Doing Sociology In Times of Apocalypses

Drawing on Black studies and decolonial theory, and particularly inspired by Indigiqueer author Joshua Whitehead's question, "can you pluralize Apocalypse(s)?" This panel asks, what does it mean to do Sociology in times of apocalypses? To pluralize apocalypses is to take seriously that we live in a perpetual state of “postcrises,” in which what we are experiencing is not crises, per se, but the cumulative injury of colonial abjection; capitalist exploitation; cisheteropatriarchal violence; epistemicide; and climate grief. To do Sociology in these times, is to act–to make sociological work into a verb, an action, a praxis; a way of moving forward; it is to use sociological inquiry to traverse beyond apocalypses through otherworldly spaces in which hope, acceptance, and social change are more than possibilities, they are waking realities. Here, Sociology acts as figurative worldmaking: as the active construction and apprehension of alternative worlds through political, creative, and speculative practices. Indeed, motivating Sociology in times of apocalypses ought not be the paralysis of nihilism or rancor, but rather, our robust drive for future worlds that are not yet materialized, but always on the horizon, born from our burning desire to turn the system inside out. Grounded in this commitment to Sociology as a practice of worldmaking, this panel invites scholars, artists/arts-based researchers, community organizers/researchers, digital artists/researchers, and activist-scholars into a reflective and practice-oriented conversation of what it means to craft worlds in and beyond the times of apocalypses. This panel welcomes submissions of traditional and alternative/creative formats.