Sarah Amsler

Dr Sarah Amsler

Mid-Career Fellow 2015-16, Small Group Project 2016

Practices of Possibility in Neoliberal Social Systems

This research explores the thesis that certain kinds of educational practice have the capacity to create new possibilities for transformative political agency within neoliberal social systems. In recent decades, many critical theorists have argued that neoliberal rationality, which is the dominant form of politico-economic reason in late-capitalist societies, is harmful to human well-being, democratic life and ecological futures. They also argue that it is increasingly difficult to challenge (Brown 2003). These theories reflect both the experiences of educators and the philosophical claim that we live in a time of ‘contracting possibilities’ (Kompridis 2006).

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Understandings of ‘Prefigurative’ and ‘Utopian’ Modes of Contemporary Politics: Approaches to Fundamental Political-Economic Change

A research workshop for ten feminist scholars who have recently embarked on a collective project to develop understandings of ‘prefigurative’ and ‘utopian’ modes of contemporary politics and approaches to fundamental political-economic change – what J. K. Gibson–Graham (2006) called the new ‘politics of possibility’. Of particular concern is how we can learn from, and learn to produce, the rich knowledges of possibility which emerge in global projects to create alternative, post-capitalist forms of life – many of which are rendered invisible or unintelligible by what the Brazilian sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2006) calls the ‘sociology of absences’ – and whether and how we can operationalise the ‘sociology of emergences’, a critical knowledge of emergent possibilities in thought, collective action and social inquiry.

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Research outcomes

Amsler, S. (2016)

Learning Hope. An Epistemology of Possibility for Advanced Capitalist Society. In: Dinerstein, A. (eds) Social Sciences for an Other Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Areas of interest

Education Ecology Climate Crisis Pedagogy Geopolitics Epistemology Affect Psychology Policymaking Environmental Policy Activism Environment

Cohort

MCF2 RRG1

Biography

Sarah Amsler is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham. They are engaged in ongoing enquiries into how to identify and disrupt the ongoing colonial politics of knowledge and education, specifically in ecological climate justice learning, and into pedagogical practices for disrupting it. Their work addresses the challenges of supporting people to think about the deeper historical, geopolitical, epistemological, affective and psychological factors that underlie the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of policy initiatives (or of policy as such).

Sarah has previously co-organised immersive residencies for European and supranational level environmental organisers and activists, producing educational materials for organisers and academic teachers, providing education and evaluation consultancy for racial justice organisations in the US.

Biographical details correct as of 18.05.26