Mo, 15.04.-01.07., 17:15-18:45 Uhr, Hörsaal 10 H2.046 (Hörsaalgebäude)
The impression of unsolvable wars, of unsustained hopes to stop carbon emissions soon enough, of flagrant inequalities and the uncertainty of futures are topics that preoccupy us – on different levels, but all at the same time. The notion of an omnipresence and overlap of crises has become common sense. When Covid-19 ended, war in Ukraine began. And while the wars in Ukraine and in Sudan continue, the war in the Middle East took center stage in the media. One form of activism replaces the former. But, will they be effective?
Talking about crisis means pausing and disentangling the fast momentum that crisis implies. It means to ask how crises are made and unmade by politics, by the media, by activism, by defining them as such. What gets to be a “global crisis” and what does not is subject to power-saturated, unequal practices. When crisis is proclaimed, it calls for interventions, security debates, regulations, maybe armament, but also for protests, activism, fear and hope. But by making one crisis central in the media, another one loses this attention and becomes invisible – and thus gets “unmade” although the problems persist.
We wish to provide a space for speakers and audience to focus on the slash in “un/making crises”: centering the simultaneity and complexity of different (historical and current) processes, practices, technologies, actors and interests at play in, and brought forth through crises. Contributions will critique the concept of crisis, focus on global flows and processes in their un/making, or provide insights into local practices that emerge in response to declared – and experienced - crises. In all that, we ask: What hopes do crises also hold for better futures, new beginnings, and planetary shifts?