At the heart of Alterotopia’s becoming lies a celebratory practice of thinking-with and making-with, or simply put creative encountering. A practice at the intersection of art, science and activism, which prefigures how our relations to the earth and each other can become otherwise, more just, plural. Alterotopian creative encounters can take many different forms. From encounters between practices such as the one that has given rise to Alterotopia itself, to encounters with earthly places of change, to a generative thinking-with the concepts and artworks of others in order to be propelled in new directions. Whether or not they involve active collaboration or physical presence, creatieve encounters are inherently relational and generative: those who engage in them are bound to be affected and changed.
To get a better idea of what we mean by creative encountering, I would like to invite you on a philosophical longread which will take you along several seeds for conceptualising Alterotopia and the radical potential of Alterotopian creative encounters.
Alterotopia
Let’s start by taking a look at the encounter that gave rise to Alterotopia itself, i.e. the encounter between the academic practice of Flor Avelino and my own artistic practice. In the process of creating Alterotopia, both of us have had to put our ideas, time and aspirations at stake. As Flor writes in the origin story of the word alterotopia, it’s original meaning and application have been changing through the encounter in ways she could never have imagined. So too has the way we spend our time, which in my case has shifted to accommodate a more active philosophical practice and the building of Alterotopia as a place. By putting these things at stake we have allowed them to be affected and changed while they are brought into being through the encounter and the effort we put in. This process is also changing what Alterotopia itself is becoming and will make possible.
As with any creative encounter, it is up to those who engage in them to push the consequences of the encounter further and see them through. The seeds for the otherwise that are brought to the fore, need to be nurtured in order to grow. There is in other words an invitation to start and there is an ongoing invitation to keep going. It is this ongoing invitation that Flor and I would like to extend with Alterotopia: towards ourselves, but also towards the people, places and practices we are already tied up with, in generative entanglements.
“while we may all ultimately be connected to one another, the specificity and proximity of connections matters – who we are bound up with and in what ways. Life and death happen inside these relationships.”
– T. van Dooren, Flight Ways.
The description above gives a sense of what I have conceptualising as an Alterotopian practice of creative encountering, but there is a lot more to it than that. In this place called Alterotopia, we will explore and engage with other places of change as alterotopias. Before delving into that, let’s first take a closer look at Alteropian thinking-with.
Alterotopian thinking-with
Last spring, when our ideas for Alterotopia were still very much in their early stages, I took a deep dive into thinking about the radical, political potential of artistic practice. After years of neglecting my philosophical passion, let alone nurturing it as a practice, I was hungry to discover new ideas, ground my own and discover what other initiatives were out there that resonated with what we wanted to bring into being.
While trying to push my ideas further, I immersed myself in an associative reading spree. I engaged in what I would describe as generative thinking-with: finding resonance in the words, thoughts and artworks of others to push forward my own thinking and better understand what is at stake in our shared concerns and how we are driven to address, resist and/or transform them.
Amongst many other texts, I read Donna Harraway’s Staying With The Trouble Rosi Braidotti’ s We Are Rooted but we Flow, Ghassan Hage’s Alter Politics, Maria Puig de la Bellecasa’s Matters of Care, Anna Tsings A Mushroom at the end of the world and Tim Ingold’s Correspondences. Of all the things that spiralled together to reignite my philosophical passion, Donna Haraway’s ‘Staying with the Trouble’ was certainly one that stood out. What an abundance of novel concepts and what a generous and joyous practice of thinking-with! It felt like coming home, but in the most exciting way. The home of a kindred-spirit-thinker that one didn’t even know one was thinking with.
Being so actively immersed in a generative articulation of ideas was both inspiring and daunting: this type of engagement runs deep and sets all kinds of things in motion. Big leaps in understanding might be made through intuition, but it’s another thing altogether to be able to convert those into a comprehensive piece of writing, especially if one wants to acknowledge how one’s ideas are being shaped and transformed by the idea’s of those whom one is thinking and bringing-into-being-with. The process of affirmative acknowledgment and differentiation requires time and effort, and I have only just started to scratch the surface of the body of work of those who I got to know during that period as kindred-spirit-thinkers.
What I can already say is that my conceptualisation of Alterotopia and Alterotopian practice, resonates and takes root in the fertile soil these thinkers have already laid out, including (even more recently) Viciane Despret, Bruno Latour, Marisol De La Cadena and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. Concepts such as sympoiesis, alter-politics, new materialism, companion-agents, an ethics of affirmation and matters of care, couldn’t be a better ground for the type of entangled, earthly engagement and artistic crossovers we hope to put into practice in Alterotopia2.
Thinking-with Bergson
There are, however, older seeds for conceptualising Alterotopian thinking-with that precede my knowledge of any of the concepts and scholars just mentioned. These seeds take root in a philosophical practice that started to take shape during my undergraduate research on Bergson’s process philosophy. At the time, I described my research approach as a meta-philosophical reflection: a generative and in depth engagement with the concepts and philosophy of Henri Bergson and Deleuze reading Bergson, which culminated into my thesis Radical Nuance.
An important characteristic of this approach, of which I found Deleuze’s work on Bergson exemplary, is to engage with the thinking and concepts of another person in such an in depth and affirmative way, as to be propelled by the same generative force that gave rise to them in the first place. So rather than finding fault with someone’s argument by reducing its complexity and nuance (which, for quite understandable reasons is a common, but nevertheless disappointing practice in philosophy and other academic disciplines) the intention is rather to activate them, and be activated by what is trying to be brought to the fore. A type of thinking-with that almost inevitably leads to the creation of novel conceptsi. Concepts which resonate, but also differ from the original ones, and thus multiply new lines of thought, inquiry and engagement.
Thinking-with fluid concepts
Another seed from that same period, is Bergson’s method of intuition and his characterisation of certain philosophical concepts as ‘fluid’. He describes fluid concepts as concepts which enable us to think the world ‘in terms of change’. His concept of duration being a notable example. Far from being vague or irrational, as some shallow interpretations at the time argued them to be, a fluid concept requires more rather than less effort to think with. This quality is precisely why a fluid concept is more suitable to do justice in thought to something like the complex and heterogeneous nature of the earth’s creative becoming.
Stemming from my own experience of thinking with fluid concepts, a different way to characterise them is to see them as being in a state of becoming themselves. As such they are inherently unstable, open and generative, which again, is why they are better attuned and equipped for understanding the world as such. The type of thinking-with that such concepts enable, is a thinking with life, with the earth’s creative becoming.
Without even realising it at first, I treated the concept of alterotopia as a fluid concept. I bracketed its definition and started to put it to work in an open state of becoming-with. In other words, I was allowing it to attune to what it was trying to attune us to and vice versa. In that process it morphed and shifted so that it could help conceptualise what we want to develop as a practice, and ground the work we want to keep doing. In the case of Alterotopia this is to enable us to conceptualise places, matter and agency in terms of change and entangled becoming, to provide a fertile ground for a practice of creative encountering and embodied, artistic explorations of power, transformative change and radical belonging. It is only upon reflection and rereading my thesis on Bergson that I realised what I had been doing: I was allowing the concept to be in a broader state of becoming to increase its capacity to think change, entanglement and alterity in generative ways.
Conceptualising Alterotopias
Alterotopia as sites of entangled becoming
What then does approaching alterotopia as a fluid concept entail? It is less about giving a definition, and more about asking: what thought does it enable? What worlds and ways of relating does it make possible? Giving any definition implies addressing those questions as well. To come back to the definition that Flor gave in the origin story of the word alterotopia, it refers to places of change and their inherent quality of being in a constant state of flux and becoming. She initially coined this concept to inspire a practice of creative writing about place, change and stability from non-human perspectives. As the examples above have already alluded to, my involvement has broadened and shifted its meaning and application in several ways. For one, treating the concept of alteroptopia as fluid, has allowed me to elaborate on the aspect of becoming, so as to foreground the inherently relational and generative qualities of places of change. Building on the work of Donna Haraway, Rosi Braidotti and many others, and in strong resonance with Bergson’s concept of a thick present, I propose to see alterotopias not just in terms of change and becoming, but as sites of non-reductive, heterogeneous and entangled becoming.
Alterotopias conceived as such assume reality as full and pluriform: as teaming and brimming with generative entanglements between material and temporal presences of vastly different scales and cycles, such as geological features, microbes, soils and bodies, and all kinds of other agents, which are able to affect each other’s becoming. Moreover, it sees this entanglement as a constitutive force of the earth’s creative becoming.
Approaching alterotopias as sites of entangled becoming, highlights the many ways in which matter, place, agency and imagination are intertwined. My proposition is that Alterotopian thinking-, and making-with will not just help us break away from human centred perspectives, but also aid in conceptualising something like situated, relational and entangled power-with. Before going into that, I would like to highlight a more recent source of inspiration for conceptualising alterotopias that brings another important quality to the fore. This seed can be found in Ghassan Hage’s writings on alter politics, radical alterity, minor realities and critical anthropology. It will underscore why the artistic and embodied aspects of alterotopian encounters are so important.
Alterotopias as sites of entangled alterity
In his book Alter Politics Hage writes about the importance of cultivating what he calls alter political passion as a complement to the more dominant anti political (oppositional) passion that drives much critical thought. Alter political passion is, simply put, the political drive to make the world other, to make ourselves other. What I find so relevant in Hage’s book, apart from appreciating his highly nuanced and critical way of writing, is his notion of the ‘alter’ as grounded in what he calls ‘minor realities’. Minor realities are realities that are equally grounded in the real and our embodied relation to it, but may become overshadowed by dominant realities.
“Radical alterity is present everywhere. There is always an outside of a system of intelligibility, of governmentality, of domestication, of instrumental reason … etc. There is always an excess to how one defines a social relation also: it is always more than a ‘relation of power’, a ‘relation of domination’, a ‘relation of exploitation’, an ‘ethnic or a racial relation’ … etc”
– Ghassan Hage
Hage pleads for a critical anthropology that is able to think the alter in addition to critical theory’s predominant focus on thinking anti-politics. According to Hage “the critical anthropologist is someone who is always on the look out for minor and invisible spaces or realities that are lurking in the world around us”. He continues to describe the ethos of a critical anthropology as searching for encounters with spaces “that give enough of themselves to tell us that they exist but are nonetheless impervious to easy capture and to being assimilated to our dominant realities.”
Following de Castro and Latour he positions this critical anthropology as move away from the dominance of ‘mono-realism’ in western modernity, which he argues, is what has led to the inability to recognise the myriad ways in which we are enmeshed in the multiple realities in which we also exist.
“being enmeshed and dwelling in one reality that becomes dominant never stops us from being enmeshed and dwelling in a multiplicity of other realities, even if we lose a sense of these.”
– Ghassan Hage
The spaces Hage is talking about above, are closely aligned to alterotopias conceived as sites of entangled becoming. Each material and temporal presence that entangles in these sites, harbors alterity in relation to itself and to others. This relational-alterity is what constitutes the heterogeneous ground of the earth’s entangled becoming-with. Alterotopias thus, are not just sites of entangled becoming, they are also sites of entangled alterity: they are teaming and brimming with generative entanglements between the known and the unknown, the seen and the unseen, the accessible and the inaccessible.
Alterotopian encounters with places of change are then about searching for ‘alter’ spaces that give enough of themselves to have something to say to us, or in the words of Viveiros de Castro are able to haunt us. Spaces that ground the myriad of realities in which we also, already dwell. An important thing to note here is that in the case of alterotopias it is not about the state of being ‘other’ (you are one thing, I am another). The focus is rather on being other in terms of change and becoming in relation to what one is tied up with. It is therefore more about becoming other, causing and being caused to be other.
Encountering alterity
Where Hage pleads for developing a critical anthropology, I imagine a similar ethos to inspire a practice of artistic encounters. The premise is that artistic practice as a mode of engagement is particularly suited not just to being haunted by alterity, but to being propelled by it. By creatively engaging with alterotopias as sites of entangled alterity we can bring to the fore the presence of radically different future-past-presents. In the process of encountering, relations between the known and the unknown, the seen and the unseen will also shift and change depending on who and what is engaging and the degree to which they allow themselves to be affected.
The crucial point is that an Alteropian lens helps us see that our engagement with places of change as sites of entangled alterity matters: it literally makes a difference in terms of which seeds of the otherwise the encounter will bring to the fore, which futures we are able to imagine, and thus which worlds and ways of relating become more viable. Alterotopian creative encounters then, are a way of inviting the future into a creative present.
In line with Ghassan Hage, I would argue that approaching places through an alterotopian lens harbors transformative and political power: the seeds for the otherwise that can be brought to the fore are grounded in the actual material and temporal entanglements that constitute the myriad of minor realities in which we also, already dwell. In other words, alterotopias are the material and temporal ground of futures otherwise. Engaging with them through creative encounters is a way of grounding our radical hope and radical imagination in a potent present.
Alterotopias are the material and temporal ground of futures otherwise. Engaging with them through creative encounters is a way of grounding our radical hope and radical imagination in a potent present.
Embodied alterity and power-with
Next to geological and cultural places of change, our bodies too are sites of entangled alterities. The unseen processes at a cellular level, the bacteria, as well as unconscious experiences and memories to name but a few. Although these largely exist outside of our conscious awareness, the ways in which we are multiple, the otherness inside us, is very much part of what constitutes a living being. The entanglement goes way beyond the confines of our bodies, to the other material presences and temporalities that we are bound up with. Whether we like it or not, this otherness inside us is part and parcel of what it means to be a living being. It is always already there. This means that the body is a way of engaging with alterity that binds us to others.
So embodied artistic practice in relation to places of change and creative encounters – is about opening ourselves up, allowing ourselves to be porous to what is other, multiple and unknown in other beings and material presences as well as within ourselves. This type of otherness is often perceived as a threat, or at minimum to be at odds with our sense of agency and power, because it is nested beyond our conscious control. Yet, those very entanglements are what keeps us alive and in constant exchange with our environment.
Perhaps art and the type of creative encounters we imagine for Alterotopia can provide a place where we can practise engaging with alterity, with otherness, with what is unknown. I for one am definitely using my artistic practice to get better at sensing which people, situations, and materials will propel the work that wants to be brought into being forward. This does entail stepping into the unknown each time I enter into a new project and collaboration, but paradoxically it also gives me a strong sense of agency: of being an active force that is giving shape to the unknown, in a bringing-into-being-with kind of way.
Based on this experience I would even argue that the otherness within and beyond ourselves, the ways in which we are bound to it, also harbours a liberatory potential. Which brings me to what I would like to introduce as the paradox of entangled agency: the proposition that we will have more creative power when we decenter our sense of agency to include what lies beyond ourselves, because it increases the possibilities of what we are able to bring into being. This proposition certainly needs a lot more thought, there are plenty of tensions and troubles to think through, which is exactly what we intend to do in Alterotopia.
Prefiguring Radical belonging
Another tension that goes to the heart of Alterotopian practice is that while it resonates with the creative becoming of life itself, it is also very much at odds with the more the dominant perceptions we might have of ourselves, society and reality as they are constructed through the systems we life in.
In resonance with indigenous ways of knowing and relating and many other thinkers, artists, and initiatives active today, our proposed Alterotopian approach can be seen as a prefiguration of the fundamental shift that is needed in terms of how we live and relate to the earth and each other: a shift from the devastating dominance of exploitative and extractive was of relating towards strengthening alternative ways of relating that foreground what I would like to call radical belonging: a kind of belonging which is grounded in the myriad ways we are bound to the earth’s creative becoming, to place and time, to past and future generations to other species and to each other, in a creative and intimate becoming-with.
The radical political potential of these alternative ways of relating is both potent and precarious. There clearly is a need to strengthen, as Donna Harroway puts it, ‘our capacity for imagining and caring for other worlds, both those that exist precariously now […] and those we need to bring into being in alliance with other critters, for still possible recuperating pasts, presents and futures’ (ST, p50). This adds another layer to our ground: we need each other to strengthen and amplify what is otherwise at risk of being pushed to the margins, overlooked and unattended.
Becoming otherwise
Approaching the concept of alterotopia as fluid has enabled a becoming-with between the concept and what we want to bring into being with Alterotopia as a place. Seen as sites of entangled becoming, it brings to the fore how place, change, matter, agency and imagination are entangled. As I have argued above, this entanglement harbours transformative potential: it is the heterogenous ground of radical imagination and radical belonging, and with that of so many futures otherwise.
Taking a speculative leap ahead, we imagine an Alterotopian approach to be about entangling our longing for and prefiguration of the otherwise, with specific places of change, soils, matters, landscapes, and temporalities, as well as with artistic practices, people and initiatives that also and already nurture radically different ways of relating to the earth and each other.
“We long to bring forth through correspondence, attunement and thoughtful engagements, a way of thinking, feeling and seeing with others, with matter and with life.”
Any way they come, Alterotopian creative encounters are our way of dancing with the trouble. A way of staying attuned to the pain and injustice in our world, while attending to the seeds for so many worlds and futures otherwise. Seeds which are also and already here, but might otherwise remain unseen, repressed and marginalised by our dominant systems of extraction, exploitation and othering. These seeds are not utopian, but alterotopian: they are grounded in the actual material and temporal entanglements that constitute the myriad of realities in which we also, already dwell.
Nurturing a practice of creative encountering answers a desire to bring forth through correspondence, attunement and thoughtful engagements, a way of thinking, seeing and creating with others, with matter and with life: generative, celebratory and generous.
March 17th
Marijke de Pous
Notes
1. In hindsight it is no surprise that I treated the concept in this way, and why it didn’t feel quite right to introduce alterotopia it in contrast with Foucault’s concept of heterotopia. Conceiving alterotopia as a fluid concept resonates with intensive readings of heterotopia such as provided by Heidi Sohn in her chapter heterotopia unbound. When thought in terms of change and becoming, heterotopia also has the potential to bring the generative aspects of difference and alterity to the fore.. Heterotopia Unbound: Undisciplined Approaches to ‘Space Otherwise’. In J. Urabayen, & J. León Casero (Eds.), Differences in the City: Postmetropolitan Heterotopias as Liberal Utopian Dreams (pp. 3-15). Nova Science Publishers.
2. Now, one can of course say that there is no thinking that is not thinking-with. It certainly is the case that we cannot think in a vacuum, and we are always engaging with the words and concepts of others. What I mean by thinking-with is more specific: it is celebratory, joyous and affirmative. It is about allowing one’s ideas and what is being brought into being to be affected and changed in an ongoing and-and.
3. The practice of thinking with is much less common than thinking against. The later I would say has a tendency to reduce the potency of the work of another in order to propel one’s own ideas forward, versus looking to enhance what is potent and generative in the thought of another in order to be propelled by a similar ‘force’ while bringing one’s own ideas into being. Deleuze, Haraway and Despret are particularly strong examples of this generative thinking-with.
4. “This discourse [the human-exceptionalist business-as-usual commitments of so much Anthropocene discourse] is not simply wrong-headed and wrong-hearted in itself; it also saps our capacity for imagining and caring for other worlds, both those that exist precariously now (including those called wilderness, for all the contaminated history of that term in racist settler colonialism) and those we need to bring into being in alliance with other critters, for still possible recuperating pasts, presents, and futures. – Staying with the Trouble.
