Social imagining as a network of humans and media

Research

Further information on the research programme and structure of Imaginamics

Social imagining as a network of humans and media

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Social Imagining – Outline of the research programme

A functioning society requires not only rules, procedures and institutions, but also shared ideas, narratives and images. The social practices of sharing these ideas, narratives and images constitute what we call ‘social imagining’. It involves the creation of communally distributed, intersubjectively recognised imaginaries that provide orientation and stability in everyday life.

Social imagining can hold societies together and promote solidarity, but it can also generate differences and divisions. It can facilitate unity and forge bonds, but it can also lead to forms of exclusion and violence. It can strengthen and stabilise social structures, but it can also trigger new dynamics and spark change. Social imagining shapes current debates about the climate crisis and the future of the planet, public disputes over the pandemic, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the future of democracy and the resurgence of right-wing extremist ideologies. For these reasons and more, social imagining is a topic of pressing relevance both in Germany and around the world.

Despite the long tradition of research on social imaginaries, the practices through which they gain their social and political significance and stimulate social and political dynamics have remained an epistemic ‘black box’. Our research makes an innovative contribution by focussing on these practices, processes and dynamics; hence our name Imaginamics: Practices and Dynamics of Social Imagining.

The Cluster of Excellence Imaginamics aims to develop a comprehensive understanding of social imagining. To this end, it (1) combines research approaches from the cultural sciences, humanities and social sciences; (2) links foundational theoretical approaches with empirical studies and digital explorations; (3) expands upon current debates on social imagining by including transepochal and trans-cultural perspectives; (4) develops a set of instruments to describe and explain social dynamics more precisely and to enable critical reflection on them.

Structurally, Imaginamics is anchored in the LIBERTY research profile area of the University of Jena. Scientists in early stages of their careers are already researching on topics related to social imagination:

Structure of the research programme

The interdisciplinary work of Imaginamics is divided into three Research Areas (RAs) and three transversal Hubs. The Areas and Hubs are designed to mobilise innovation potential and focus on issues that are relevant to contemporary societies. The core concepts that guide the RAs are not intended to reflect a strict definition of the concept of social imagining but rather to unlock its explorative and heuristic potential. They have been chosen to facilitate nuanced analysis of the practices and dynamics of social imagining. In this way, the RAs crystallise around long-standing research interests of our PIs and will boost the research strengths of the FSU and the participating institutions.

Research Area 1: Imagining Difference

Research Area 1: Imagining Difference focuses on the role of social imagining in the emergence and persistence of differences. Practices of social imagining take place in social constellations that are characterised by existing differences. However, they also play a significant role in the formation of such differences. Thus, the emergence and perpetuation of social differences is one of the most powerful dynamics triggered by social imagining. RA1 examines, for instance, the profound significance that imagining difference can have for racialised and colonial practices of social imagining.

Research Area 2: Imagining Crises and Temporalities

Research Area 2: Imagining Crises and Temporalities explores the temporal aspects of social imagining. Especially in periods of crisis, it is not only the content of social imaginaries that changes, but also the practices and temporality of social imagining. While social imagining is subject to change, it can also unleash its own dynamics by providing explanations of the crisis or articulating potentials for action by drawing upon social imaginaries. RA2 addresses contemporary issues like climate change and the challenges of the Anthropocene, but it also asks how social imaginaries of the Enlightenment, which itself can be seen as a response to crises, have been invoked in times of crisis.

Research Area 3: (Re-)Imagining Democracy

Research Area 3: Reimagining Democracy studies the role of imagining in current challenges to democracies. It explores how democracies, like any political order, are stabilised by practices of social imagining that
reproduce their foundational imaginaries, and how they tend to be undermined by challenging forms of alternative social imagining. Here, too, it is not only the content of social imaginaries that supports or endangers democracies, but also the practices in which social imagining takes place. RA3 addresses developments
that can be observed in the immediate vicinity of our Cluster, in Thuringia in eastern Germany, but it also analyses the profound changes in social imagining that are associated with the digital transformation.

Theory Hub

The Theory Hub is dedicated to the conceptual clarification and further theoretical differentiation of the guiding concept of ‘social imagining’ on a practice-theoretical basis. Taking up open questions in cultural and social theories, the Theory Hub aims to develop an overarching theoretical framework that addresses the preconditions, functioning and effects of social imagination. In doing so, the Hub itself further develops practices of theory work in a model-like manner by taking up the challenge of placing a variety of different concepts and theories in relation to one another.

Digital Hub

The Digital Hub builds bridges between research in the humanities and social sciences and application-orientated projects in computer science. The focus is on the relationship between (media) technology and social imagining practices, particularly with regard to the transformation of collective imaginary worlds through algorithms and virtual spaces. The research not only examines the ways in which digital technologies and media intervene in the process of social imagination. In close collaboration with computer science, the Digital Hub is also developing the technological foundations for researching the question of social imagination with the help of advanced research tools, including the further development of social virtual reality (SVR) technologies.

Public Hub

Academic research, non-university research, citizen science and civil society interact in the Public Hub. Taking up the high social relevance of the research topic, it sees itself as a testing ground for new forms of dialogue between science and the non-university public. This networking function is based on the extensive expertise of the participating cooperation partners in cultural policy work and science communication, including the Klassik Stiftung Weimar, the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation and the Ettersberg Foundation.