commonality, intensiology, morphogenesis, social manifold

The Social Logic of Leadership

Triangle-of-Sadness

A reading of Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness through Fascist and Aberrant Leadership

Abstract. This piece puzzles about the social logic of leadership through the lens of the movie Triangle of Sadness (2022), directed by the Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund. A distinction is introduced between two modes of leadership, here called, respectively, ‘fascist’ and ‘aberrant’. Phenomena of leadership, it is contended, illustrate the workings of social logic ex vivo, and offer exquisite examples of how intensities intervene in social interaction, giving rise to the tensive states in which the local protagonists of interaction are caught. Östlund’s film has noticeable diagnostic power, so that the piece unfolds as a study of the sociological materials it provides, even apart from the narrative plot and the satirical or critical intentions.

Keywords: social theory, social interaction, social logic, social intensities, leadership

Now out in The Journal for Cultural Research : https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/FKVPYAEGKCASAXPCAXRC/full?target=10.1080/14797585.2026.2682597

 

Alex Langer, animals, body, commonality, environment, geo, life, measure, the vegetative stratum, value

On Bioabilities. A new approach for ecological thinking and action

Beaver Dam
source | https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/kZsn7fdLFPgmuJzEB4ntT3-1200-80.jpg

 

(with Carlo Brentari and Federico Comollo)

Out now in Global Social Challenges

Abstract. We propose the notion of bioability as the subjective correlate to biodiversity. Bioability entails the capacity to maximize the forms and patterns of life within given ecosystems. Cutting across the natural and social sciences, the bioability approach opens up a field for research and intervention, which focuses on the imaginational and aspirational dimensions of terrestrial politics. In the context of increased awareness of climate tipping points, developing bioabilities help advancing experimental practices in ecological conversion.

pdf

 

commonality, environment, geo, measure, territories, territoriology

Mess of A Planet. Terrestrial politics in the age of climate change

Edited by Andrea Mubi Brighenti, Alexis Gonin & Mattias Kärrholm

The book seeks to contribute to the debate on the political and societal impact of climate change, with a focus on the new epistemologies that are being developed to recompose and expand ecological thinking. The approach is interdisciplinary across the humanities and social sciences (philosophy, social theory, sociology, anthropology, architecture, political ecology, and human geography). The discussion is theoretically-led and theoretically informed, with rich ethnographic case studies included to provide grounding for analysis. Through a number of “terrestrial stories”, a notion of “terrestrial politics” is developed so as to clarify the role of territories in the current planetary transition. Issues of globalisation, coloniality, ecology and territoriality are here explored through the modes of knowing and experiencing that correspond to them. The book thus enriches the current discussions on climate change and climate politics by emphasising the role of territories in prefiguring an emergent terrestrial politics suitable for conceptualizing an ecological civilization.

 

Table of Contents

Introduction: Theorizing Terrestrial Politics

Part I. Debating Terrestrialism
1. Luigi Pellizzoni, Mess of a problem. The climate crisis debate as a governmental dispositif
2. Michael J Shapiro, The Ecological Sublime
3. Jeanne Etelain, Towards a Terrestrial Nomos of the Earth: Rethinking Planetary Politics in the Age of Gaia
4. David Blanchon, Sentinel territories

Part II. Terrestrial Stories
5. Andreas Blok and Casper Bruun Jensen, South-East Asian territories as method: on re-placing Latourian and Stengerian eco-politics
6. Emile St-Pierre, Living with the unthinkable: Ecology and system failure in Hokkaido
7. Giuseppina Forte, Flooding and Resistance in New York’s East River Park
8. Konstantinos Avramidis, Taking Care of Refugee Estates, Refugee Estates of Care. Ecofeminist Design Scenarios in Nicosia
9. Priyam Tripathy, The Dumping Grounds: Toxic air and necropolitics in Mumbai

inspiration, intensiology, magic

Inspiration-space

forthcoming in Environment Space Place

Kalliope.001

Abstract. The paper seeks to explore theoretically the relation between space and inspiration. It reviews a series of places, institutions and situations in the light of the notion of inspiration-space, trying to clarify what is at stake in each of them. Inspiration is examined not only from the subjective point of view, but also more amply from a cultural point of view – that is, as a structuring social force. Selectively drawing testimonies from a range of creators, writers, and artists, and engaging in particular Gabriel Tarde’s social theory of imitation and invention and Simondon’s theory of transindividuality, the paper suggests some possible links between inspiration and everyday life, about their complementarity and intermingling.

pdf

camouflage, fake, intensiology, publicness, transformation, visib, visual

Semblance. The uses of fakery

Abstract. News concerning revelations or allegations of counterfeited identities and racial passing unmistakably stir strong feelings in the public. The domain of semblance is a domain of first impressions, certainly, yet these fulfils major cognitive needs and moral evaluations in social life. The article surveys the domain of semblance as a peculiar social interaction space endowed with its own logic, highlighting the entanglements of strategic and emotional, of rational and gratuitous, that contradistinguish it. To theorize adequately the domain of semblance, it is suggested, we need to proceed through at least three moves: first, focus on how semblance work exceeds rational and strategic behaviour; second, consider the intensive regimes associated with becoming-minority through the deployment of desire and emotions; third, besides acts of mimesis (imitation), also consider the existence of processes of méthexis (participation), whereby semblants coalesce not so much through copying a model but through joining environments.

Keywords: passing; faking; appearances; semblants; social epistemology; social interaction

PDF version

 

transformation, urban

Deptford. Ageing in the City

with Caterina Nirta

 

Abstract. In this article, we conduct an applied territoriology of Deptford, a town in south-East London, to highlight the peculiarities of ageing in place in the context of a changing neighbourhood. We look in particular at the intersection of ageing and public space, devising a phenomenological gaze onto places, with an eager ear towards the stories they tell – and sometimes, conceal. An exercise in trans-scalar thinking ensues, whereby large-scale urban trends are illuminated through the mundane and the ephemeral. The neighbourhood emerges as a ‘fold’ of potentially conflicting but actually coexistent turns, whereby an emplaced ‘generational time’ is crafted.

 

Keywords: ethnography of public space; urban ageing; walking as method; urban transformations; London

 >>> draft available upon request

creation, element, Gabriel Tarde, Gaston Bachelard, Georg Simmel, Gilles Deleuze, intensiology, manifold, measure, memory, morphogenesis, René Thom, rhythms

On Social Intensiology

Conceptualizing social life through topological folding, braid operators and collapse functions

Abstract. Social intensiology is outlined here in its connection to morphogenesis. the latter aims to explain how form come into existence, just as the former seeks to tackle the intensive states of social life. A topological reference model is proposed for conceptualizing how social life operates immanently with saliences and pregnances. The paper starts from the famous Collatz conjecture, and reviews how it has been recently modelled by Danail Valov using braid groups and including thermodynamic irreversibility into the picture. A ‘Valov braid’ can be understood as a manifold, an entity that is, at the same time, individual and collective. Its collective structure can be reconstructed, through its operational logic, as a tensional field. An attempt is made to show how phenomena of memory and measure are intertwined with the braid’s developments, giving rise to a rich present, multi-faceted that lives in non-coincidence. Within such framework, rhythmanalysis is presented as a useful tool for assaying and experimentally improving social life.

Keywords: social theory; social modelling; topology; braid groups; rhythmanalysis

>>> draft available upon request

a mubi site