If we define “productivity” as the act of creating goods or services with a commercial value, and “culture” as the articulation of all kinds of signifiers employed by people in a social context, FORMA’s project for the next five years (2021-2026) sets out to investigate the intersection between the system of production and the cultural system, whereby the latter refers to the framework within which are inscribed the totality of cultural manifestations, whether private or public, individual or social. We understand this intersection within the context of capitalism from the 1990s to the present day, and depart from the basic hypothesis that the system of production has permeated the totality of our possibilities of actualization within the cultural system.
We are open to articles that analyze this problem from a wide range of perspectives both theoretical and practical. This exploration is, by nature, nearly inexhaustible, which is the reason why we propose five main axes as a guide for this open and evolving dialogue, each of which will be the focus of our five consecutive issues after this initial introductory number: biopolitics and bioethics (which will allow us to address the political and ethical management of the body and the meaning of life in our given context of capitalist production), technology (what are the social effects of the so-called “fourth industrial revolution”?), ecology (how does production relate to the current climate crisis?), education (the processes of commodification and precarization of knowledge due to their submission to the logics of production), and (geo)political conflicts (military, commercial, and cultural wars and inequalities that we face today).
This first introductory issue aims to create an epistemological frame from which to kickstart this conversation. The central questions that we aim to answer are these: How is the relationship between the system of production and the cultural system articulated? How does this manifest in our daily lives both on an individual and a social level? What horizons of knowledge and understanding do they create, and what forms of emotionality do they promote? As such, this first issue is laid out as an invitation for your ideas, thoughts, and concerns in order to establish the grounds for what we hope will be a very fruitful conversation. In light of the contemporary reality of open and evolving crises, both present and upcoming, this call for papers strives to be an invitation to thought-provoking reflection in the midst of renewed cultural unrest.
We will be accepting submissions until November 23, 2020 at 12am CET sending your proposal to [email protected], and the first issue will be published in June of 2021. As always, we accept contributions in Catalan, Castilian, French, English, Italian, and Portuguese, all of which will undergo a process of peer-review.
For more information on our editorial guidelines, please visit our tabs “Authors Guidelines” and “Editorial Policy.”
