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Political Imaginaries Presentation May 2025

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The "regime of accumulation" refers to the ways in which a capitalist society organizes production and consumption to facilitate the growth of capital. It is a way to talk about difference and variety in how capital accumulates.

A component construct within the regime of accumulation is – "extraction of value" –a term describing the process of capital acquiring value. Value extraction is an element of the overall regime of accumulation. We have already identified the example of value extraction from labour – by paying less to labour than the value generated by labour.

Some have argued that in the late 20th Century:

"The heart of the accumulation process has been shifting from material to immaterial commodities and the new regime of accumulation is principally driven by information and communication technology. As Paolo Virno notes, if within the Fordist factory productive activity is mute and work is performed by a silent human chain, in the post-Fordist metropolis, the material laboring process can be empirically described as a complex group of linguistic acts, a sequence of assertions, and a symbolic interaction. This is because labor activity is now performed alongside the system of machines, with regulating, surveillance and coordinating functions, but also because the process of production uses knowledge, information, culture and social relations as its “raw materials”. Knowledge is the key variable in understanding the recent structural changes. However emancipation does not seem to be the dominant feature of what knowledge economy brings. Cognitive capitalism differs from Fordist-industrial capitalism in two main respects:

1.     The origin of productivity gains that are based on learning processes and network economies. ...Knowledge, as the key variable of the accumulation activity, is not a rival but a cumulative commodity (i.e., knowledge is not exhausted by use, the way other commodities are) with the only constraint on knowledge-use being the imposition of intellectual property rights.

2.      The capital-labor compromise, based on the connection between productivity gains and real wage dynamics, is declining with subsequent effects on polarization of income distribution. ... In this context, the balancing of the system relies simultaneously upon the growth of financial markets, the distributions of the generated surplus and a high level of growth in the new industrialized countries, at the core of outsourcing and delocalization processes. The central role, played by learning and network economies, typical of cognitive capitalism, is put in discussion with the beginning of the new millennium as a result of the explosion of the speculative bubble of “net economy” ("dot-com bomb" / "dot-com bubble" / "dot-com boom") in March 2020."

(Source: Andrea Fumagalli and Stefano Lucarelli (2011). Valorization and financialization in cognitive biocapitalism. Investment Management and Financial Innovations, 8(1))

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This term "extraction of value" was used in the discussions of the intensive. In Marxist analysis of Capital, this is a key concept:  the value created by workers is greater than the wages they receive, with the difference being appropriated (extracted and possessed) by the owners of capital. This difference is known as "surplus value," which is then used to generate further profits and accumulate capital.

The term “capitalism” points towards a system of society and production characterized by the driving role of profit (pursuing the surplus value generated by the difference between the wages paid for/to labour and the actual value produced by/from labour.) The extraction of value is made possible by paying less than the actual value produced.

Abstract / Concrete contrast

"Marx demonstrates how value is extracted from labour time to create surplus value: the premise for the accumulation of capital. This process of abstraction endows labour with both an abstract and concrete existence. Abstract labour, the premise of the mode of abstract domination, is labour measured by time and appropriated into value; concrete labour is the actual physical labour that produces things or services." (source: Rebecca Carson "Chapter 1 Fictitious Capital and the Re-emergence of Personal Forms of Domination"in Immanent Externalities)

This distinction between "abstract" and "concrete" is used in a variety of ways in discussing political economy and social relations.

"Rule by abstractions" names the condition of capitalist societies meaning that they are governed by abstract concepts like value, capital, and money. These conceptual-symbolic structures exert significant influence over social and economic relations, they exert force in shaping the world. These abstractions, according to Marx, obscure the actual material relations of production and exploitation. These abstract entities, rather than concrete human relationships, determine the course of society.

Personal / Impersonal

At the beginning of Chapter Four of Capital Volume I, ‘The General Formula for Capital’, Marx distinguishes between personal and impersonal relations of domination in a footnote:

"The antagonism between the power of landed property, based on personal relations of domination and servitude, and the power of money, which is impersonal, [unpersönlichen] is clearly expressed by the two French proverbs, ‘Nulle terre sans seigneur’ and ‘L’argent n’a pas de maitre’."

(‘Nulle terre sans seigneur’ = ‘No land without its lord’.

‘L’argent n’a pas de maitre’ = ‘Money has no master’.)

This contrast between a form of domination that is tied directly to the specifics of personal condition/position/location and a form of domination that is structurally distributed without direct linkage to the specifics of personal relations is connected also to the theme of abstraction.

"Impersonal domination is the form of domination generated by the fetish character of capitalist societies, where social relations objectified in things dominate and act on people. People relate to each other indirectly through the mediation of things, making this form of domination impersonal or determined by a ‘rule by abstractions'"

and the wage relation, or more precisely the different

forms of dependent labor upon which the extraction

of surplus labor rests. The term “cognitive”

emphasizes the changed nature of the capital-labour

relation and the forms of property upon which the

accumulation of capital depends

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Usufructuaries of earth is a project that inquires into the practice of ethically sharing the earth’s usufruct. Unfolding in three eponymous chapters, it consists of an exhibition with artworks by Arsanios; a publication on BAK’s online publishing forum Prospections, which functions as a public research and learning curriculum brought to life together with a federation of reading groups in Rotterdam, London, and Berlin; and a convention with artists, as well as other thinkers and social actors, gathering to share and learn on usufruct as a way of undoing property from the regimes of privatization that perpetually usurp the earth’s resources for the interests of a select few.

Usufructuary—from usufruct and the Latin usus et fructus, translating literally as “use of the fruits”—refers to the shared usership and enjoyment of an earthly resource, be it land, air, sunlight, or water. But if, within bourgeois justifications of property, the notion of usufruct is based on a connection between use and ownership—and thus the understanding that they who “own” or are granted use of a land will utilize it for capital gain or productivity—Usufructuaries of earth proposes instead to reclaim its radical potential that grounds earth’s life over capital’s. By learning with the existing practices of transgenerational using of earth while protecting it from exhaustion, depletion, and destruction, the project puts the question of individuated possession and unequal distribution of resources both into question and under pressure. Imagining and practicing usufructuaries as communal assemblages, Usufructuaries of earth echo Frantz Fanon’s call upon the wretched of the earth to rise up against imperialism and create a new, affirmative world that departs from the hypocrisies and violence of settler colonialism, neocolonialism, and capitalist exploitation.

Source: https://www.bakonline.org/en/making+public/program/usufructuaries+of+earth/

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Convened by BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht with artist Marwa Arsanios

7 March-2 June 2024

Convened by BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht together with artist Marwa Arsanios, Usufructuaries of earth is a project that inquires into the practice of ethically sharing the earth's usufruct. Unfolding in three eponymous chapters, it consists of an exhibition with artworks by Arsanios; a publication on BAK's online publishing forum Prospections, which functions as a public research and learning curriculum brought to life together with a federation of reading groups in Rotterdam, London, and Berlin; and a convention with artists, as well as other thinkers and social actors, gathering to share and learn on usufruct as a way of undoing property from the regimes of privatization that perpetually usurp the earth's resources for the interests of a select few.

Usufructuary-from usufruct and the Latin usus et fructus, translating literally as "use of the fruits"-refers to the shared usership and enjoyment of an earthly resource, be it land, air, sunlight, or water. But if, within bourgeois justifications of property, the notion of usufruct is based on a connection between use and ownership-and thus the understanding that they who "own" or are granted use of a land will utilize it for capital gain or productivity- Usufructuaries of earth proposes instead to reclaim its radical potential that grounds earth's life over capital's. By learning with the existing practices of transgenerational using of earth while protecting it from exhaustion, depletion, and destruction, the project puts the question of individuated possession and unequal distribution of resources both into question and under pressure. Imagining and practicing usufructuaries as communal assemblages, Usufructuaries of earth echo Frantz Fanon's call upon the wretched of the earth to rise up against imperialism and create a new, affirmative world that departs from the hypocrisies and violence of settler colonialism, neocolonialism, and capitalist exploitation.

Chapter one of the project-the exhibition with works by Arsanios-includes the work Falling is not collapsing, falling is extending (2016) and four films from the ongoing series entitled Who is Afraid of Ideology?, which began in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2017. In dialogue with the film installations are works of various media-tapestries, prints, drawings, archival material, and landfill models-that foreground the artist's ongoing inquiry into property and, in turn, the subversion of property regimes through shared practices of use. The second chapter includes a "slow" reader on BAK's online publishing forum Prospections that undergirds the project as an usufructuary of knowledges and turning the project's research into a collective resource. These texts are both read and further assembled through a federated structure of reading groups in Amman, Berlin, and Rotterdam. This process folds into the convention to take place at BAK on 24 and 25 May 2024-chapter three of Usufructuaries of earth-brought to life to narrate, learn, and unpack the histories and potentials of usufruct in workshops, trainings, and common discussions.

Summoned with an intense sense of urgency-given that the world is drenched in wars and climate catastrophe, both of which are about greed for land while destroying earth's generous offer-Usufructuaries of earth calls on forms, tactics, and shared practices of "use" to think through, imagine, and embody a livable life in common with the earth. It seeks to throw regimes of private property-and the financial and colonial logics that sustain them-under pressure and into question by practicing forms of life that are driven by relational ethics of reciprocity and by nurturing for all.

Usufructuaries of earth has been conceptualized by Marwa Arsanios and BAK's curator for research and publications Wietske Maas, in conversation with respective contributors to the project's three chapters and the BAK team.

For more information and registration, visit bakonline.org/program.

The activities of BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht are made possible with the financial support of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the City Council, Utrecht. Usufructuaries of earth is part of the long-term BAK research itinerary Propositions for Non-Fascist Living (2017-2024).

Design: Sean van den Steenhoven

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Convened by BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht with artist Marwa Arsanios 7 March-2 June 2024 Convened by BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht together with artist Marwa Arsanios, Usufructuaries of earth is a project that inquires into the practice of ethically sharing the earth's usufruct.

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"Allemansrätten is a distinctive right that permits individuals to roam freely in nature, irrespective of land ownership."

Since 1994, the right of public access has been written in the Constitution. The form of government chapter on fundamental rights and freedoms states that “Everyone should have access to nature under the right of public access”. But the right of public access itself is not a law, and in no law it says what the right of public access contains. However, the right of public access is surrounded by laws that set limits on what is allowed. It is punishable to violate the laws or regulations surrounding the right of public access. You are obligated to find out what applies, but it is not always so easy. Source: https://eda.se/allemansratten

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Quote: "As we move into the third decade of the twenty-first century, the idea of “the commons” has come to enjoy great currency as an organizing concept among social science scholars throughout the world, as witnessed by the numerous and widely-cited contributions to this International Journal of the Commons. The enthusiastic uptake of the commons terminology for a great variety of empirical and theoretical studies—ranging in subject matter from community resource management to information technology, with much in between—is only a few decades old, however. The commons usage for the most part dates from the late 1960s, with the publication of Garrett Hardin’s article in Science on “The Tragedy of the Commons” (1968), and then powerfully—albeit critically—reinforced by Elinor Ostrom’s response in her Governing the Commons (1990)."

From: Carol M. Rose "Thinking about the Commons"

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An expansion of the idea form IASC: What are commons?

The original meaning of the term ‘commons’ comes from the way communities managed land that was held ‘in common’ in medieval Europe. Along with this shared land a clear set of rules was developed by the community about how it was to be used. Over time, the term ‘commons’ has taken on several meanings. Most generally, it can be used to refer to a broad set of resources, natural and cultural, that are shared by many people.

Traditional examples of commons include forests, fisheries, or groundwater resources, but increasingly we see the term commons used for a broader set of domains, such as knowledge commons, digital commons, urban commons, health commons, cultural commons, etc. The study of governing shared resources is therefore not restricted to the original domain of natural resources, and the IASC brings together scholars from all those different application domains to exchange experiences and solutions. More info on types of commons can be found here; also check out our page on our regional chapters.

‘What are commons?’
Introduction to commons by Prof. Tine De Moor, Chair of IASC2017
Produced and copyright by Utrecht University

Governance of the commons

How to effectively govern the commons has been a long debate in academia. In 1968, biologist Garrett Hardin (1915-2003) wrote a famous essay in the journal Science titled ‘The tragedy of the commons’, arguing that when people share a resource they will over-harvest it because it is in their individual interest to take as much from the resource as possible; depletion of the commons could, according to Hardin, only be prevented via private property rights and governmental regulation. The term ‘tragedy’ referred to the argument that people are not able to self-govern common resources. Many other scholars however criticized Hardin for not describing a common, but in fact describing a situation of unregulated free-access use of resources.

Self-governance instead of tragedy

Since Hardin’s essay, an increasing awareness has emerged that tragedy is not the only possible outcome when people share a common resource, as there are many examples of long-lasting communities that have maintained their shared resources effectively without having to resort to market or governmental solutions. Since the early 1980s, an increasing number of anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, ecologists, and many other scholars have been documenting examples of resources shared in common that have been managed sustainably for a long time without private property rights or governmental interventions.

‘Managing our commons’, an introduction
Produced and copyright by CCRI

Elinor Ostrom and the IASC

Elinor Ostrom and others showed through comparative analysis of many case studies that communities can self-govern their shared resources. Elinor Ostrom (1933-2012) was a political scientist, and the first president of the IASC. She developed a theoretical framework to study the ability of communities to overcome the tragedy of the commons; one of her seminal works in the field is Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action, published in 1990.

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From Encyclopaedia Britannica : usufruct, in Roman-based legal systems, the temporary right to the use and enjoyment of the property of another, without changing the character of the property. This legal concept developed in Roman law and found significant application in the determination of the property interests between a slave held under a usus fructus (Latin: “use and enjoyment”) bond and a temporary master. Any property acquired by a slave as a result of his labour legally belonged to that master.

Modern civil-law systems recognize two types of usufructs. The perfect usufruct includes only those things that a usufructuary (one who holds property under right of usufruct) can use without changing their substance, such as land, buildings, or movable objects; the substance of the property, however, may be altered naturally over time and by the elements. The quasi-, or imperfect, usufruct includes property that is consumable or expendable, such as money, agricultural products, and the like, which would be of no advantage to the usufructuary if he could not consume them, expend them, or change their substance.

The term usufruct never found its way into the English common law, although certain general similarities can be found in the common-law concept of estate.

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We include this channel, because of the reference to this on Monday evening.

This extended essay from the early 1950s provides what has become a contested argument (for some it is become a piece of dogma, for others it is a key critical source). It affirms the novelty of the categorization of the "fine arts" across 'European' societies in the 17th and 18th Centuries, arguing for example that music (earlier deemed a liberal art) and sculpture (earlier deemed a mechanical art) become aligned as proximate to each other, and of a common nature, under the new heading of "the fine arts". A further claim is that art (previously a term indicating an activity covered by rules, and capable of being learned in a progressive and systematic way, acquires a new semantic layer in a reversal where by "A"rt becomes connected to the idea of something that exceeds or operates as exception to "the rule" rule, and where the question "can Art be taught" becomes a meaningful and acceptable question. One way in which this shift is sometimes designated, is as the emergence of "autonomous" art. Another is to described the emergence of "the aesthetic regime of art". These are not simply different names for the same processes, but rather competing interpretations and accounts of the historical transformations in the practices, terminologies and ways of speaking.

The contestation of Kristeller's essay is in terms of (i) the significance of the discursive changes that Kristeller maps for both conceptualization and actual practices; (ii) the substantial claim for novelty made; and (iii) the precise relations between the new taxonomic construction of the fine arts and the elaboration of a discourse of aesthetics entailing themes of autonomy, genius, originality, imagination, disinterest and so forth.

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Presentation and Workshop at PARSE Conference, TIME (2015) with Antony Howell, Jason E. Bowman and colleagues /students. Workshop participants responding to and creating triggers of exercises from Elements of Performance Art. Photograph by Kjell Caminha. See (2016) "Towards a Purposeful Accident: Elements of Performance Art via The Ting: The Theatre of Mistakes" by Jason E. Bowman & Anthony Howell. https://parsejournal.com/article/towards-a-purposeful-accident-elements-of-performance-art-via-the-ting-the-theatre-of-mistakes/ 

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Five conditions for the task: “Make something together”

1. The outcome of the working process requested is: (i) some form of image(s);

(ii) some form of performative gesture(s), action(s), event(s) or something(s) that “takes place”;

OR (iii) some form of sound(s) – according to the group.

2. The outcome can be shared in someway within the space of the glasshouse or in the nearby area

3.  While you are partly strangers to each other, we just ask that you act “as if” you are already good neighbours. By the end of Tuesday, we ask you to define something simple that you wish to do together. By group, we mean something that is not simply 1 + 1 + 1… Something that is somehow composed from a group without it being necessary that everyone in a group is involved in every aspect.

It should not be something completely “solo” in the sense of a decision-making process operated by only one member of the group.

4. It is ok to disagree. It is ok to end-up without any outcome. It is ok to have group-splits, and re-forming of groups. Please approach this as an experiment that is not with “heavy consequences”. Try not to be mean. Try not to get upset. Try not to cause upset to someone else. However, do try say what you mean, think and feel in an open direct way. If group hits a difficulty that it cannot resolve, invite one or more of the other people in the week’s process to join the group's conversation.

5. There is no necessity to say, or to make anything, about imagination or imaginary etc. These terms are just a backdrop and you don’t have to reference directly. Our working assumption is that the processes of imagining/imagination/the imaginary are already operating and unfolding in even these simple postulates of "groups", "group-membership" and "solo" work, and in those of image/performance/sound. Later, we can revisit this assumption.

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Michael Squire_-Ancient Art History Intro

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this was the basis of the Monday evening presentation by Tünde Varga.

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Some introductory notes on the intensive's wider agenda.

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You can access a PDF of the week's online programme here.

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The purpose of this short note is to contextualize briefly some of the different ways in which ideas of the imagination and imaginary have been used in setting up the terms of the Intensive (19-23 May 2025). Part of the Intensive's agenda is not to advocate for one exclusive way of using the terms “imagination” and “imaginary.” Instead, the intention is to consider how each of these terms may be useful as research object, methodological construct, device or term of reference for a process of inquiry, when constructed according to different definitions, formulations and approaches.

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A note on the usage of the term imaginary and imagination in the Researching Imaginaries

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This is a working paper from a CAPIm project "Mapping the Political Imaginary" (2025-2027).

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Emma Pérez (1999) The Decolonial ImaginaryWriting Chicanas into History

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Double page spread from Graham et al., (eds.) Climates: Architecture and the Planetary Imaginary

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James Graham with Caitlin Blanchfield, Alissa Anderson, Jordan Carver, and Jacob Moore (eds.) Climates: Architecture and the Planetary Imaginary

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Image from Lauri Ahtinen's graphic narrative Elias (2018).

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THE IMAGINARY NORTH IN FINNISH COMICS ON ...

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Rewinding Internationalism. An Exhibitionary Inquiry on the Political Imaginary

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Rewinding Internationalism. An Exhibitionary Inquiry on the Political Imaginary

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1. Nick Aikens, ‘Theories of Articulation and the Curatorial. Some Preliminary Observations.’ Unpublished essay, 2019

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Exhibition-Making and Political Imaginary : On Modalities and Potentialities of Curatorial Practice

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Simon Sheikh (Former) | Lund University Publications

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You are welcome to make posts here that raise issues, or follow up on issues raised during the Intensive. You are also welcome to comment on these posts. We can create more channels if needed.

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This is the space for sharing references and opinions for the Researching Imaginaries Intensive 2025.

Please add your name to the material, if it is not automatically generated when posting and commenting.

We ask that in responding to each other's comments and material that while we welcome critique and disagreement in our exchanges, that we each act respectfully and with courtesy in our discussions here and in the online / in-person sessions.

If you would like to add new channels to the resource, please suggest by posting or commenting below.

If you encounter problems using thus resort, please email doctoral-education@hdk-valand.gu.se thank you, or inform via the chat window during the live ZOOM sessions.

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You are welcome to share general references to sources that address different aspects of imagination and imaginary.