Beyond hope and despair: The radical imagination as a collective practice for uprising

Abstract

This paper investigates the concepts of hope, despair and the radical imagination, driven by the following questions: Can we exist beyond the binaries of hope and despair, two key concepts that drive educational practices? What is the radical imagination and what are the conditions for it to be put to work in educational spaces? First, education is explored as a hyperobject that is owned, imagined and practiced collectively. The semiotic square is introduced as a heuristic tool to illustrate the limitations of the binary opposition between hope and despair, and allows for an exploration of what is possible when these binaries are being set aside. The radical imagination then, is described as a collective practice that is radical in the sense that alternative social forms can always be imagined once we acknowledge that every social form is the result of the collective imagination. Finally, the paper explores conceptual as well as practical ideas that underpin Education for Uprising which is understood as the emergence of micro-political, autonomous spaces of direct action where community, solidarity and self-organization are key principles. Education for Uprising allows us to radically reimagine how we view education and to actively engage in alternative world-making.