The Radical Imagination Project was founded in 2010 as a platform to study, analyze, foment, broadcast and promote the radical ideas that emerge from social movements.
Based in K’jipuktuk in the territory of Mi’kma’ki – better known by its colonial name of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada – the project undertakes a range of activities, including:
- Conducting interviews, focus groups, public discussions and other research activities with activists, organizers and community-members.
- Publishing writing and other media for both broad audiences and academic audiences.
- Organzing public talks and coordinating documentary films on topics that awaken and sharpen the radical imagination.
- Collaborating with other groups and individuals to offer workshops and educational settings to share and hone activist skills, knowledge and power.
- We believe that the imagination is a key element of society and that the radical imagination is a vital force of social transformation.
- We understand the radical imagination as something that emerges from the experience of people working together to challenge power.
- We believe the role of research is not only to study but also to foster, activate, support the radical imagination.
- We actively challenge the idea that academics should be distanced experts and, instead, experiment with methods for using research as a means to contribute to the reproduction and amplification of social movements against capitalism, racism, homophobia, sexism, colonialism and other systems of power.
You can read more about the theories that animate our project in various articles we have published, or in our book The Radical Imagination: Social Movement Research in the Age of Austerity, published by Zed Books and Fernwood Publishing in 2014.
- To learn about our current activities, visit the events page of this website.
- You can sign up for updates via email, Twitter and Facebook.
- Check out this audio documentary about the project: http://radicalimagination.org/audio-documentary/
The Radical Imagination Project is coordinated by Alex Khasnabish.