Creative Experiments in Making Worlds

The PhD on which the monograph and publications are to be based explores how what I term 'performative' (Butler 1997) encounters - participatory, fun, creative, collective events and actions that take place in everyday realms - mobilise new forms of collective socio-political life by creating new relationships between people. It ties to the ESRC's key research fields, 'Social Stability and Exclusion' and 'Work and Organisation'. This research is important for three reasons. It significantly contributes to and extends upon the still marginal yet important interdisciplinary literature on creativity and autonomous community and work organisation (Cresswell 1996; Chatterton and Pickerall 2006; Raunig 2007; Gibson-Graham 2006). The shifting landscapes of human relations in new work and socio-cultural environments, the changes in national and international geopolitics, and the possibilities for human mobility have changed how we consider our communities and networks, as Cresswell argues (2006). I show how creativity and desires for alternatives are key to building relationships and finding commonality across diverse social demographics, an area of key relevance for cultural geography. Secondly, policy, state and academic studies typically focus on private and state initiatives to better the conditions of students, low-income earners and migrants, rarely addressing the hopes and initiatives of these demographics; I examine how people inhabiting marginal demographics self-organise new living and working conditions. Thirdly, while participatory and non-representational methods of ethnography have been developed in geographical literature (Kinpaisby 2008; Thrift and Dewsbury 2000; Thrift 2004), these do not often intersect with lived social and political issues (Smith 2005). I extend such methods via participatory fieldwork, contributing original ways of bringing academic work and socio-political struggle into dialogue that compliments those already practiced by social scientists.

The PhD is organised around five contemporary German case studies: Berlin and Hamburg Umsonst, the Transnational Republic, Schleuser.net and Meine Akademie, which address common socio-political concerns. The first section on Berlin and Hamburg Umsonst looks at precariousness and uncertainty in life and labour. In this context I suggest that the reclamation of cultural resources and public amenities made inaccessible to low income earners such as pools, cinemas, art galleries and public transport through Umsonst's humorous and pleasurable actions build new self-determined communities and networks that can critically challenge privatisation and neoliberal policies. The second section investigates changes in citizenship, the nation-state and borders in the European Union. It addresses tensions in Germany around migration, human mobility and settlement through the examples of Schleuser.net, a non-reformist lobby organisation, and the micronation of the Transnational Republic. It demonstrates how these forms construct encounters of information exchange that make visible minor narratives and challenge xenophobia. The third section looks at the symbiosis of state and corporate interests in knowledge production. It explores how self-organised education initiatives such as free universities and classes run by Meine Akademie empower students and communities to share knowledges, skills and resources without economic mediation.

The primary outcomes of the fellowship award will be the dissemination of the PhD research through its conversion into a monograph and high profile journal articles, and its presentation to academic and non-academic audiences through conferences, workshops and Fellowship website. The feedback received from this dissemination process will help me to hone my future research directions; contact with groups both within and outside of institutions will also strengthen my skills and reputation as a social researcher and cultural geographer.