About Ηeteropolitics

Heteropolitics is a project in contemporary political theory which purports to contribute to the renewal of political thought on the ‘common’ (communities and the commons) and the political in tandem. The common implies a variable interaction between differences which communicate and collaborate in and through their differences, converging partially on practices and particular pursuits. The political pertains to processes through which plural communities manage themselves in ways which enable mutual challenges, deliberation, decision-making, and creative agency.

Since the dawn of the 21st century, a growing interest in rethinking and reconfiguring community has spread among theorists, citizens and social movements (see e.g. Esposito 2013; Nancy 2000; Dardot & Laval 2014; Amin & Roberts 2008). This has been triggered by a complex tangle of social, economic and political conditions. Climate change, economic crises, globalization, increasing migration flows and the malaise of liberal democracies loom large among them.

These issues are essentially political. Rethinking and refiguring communities goes hand in hand thus with rethinking and reinventing politics. Hence ‘hetero-politics’, the quest for another politics, which can establish bonds of commonality across differences and can enable action in common without re-enacting the closures of ‘organic’ community or the violence of transformative politics in the past.

Heteropolitics will seek to break new ground by combining an extended re-elaboration of contemporary political theory with a more empirically grounded research into alternative and incipient practices of community building and self-governance in: education; the social economy; art; new modes of civic engagement by young people; new platforms of citizens’ participation in municipal politics; network communities, and other social fields (relevant cases include Sardex, a community currency in Sardinia; Barcelona en Comú, a participatory citizens’ platform governing now the City of Barcelona, etc.).

 

Principal Investigator:  Dr Alexandros Kioupkiolis,  Assistant Professor in Contemporary Political Theory, School of Political Sciences, Faculty of Economics and Political Sciences, Aristotle University

Host Institution:  Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Publications

Dr Alexandros Kioukpiolis (BA Athens, 1998; MA Essex, 1999; DPhil in Political Theory Oxford, 2005), Assistant Professor in Contemporary Political Theory, School of Political Sciences, Faculty of Economics and Political Sciences, Aristotle University

1. Research monographs (single author)
Kioupkiolis, A. (2018) The Common and the Political. Commons, Communities and Counter-Hegemonic Politics for the Common Good, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming.

Kioupkiolis, A. (2014) On the commons of liberty (in Greek), Athens: Exarchia.

Kioupkiolis, A. (2012) Freedom after the critique of foundations. Marx, liberalism and agonistic autonomy, Hampshire: Palgrave-Macmillan.

Kioupkiolis, A. (2011) Politics of freedom. Agonistic democracy, utopias and the emergence of the multitude (in Greek), Athens: Ekkremes

2. Articles in international peer-reviewed journals (single author)
Kioupkiolis, A. (2017) ‘Acts, events and the creation of the new’, Constellations, forthcoming.

Kioupkiolis, A. (2017) ‘Common democracy. Political representation beyond representative democracy’, Democratic Theory, 4.1 (forthcoming).

Kioupkiolis, A. (2016) ‘The ambiguous promises of left-wing populism in contemporary Spain’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 21(2): 99-120.

Kioupkiolis, A. (2014) ‘Towards a regime of post-political biopower? Dispatches from Greece, 2010–2012’, Theory, Culture & Society, 31(1): 143-158.

Kioupkiolis, A. (2013) ‘Late agonies of liberty in common’, Rethinking Marxism, 25(3): 367-384.

Kioupkiolis, A. (2012) ‘The agonistic turn of critical reason. Critique and freedom in Foucault and Castoriadis’, European Journal of Social Theory, 15(3): 385-402.

Kioupkiolis, A. (2011) ‘Keeping it open: Ontology, ethics, knowledge and radical democracy’, Philosophy & Social Criticism, 37 (6): 691-708.

Kioupkiolis, A. (2010) ‘Radicalizing democracy’, Constellations, 17(1): 137-154.

Kioupkiolis, A. (2009) ‘Three Paradigms of Modern Freedom’, European Journal of Political Theory, 8(4): 473-491.

Kioupkiolis, A. (2008) ‘Post-critical liberalism and agonistic freedom’, Contemporary Political Theory, 7(2): 147-168.

3. Edited volumes (multiple editors)
Kioupkiolis, A., Pechtelidis, J., Kosma, Y. (eds) (2015) Discourse theory: creative applications (in Greek), Athens: Gutenberg.

Kioupkiolis, A., Katsambekis, G. (eds) (2014) Radical democracy and collective movements today. The biopolitics of the multitude versus the hegemony of the people, Furnham: Ashgate.T urkish Translation by Koç University Press (2016).

4. Articles in international peer-reviewed journals (multiple authors)
Stavrakakis, Y., Kioupkiolis, A. (2016) ‘Leadership, Horizontalism, and Post-democracy in Chávez’s Venezuela’, Latin American Political and Society, 58 (3): 51-76.

 

Dr Paolo Dini (BS UC Davis, 1983; PhD Penn State, 1990), Associate Professorial Research Fellow, Department of Media and Communications, LSE.

1. Relevant publications include:
Dini, P., Kioupkiolis, A. (fortcoming). ‘Complementary Currencies as Laboratories of Institutional Learning’, Journal article, submitted.

Motta, W, Dini, P and Sartori, L (2017). Self-Funded Social Impact Investment: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Sardex Mutual Credit System, Journal of Social Entrepreneurship. In press.

Gomez, G and Dini, P (2016). Making sense of a crank case: monetary diversity in Argentina (2000-2002), Cambridge Journal of Economics, Special Issue:  ‘Cranks’ and ‘brave heretics’: Rethinking money and banking after the Great Financial Crisis, Vol 40, N. 5, pp. 1421-1437.

Sartori, L and Dini, P (2016). Sardex, from complementary currency to institution. A micro-macro case study. Stato e Mercato, 107, pp 273-304.

Littera, G., Sartori, L., Dini, P., Antoniadis, P. (2016) ‘How can community currencies scale and coexist with existing markets and institutions? The case of Sardex.net’, International Journal of Community Currency Research, 21: 6-21, Winter 2016. [pdf]

Breitstein, L. Dini, P. (2011) ‘A Social Constructivist Analysis of the 2007 Banking Crisis: Building Trust and Transparency through Community Currencies’, Journal of Banking Regulation, 13(1): 36-62.

2. Relevant research projects experience:
OpenLaws.eu (DG JUSTICE, STREP). Partner and WP leader.

COMPARE (DG CONNECT, Open Call project). Partner.

SEQUOIA (DG CONNECT, CSA) – Socio-Economic Impact Assessment for Research Projects. Coordinator.

EULAKS (DG RESEARCH, CSA) – Conversations on the Knowledge Society between Europe Latin America and Caribbean Countries. Partner and WP leader.

OPAALS (DG CONNECT, NoE) – Open Philosophies for Associative, Autopoietic Digital Ecosystems. Coordinator.

 

Dr Panayotis Antoniadis (BS, M.A., Heraklion, 1997, 1999; Ph.D Athens, 2006)

1. Relevant publications:
Antoniadis, P. (2016). Local networks for local interactions: four reasons why and a way forward. First Monday, December 2016. Available at http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/7123/56612.

Littera, G., Sartori, L., Dini, P., Antoniadis, P. (2016) ‘How can community currencies scale and coexist with existing markets and institutions? The case of Sardex.net’, International Journal of Community Currency Research, 21: 6-21, Winter 2016. [pdf]

COMPARE Network (2015) ‘Interdisciplinary explorations of self-organization in Zur-ich, Switzerland’, COMPARE project report, April 2015, http://compare-network.net/documents/compare_report_zurich_apr2015.pdf.

Antoniadis, P., Apostol, I. (2014) ‘The right(s) to the hybrid city and the role of DIY networking’, Journal of Community Informatics, special issue on Community Informatics and Urban Planning, 10 (3). Available at: http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/1092/

Apostol, I., Antoniadis, P., Banerjee, T. (2013) ‘Flânerie between Net and Place: Possi-bilities for Participation in Planning’, Journal of Planning Education and Research, 33(1): 20-33. [pdf]

2. Relevant research projects experience:
MAZI, A DIY Networking Toolkit for Location-Based Collective Awareness (DG CONNECT, Horizon2020 CAPS framework project, 2016-2018). http://mazizone.eu.

netCommons, Networking infrastructure as Commons (DG CONNECT, Horizon2020 CAPS framework project, 2016-2018). http://netcommons.eu.

COMPARE (DG CONNECT, Open Call project, 2014-2015). Project coordinator (through ETH Zurich). http://compare-network.net .

EINS (DG CONNECT, NoE, 2012-2015) – European Internet Science. Partner (through ETH Zurich). http://internet-science.eu.

Dr Yannis Pechtelidis (M.A., Ph.D.), Assistant Professor in the Sociology of Education, in the Department of Early Childhood Education, at the University of Thessaly, Greece.

1. Relevant Publications:

Pechtelidis, Y. (2011) ‘December uprising ’08: universality and particularity in young people’s discourse’, Journal of Youth Studies, 14 (4): 449-462.

Pechtelidis, Y. (forthcoming) ‘Occupying School Buildings in Greece of the Memorandum: The Discursive Formations Around Pupils’ Political Activism’, in Feixa, C., Lec-cardi, C., Nilan, P. (eds) Spaces and Times of Youth Cultures in the Global City, The Hague and New York: Brill (Book series ‘Youth in a globalizing world’).

Pechtelidis, Y., Giannaki D. (2014) ‘Youth Policy in Greece and the current economic and political crisis’, Autonomie locali e servizi sociali, 3: 461-478.

Pechtelidis, Y. (2016) ‘Youth Heterotopias in Precarious Times. The Students Autono-mous Collectivity’, Young, 24 (1): 1-16.

2. Relevant research projects experience:

‘The discursive limits of Childhood in Literature and Theories of Socialization’, research program funded by the Research Committee of the University of Thessaly, Code number: 4030 (2009-2010). Principal Investigator.

‘Mathematics, Technology, Education and Gender’ (short title) funded by EPEAEK Py-thagoras I [Greek Ministry of Education Research, Grant for Supporting Research Teams], 2004-2007. The general title of his research was: ‘The construction of gender identities through teachers’ and students’ narratives about mathematics, technology and education’. Member of the research team, 2006-2008.

‘The Indignant Generation. Space, power and culture in the youth movement of 2011: a transnational perspective (GENIND)’, Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Spain). VI National Scientific Research, Development and Innovation 2008-2011. [CSO2012-34415]. IP: C. Feixa. Member of the research team, 2012-15.

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