{"title":"The role of imagination in protest","authors":"Megha Devraj","doi":"10.1093/analys/anae005","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n Recent literature on social movements assigns a central role to the imagination. One way for activists to further their aims is through dramatic, confrontational acts of protest. I argue that transcendent imagining is key to understanding what protest does qua act of speech. A common approach to protest sees it as a speech act of condemning some feature of the socio-political world and appealing for change. While this is a helpful general template for what vocal dissent is, it is insufficient to explain what gives protests their political power. Specifically, it overlooks the fact that effective protests usually create a theatrical spectacle of norm breaking. Displays of defiance lift a constraint on how we imagine our socio-political world, and so allow us to begin reshaping it.","PeriodicalId":47773,"journal":{"name":"ANALYSIS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"ANALYSIS","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anae005","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"PHILOSOPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Recent literature on social movements assigns a central role to the imagination. One way for activists to further their aims is through dramatic, confrontational acts of protest. I argue that transcendent imagining is key to understanding what protest does qua act of speech. A common approach to protest sees it as a speech act of condemning some feature of the socio-political world and appealing for change. While this is a helpful general template for what vocal dissent is, it is insufficient to explain what gives protests their political power. Specifically, it overlooks the fact that effective protests usually create a theatrical spectacle of norm breaking. Displays of defiance lift a constraint on how we imagine our socio-political world, and so allow us to begin reshaping it.
期刊介绍:
Analysis is the most established and esteemed forum in which to publish short discussions of topics in philosophy. Articles published in Analysis lend themselves to the presentation of cogent but brief arguments for substantive conclusions, and often give rise to discussions which continue over several interchanges. A wide range of topics are covered including: philosophical logic and philosophy of language, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and moral philosophy.