Co-operative Activity in Preston

Co-operativism, then is being hailed by some (Mason, 2015)3 as the beginning of a postcapitalist society and a new way forward: ‘Almost unnoticed, in the niches and hollows of the market system, whole swaths of economic life are beginning to move to a different rhythm. Parallel currencies, time banks, cooperatives and self-managed spaces have proliferated, barely noticed by the economics profession, and often as a direct result of the shattering of the old structures in the post-2008 crisis.’4 Working co-operatively also brings with it a new economic

Social Dreaming, Associative Thinking and Intensities of Affect

This book describes a way of sharing dreams in a group, called ‘social dreaming’. It explores how the sharing of real, night time dreams, in a group, can offer information on and insight into ourselves and the worlds we live in and share. It investigates how we can turn dream images, and ideas and feelings that arise from these images, into conscious thought, before describing the ways in which these can be used. Using a background of the psychosocial combined with a philosophical lens influenced by the work of Gilles Deleuze, Julian Manley shows how social dreaming can be understood as a Deleuzian ‘rhizome of affects’, a web or a root design where things interconnect in a random and spontaneous fashion rather than in a sequential or linear way. He illustrates how social dreaming can link dreams together into a collage of images, and compares this to the rhizome, where clusters of emotional intensity – which emerge from the dream images – weave and interconnect with other clusters, forming a web of interlinked dream images and emotions. From the basis of this rhizome emerges an interpretation of social dreaming as a ‘body without organs’ and the social dreaming matrix as a ‘smooth space’ where meanings emerge from the way these images form connections, and come and go according to our emotions at any particular moment

Associative thinking: A Deleuzian perspective on social dreaming

Social dreaming is a way of thinking. As soon as we accept this from the beginning we can work towards creating a theory of the phenomena of social dreaming which takes us away from the distraction of the idea of the dream as being in some sense a mystifying and/or mystical abstract representation of something which is so ineffable and confusing that it might as well be nothing. The purpose of this chapter is to reassess the nature and validity of the thoughts emerging in dreams that are shared in the context or container of a social dreaming matrix, and in doing so create a theory of social dreaming, or at least to make a start in this direction. Long (in this volume) and Long and Harney (2013), focus on a semiotic approach that takes as its basis the philosophy of Charles Peirce applied to social dreaming, including his theories of abductive reasoning, and sign-vehicles. However, in this chapter I want to concentrate on the use and meaning of the term “association” in the context of social dreaming. Long and Harney (ibid) have also noted the importance of associative thinking to social dreaming and have coined the useful term “associative unconscious” to describe a key feature of the thinking process in psychosocial thinking or socioanalysis. The theory of social dreaming that I wish to pursue in this chapter concentrates on this aspect of social dreaming, not so much on the dreams themselves within the matrix as individual objects or signs to be shared by the participants in social dreaming, but the gaps in between, the links, connections and relationships that are developed through associative thinking that lead to the transformation of the dreams from single objects into living processes that constitute thinking: moving fragments of thought in constant flows of never-ending incompletion

Between Art and Social Science: scenic composition as a methodological device

The scenic composition (SC) is a methodological device enabling the synthesis and articulation of researchers' own complex experiences of events witnessed during data collection. Positioned between art and social science, it makes use of literary conventions to synthesise "experience near" accounts of data for interpretation. This article explains how the SC is composed by drawing on associative thinking and illustrates its use within a specific case study. The conceptual basis of the SC is discussed with reference to the work of LORENZER, WINNICOTT and BION. This is the first study in which four compositions, each by a different researcher, have been used to provide a multi-faceted view of a complex event, a live webcast. The compositions are presented along with researchers' reflections. Common themes and significant differences relating to life situations, histories and dispositions of the researchers emerge. The differences were expressed through choice of literary genres, which are common cultural resources. We ask what was achieved through the use of SCs compared with a thematic analysis of the webcast, and find that apart from synthesising and presentational functions, they give access to a multi-sensory range of researchers' experiences, including unconscious elements which were then available for reflexive interpretation by an interpretation panel

Containing spaces for learning through experience: A psychosocial approach to co-operation

This paper investigates one of the fundamental differences between a co-operative undertaking and a capitalist business: democratic participatory governance as opposed to hierarchical leadership. The latter often comes across as a ‘norm’ to be taken for granted. As such, co-operation is translated into the language of ‘team work’ and ‘staff consultation’, the domains of a successful capitalist company. Participation in co-operative governance, however, is more profound than this and requires an enhanced understanding of the somatic and affective qualities behind democratic decision-making. The paper suggests that a new language might be used to describe this difference, perhaps collective governance should be regarded as a virtue that can be recognised as working beyond values, even co-operative values. A further question arises: if indeed co-operative participatory governance is about relationships among equals, how can this be taught and/or learnt beyond the hard lessons of life experience? What can educational establishments do to teach people how to participate and govern by participating? The paper suggests that possible avenues of exploration in search of an answer to these questions might lie in a psychosocial approach that is able to encourage group learning from experience

The Barometer of My Heart Visual Matrix Research and Evaluation project

This report is the outcome of an in-depth study of audience reception of an artwork which itself involved years of in-depth inquiry and prolonged collaboration between artist, Mark Storor, and consultant endocrinologist, Dr Leighton Seal. The work was produced by Anna Ledgard in association with Artsadmin and was supported by a Wellcome Trust Large Arts Award and the Arts Council England. The Barometer of My Heart is an exploration through visual art and performance of men’s experiences of erectile dysfunction and impotence. In the popular imagination there is often a simple equation between the two that belies their complexity and diversity. Depending on circumstance and perspective, erectile dysfunction may be perceived as an issue related primarily to health, to intimate sexual relationships to performance in other spheres of life, to male identities or to the condition of masculinity in late modernity. It follows that although erectile dysfunction and impotence are related, they are not co-extensive. The former can be thought of as a bio-medical condition that afflicts individual men and has a wide range of physical and psychological correlates. It may be a symptom of a serious underlying health condition that demands assessment and interventi on– the title of the work draws attention to erectile dysfunction as an early warning of developing heart disease. However impotence is also existential, psychosocial and societal in its ramifications. In the performative cultures of contemporary western societies it signifies powerlessness, loss of agency and a failure to play one’s part. As such it is a challenge for men and women alike. The Barometer of my Heart arose in part from the wall of public silence and private despair that surrounds these issues – only too often met with incomprehension and fear. In the absence of public health education, erectile dysfunction attracts negative projections that may or may not be internalised. Men may delay seeking help with potential deadly consequences1. Impotence can be regarded as something to be worked through with professional healthcare and supportive relationships or it may be experienced as a source of shame and a psychosocial catastrophe. What then are the conditions for compassionate understanding and an enlightened public conversation? The Barometer of My Heart uses visual, acoustic and digital media in a performance to communicate matters that all too often have been shrouded in secrecy. It does this through a process of artistic enactment and symbolization rather than representation – in other words it presents its audiences with forms for the inchoate and unspoken feelings that the subject arouses. The audiences in our study made use of these cultural forms, mingling them with personal life experiences. We expected that their engagement would be accompanied by anxiety, fear, desire and perhaps hope –and that the scenes of the show would create a ‘third space’ where unacknowledged and unrecognized emotions could find expression and emerge into consciousness, perhaps for the first time. We had reason to believe that interviews or focus groups, relying on participants’ verbal accounts of experience, would fail to capture this emergent process. For this reason we used a recently developed group based method – the visual matrix2 – that gives expression through imagery and affect to what is ‘known’ but as yet ‘unthought’.3 When we began this study the method had already been used to assess civic engagement with public art, but not in such an intimate and private area of experience.4 Whereas our primary aim has been to understand and account for audience engagement with The Barometer of My Heart, a secondary aim has been to determine whether the visual matrix is a suitable method to study an artwork that deals with a subject that is hard to think about, hard to speak of and very often hard to bear