3rd and 4th of July, 2025

Centre for Democratic Futures.

University of Southampton

Democratic politics today faces an acute global crisis. Whether couched in terms of democratic backsliding, the rise of right-wing anti-democratic movements, or a transformation of the paradigms of liberal-democracy towards democratic authoritarianism, democratic institutions, political projects and forms of life are under attack. On the one hand, rapidly accelerating ecological collapse driven by neoliberal logics of exploitation and accumulation intensify and exacerbate this crisis. On the other, routinised procedures of politics ‘as usual’ - couched within the paradigm of liberal-democracy – prove inadequate for countering these threats to democratic politics. The concern is, therefore, as much an impoverishment of democratic politics as it is an impoverishment of democratic imagination.

What our conjuncture calls for, then, is a reimagination of democratic politics in ways that make it possible to respond to the challenges it faces. This work is underway; wherever democratic politics is threatened, we also find practices of radical democratic imagination and enactment that refuse to fold, backslide, or collapse. Practices that refuse authoritarian rigidity and order in favour of a pluralising and diversifying suppleness. Against this background, the present symposium aims to bring together scholars and practitioners from across disciplinary boundaries to reflect on – and learn from – these practices of democratic enactment and imagination. Over two days, the discussion seeks to build dialogues between practices of democratic imagination and practices of democratic enactment or prefiguration – without presupposing, however, the necessity or givenness of any rigid binary.

Keynote Speaker:

Dr Ariana Markowitz ‘Now you see it: Using art to practise democracy amid violence’.

Ariana Markowitz develops participatory and arts-based methodologies to explore, evidence, prevent, and transform structural and chronic urban violence.

Panels:

Reimagining Participation: Innovative Forms of Democratic Dialogue and Deliberation - This panel explores innovative and experimental practices that seek to revitalize democratic participation beyond traditional institutional frameworks. From mini-publics and agonistic dialogue to deliberative television and interactive theatre, each presentation explores how alternative approaches can deepen civic engagement and democratic imagination.

Reimagining Foundations: Critical Perspectives on Democratic Legitimacy and Equality - This panel examines the underlying assumptions and normative commitments of democratic theory. Engaging with questions of emotional labour, political equality, and the formation of collective will, the panel challenges foundational ideals in electoral and deliberative democracy and explores alternative frameworks for thinking about participation and legitimacy.

Reimagining Resistance: Democracy, Poetry, and Militancy across Land and Sea - This panel explores how democratic struggle takes shape through militant action, poetic expression, and ecological resistance. From radical climate tactics to decolonial ecologies, diasporic memory, and oceanic representation, the contributions trace how land and sea become sites of refusal, imagination, and transformative democratic practice.

This is a hybrid event – Please join us for what promises to be stimulating conversations.

Please see conference schedule and agenda below:

CDF Symposium: Reimagining Democratic Politics