Seeing the Future Through the Socialist Past: the Works of the Radical Imaginary Through Migration

Abstract

This article contours the collective imaginary horizons of post-socialist subjects as they emerge within and around the ‘routinised’ practice of labour migration and its pressing materialities. Taking the case of Bulgarian-origin migrants in the UK, the article problematises the common conceptualisation of (semi-)peripheral imaginations as medium for enacting the hegemonic project of Western modernity-coloniality. Rather than passive subscribers to powerful but deceitful political utopias, ‘peripheral’ migrant subjects emerge as autonomous agents, articulating radically different visions of the desirable and possible. The politicisation of the socialist past as a historical context of shared social meaning and experience, as well as a symbolic resource of forgotten ideals, opens up a space for critical engagement with the capitalist mechanisms producing despair in the present. Invoking meaning and value from previously existing ideals of solidarity, justice and egalitarianism as they relate to the realms of work, self-hood and socio-political organisation, my interlocutors countermap the trauma of the present to the stability and fullness of what was before, in the process hinting at a possible moment of ‘rupture’ and ‘re-institution’. Respectful engagement with the ‘lay’ socialisms of today, I suggest it is vital for exploring further the political capacity of the post-socialist imaginary and its possibilities for carving out self-affirming agendas for equality, collectiveness and working-class dignity.