THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF ULLAPOOLISM

Abstract

This article proposes Ullapoolism, a post-data, activist, autoethnographic epistemology for contemporary book culture studies. It begins by addressing the challenges of contemporaneity and multidisciplinarity in researching the creation, circulation and use of books. We identify a rigidity that limits existing theoretical frameworks for the study of book cultures, and a paucity in existing research modes – including those from literary sociology, the digital humanities and cultural analytics – that collect, count and model book cultures. Our alternative epistemology, Ullapoolism, draws on two modes of action developed by the Situationist International – détournements, mischievous re-inscriptions of existing cultural artefacts; and dérives, active drifts through space attuned to emotion – and addresses potential predicaments including recuperation and entanglement. The situated knowledge produced through this epistemology has practical applications. Fields are not neutral, and as mischief-making activists, we use creative critique and playful experimentalism to oppose structural inequity. Ullapoolism therefore offers a future programme for both cultural analysis and scholarly activism.