papers

Here we introduce the poetics of this practice of writing these papers. We mean, the aesthetic frame within which the work of writing is conducted and, behind that, the work of engagement in-here and out-there – the politics of (re)production, making a living economy – in furtherance of which the work of writing is performed.

For now these are outline notes, but in time we’ll blog them into more fulness, and develop some patterns within the foprop frame. Some elements of poetics can be seen as ontological, and some as methodological – though the distinction isn't hard and fast.

Ontological – Our relationships in the world

‘Ontological’ means: regarding what-there-is in the activist's world, and speaking of what our relationships are, with this or that kind of stuff. As follows:

• Pluriverse, mutualising – Many worlds, in mutuality. Regenerative activism.
• From the margins – Decolonial vision & voice, making contra-hegemony. Reparation, Remaking.
• View from somewhere – In relationship. In a body among bodies. In a place in a time, among places and times.
• Engaging beyond knowable community
• Structures of feeling – In-here is political – An actionable and deep-reaching version of 'the personal is political' and a movement beyond 'values' ('social' values). A follow-through on the 70s politics of 'la vie quotidien'. An adaptation from Raymond Williams' cultural materialism. An application of sankhara from Buddhist theory of mind. Basis of zone ¿1 in foprop: care work.
• Travelogue(ing) – Making the path by walking, 'phoning home'. Navigating, dead-reckoning, making landfall. Oceans, continents, terrain, earthmoving, tectonics. Landscape. Reporting News from Elsewhere (in place, in time, in society).

Methodological – Our intentions in the dance

And ‘methodological’ means: regarding intentions, and concerned with performance (the dancing of the dance):

• Altered social relations – in all sectors of life. Pattern language, re-ontologising. Regenerative activism, Regime change
• Language(ing) of struggle – Language of action, theory of practice, the practice of theory. 'No time out', analytical autobiography, faction. Re-ontologising, originating. Identifying where altering relations of (re)production is practically possible/necessary.
• Pattern language(ing)
• Storying – The storying of skill, the skill of storying and the storying of the practice of storying. Conversation. Being skillfully ‘other’ to oneself. Imagining Prometheus, happy.
• In-the-moment skilful intention, mindfulness (sati)
• Vernacular capability – Tools for conviviality, Illich.