Espaços, lugares e territorialidades

In recent years, the so-called “spatial turn” has gained prominence. A turning point implies a change of direction, but also the revelation of something essential. The way space is inscribed on the Earth, from which The Earth emanates, is rough while geometric space is smooth. The turning point is due to a presentiment of the special drama of the relationship with the Earth. Beckett said: "We are on Earth and there is no remedy for that". The affinity of flesh and matter entails human finitude, which no religion has been able to cancel, and whose fate is the same as that of the Earth itself. But it is their appearance that is problematic. The invention of geometry, maps, borders, the satellite network and GPS were the effect of an unconscious and powerful process on the Earth, seeking to dominate it, to put it at a distance.
The whole challenge lies in expanding the horizon of the common habitability of the Earth, in suspending territorial wars, in thinking about new folds of space, such as those dreamed of in utopias (Bloch), in heterotopias (Foucault), in landscapes. In the last century, land-art, or installation, paved the way. Perhaps only art can, without violence, open another relationship with the Earth, more beautiful and fairer. Exploring this possibility involves a plurality of thoughts in concert, coming from artistic practices, philosophy, geography, politics or anthropology. A concert for the Earth taking place at Rivoli. — José Bragança de Miranda, Isabel Babo, Manuel Bogalheiro

Towards a theory of complex utopianism

In the book published in 2019, A Theory of Complex Democracy, the Basque philosopher Daniel Innerarity argues that we are currently experiencing a serious conceptual problem, as we have been trying to understand the problems of the 21st century with conceptual tools that were defined at the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. Innerarity argues that, in order to understand the complex world in which we live, we need complex theories capable of analyzing and communicating sometimes contradictory ideas. While science has changed most of its paradigms, the concepts central to contemporary political theory have not undergone an equivalent change.
Subscribing to Innerarity's argument, I argue that, in order to understand today's utopian thinking – the way it feeds our social imaginary, thus contributing to the transformation of communities – we need a theory of complex utopianism. Far from grand narratives, contemporary utopianism has become practical, realistic and polyphonic, feeding, to a large extent, on heterotopic experiences. Its understanding therefore calls for a spatial approach. As Michel Foucault announced at the conference he gave in Paris on March 14, 1967, “the present epoch will perhaps be, above all, the epoch of space. We are in the epoch of simultaneity: we are in the epoch of juxtaposition, in the epoch of far and near, side by side, of the dispersed”. It is precisely this profusion of utopian proposals that I propose to analyze. — Fátima Vieira

Fátima Vieira is Vice-Rector for Culture and Museums at the University of Porto and Full Professor at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto (FLUP), where she has been teaching since 1986. At the University of Porto she has had, over the last 4 years, the responsibility for the cultural promotion of the CASA COMUM and CORREDOR CULTURAL projects, which she created, as well as the Museum of Natural History and Science of the U.Porto, the Biodiversity Gallery, the Planetarium of Porto, the Marques da Silva Foundation and the U.Porto Press / Publisher of the University of Porto. She was President of the Utopian Studies Society / Europe between 2006 and 2016, having been awarded the Larry E. Hough Distinguished Service Award, established by the American and Canadian Society for Utopian Studies. She is coordinator of the Porto Hub at CETAPS – Center for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies, where she leads the research line Mapping Utopianisms. She has coordinated several FCT-funded projects, is a Visiting Professor at the University of Ferrara, where she teaches in an international doctoral program on sustainability and well-being, and a lecturer in the European doctoral program MOVES. She has given a large number of conferences in Portugal and abroad, has consulted for scientific journals and projects, organized multiple national and international congresses, and has organized and contributed to many volumes in the areas of Utopia Studies and Literary Translation. Full list of publications here.