC for her Temporal Belongings project, which will support the further development of a research network on community and time.

  • Community Connectivities/Temporal Belongings: Workshop
    Mon, 21/03/2011

    We are now inviting applications for a two day residential workshop on the interconnections between time and community. The workshop is funded by the AHRC as part of the new cross-council research theme of Connected Communities. Please see the link below for more information.

  • Osh report: quick conclusions, lost opportunities
    Mon, 24/01/2011

    Madeleine Reeves writes in Open Democracy about the official report into last year's violence in Kyrgyzstan, arguing that it is poorly researched, political, overly assertive, and leaves as many questions as it answers. She adds that the national discussion to follow must avoid similar pitfalls.

    Click on the link for the full article. 

  • Olympic Legacy for East London?
    Fri, 03/12/2010

    CRESC's Gillian Evans chaired a public meeting at the University of East London Dockland's Campus on Thursday 2nd December 2010 on 'How can the sporting legacy of the London2012 Games deliver lasting change to the EastEnd of London?'

    This event explored how the sporting legacy of the London 2012 Olympicand Paralympic Games might transform the East End of London. It drew on the economic lessons of previous urban sporting regeneration initiativesand explored London-wide ambitions for sporting participation.

    Speakers included Simon Cooper, Head of Sport Unit, GLA, Larissa Davies, Sheffield Hallam University, Paul Ford, UEL Director of Olympic and Paralympic Partnership Operations, and Malcom Ross, OPLC Director of Operations and Venues.

    Gillian organised the meeting on behalf of the Olympic Park Legacy Company, in association with the 2012 Office at UEL

  • Madeleine Reeves writes about the The Latest Revolution in Kyrgyzstan
    Tue, 11/05/2010

    CRESC RCUK fellow Dr Reeves writes in the London Review of Books about the Revolution in Kyrgyzstan.

    "There is an eerie thrill to be had from walking through the home of a deposed president. Legitimate trespassing. Private vice exposed. By the time we came to gawp on Saturday afternoon, three days after the uprising that had overthrown Kyrgyzstan’s government on 7 April, the Bakievs’ house in the capital, Bishkek, was an empty, burned-out shell. Everything sellable had been taken, down to the light-fittings and wall tiles. Sections of the roof were hanging loose where it hadn’t burned right through. The front door had already gone, and so had several of the windows. Inside, the soot-covered walls had become a blackboard for expletives. ‘Bakiev, you son of a bitch, go!’ read some wall-high graffiti, signed ‘From the People’. The floors were a sea of discarded papers, notebooks, magazines, business cards. We picked our way across them, looking for clues and for something to salvage. We took photos. We stood and stared, sifting with our feet through the scattered, sodden possessions of a president disgraced..."

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