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

Local democracy with attitude: the Preston model and how it can reduce inequality

Could a grassroots development approach help address inequality? Julian Manley explains the concept behind the Preston model, and how worker-owned co-operatives supported by major local players could help empower communities

Surviving in Manchester: Naratives on Movement from the Men's Room

The Men’s Room is an arts and social care agency that works creatively with young men, offering them opportunities to get involved in arts projects whilst accessing support for challenges they may be facing in their lives. The project engages different constituencies of young men experiencing severe and multiple disadvantage, including those involved with sex work or with experience of sexual exploitation, and those with experience of homelessness and/or the criminal justice system. ‘Surviving in Manchester’ was commissioned by the Lankelly Chase Foundation (LCF) and aimed to explore young men’s routes into the Men’s Room as well as how they defined successful service provision. The research included ethnographic fieldwork, walking tours led by young men to sites that they connected with their survival in the city, and a Visual Matrix conducted with staff and volunteers. It argues that the relational approach of the Men’s Room is a key organisational strength. This approach combines informal and formal support, unconditional acceptance, clear ground rules, and gauging of supportive interventions in ways that are sensitive to the young men’s readiness and ability to ‘move on’. It also includes valuable opportunities for social gathering, creative expression and public storytelling and image-making that extend the artistic and imaginative capacities of the young men and celebrate their abilities and experiences

The Visual Matrix Method: Imagery and Affect in a Group-based Research Setting

The visual matrix is a method for researching shared experience, stimulated by a sensory stimulus relevant to a research question. It is led by imagery, visualization and affect, which in the matrix take precedence over discourse. The method enables the symbolization of imaginative and emotional material, which might not otherwise be articulated and allows "unthought" dimensions of experience to emerge into consciousness in a participatory setting. We describe the process of the matrix with reference to the study "Public Art and Civic Engagement" (FROGGETT, MANLEY, ROY, PRIOR & DOHERTY, 2014) in which it was developed and tested. Subsequently, examples of its use in other contexts are provided. Both the matrix and post-matrix discussions are described, as is the interpretive process that follows. Theoretical sources are highlighted: its origins in social dreaming; the atemporal, associative nature of the thinking during and after the matrix which we describe through the Deleuzian idea of the rhizome; and the hermeneutic analysis which draws from object relations theory and the Lorenzerian tradition of scenic understanding. The matrix has been conceptualized as a "scenic rhizome" to account for its distinctive quality and hybrid origins in research practice. The scenic rhizome operates as a "third" between participants and the "objects" of contemplation. We suggest that some of the drawbacks of other group-based methods are avoided in the visual matrix—namely the tendency for inter-personal dynamics to dominate the event

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

‘Such endings that are not over’: The slave trade, social dreaming and affect in a museum

The paper explores Social Dreaming (SD) as a method for understanding the affective responses to one of the exhibitions that marked the bicentenary of the 1807 Act that abolished the British slave trade, Breaking the Chains: The Fight to End Slavery, at the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum (BECM) in Bristol. It asks whether SD can serve the evolving purposes and mission of museums and their role in society. The theory and practice of SD is described and findings are interpreted from a psychosocial and Deleuzian perspective. Finally the value and potential of SD is discussed as a process for attending to audience reactions to disturbing exhibitions