Maura Brighenti (Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales, Univ. Nacional de San Martín), Lucía Cavallero (Univ. de Buenos Aires), Eleonora Cappuccilli (Edith Saurer Foundation, Austria), Niccolò Cuppini (SUPSI), Mithilesh Kumar (Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Patna), Alejo Stark (Univ. of Michigan) (Web)

Venue: Buenos Aires
Time: 25.-26.10.2018
Proposals by: 08.06.2018

It is often said that we live in a new age of riots. However, despite the pervasive use of “riot” as a way to name heterogeneous phenomena, we sense a certain lack of conceptual clarity around what precisely the „riot“ implies. A theoretical and conceptual deficiency first of all, which seems mimetic to the riot’s very definition as something with neither roots nor explanations, neither past nor future, something constitutively “spontaneous” and immune to political organization. In short, theorists and philosophers of riots need to show that these unbridled “spontaneous” expressions of “force” have emerged as a form through which emancipatory demands are made and as part of a broader “repertoire” of class struggle.

To that end, this conference aims to think the concept of the “riot” on a global scale. Ports, as transnational places par excellence, are among the sites where the apparition of the riot first appeared. Against this background we propose to develop a genealogical approach that could show the multiple emergences and historical paths of the riot, thereby grappling its continuities without constructing an all-encompassing sociological study. Secondly, we aim to analyse the riot beyond its conceptual “isolation.” The riot will be inscribed along a conceptual constellation that includes, though not exclusively, “revolution”, “strike”, “rebellion”, “revolt”, and “commune” with the aim of illuminating the riot both as a concept and as a performance. Thirdly, … read more and source (Web).