A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Everyday utopias and social reproduction
Authors: Salmenniemi Suvi, Ylöstalo Hanna
Publisher: SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD
Publication year: 2023
Journal: Current Sociology
Journal acronym: CURR SOCIOL
Number of pages: 18
ISSN: 0011-3921
eISSN: 1461-7064
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00113921231194087
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1177/00113921231194087
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/180916669
Abstract
This article analyses reproductive labour in everyday utopias. Everyday utopias refer to spaces and practices that experiment with alternative forms of life and create new social imaginaries. Drawing on ethnographic research in three everyday utopias in Finland, the article argues that labour plays a key role in transformative politics by prefiguring socially and ecologically sustainable forms of life not conducive to capitalist logic. The article brings together feminist social reproduction theory and utopian studies to shed light on different forms of reproductive labour in everyday utopias. It identifies four forms of labour: manual, affective, mnemonic and experimental. In particular, experimental labour foregrounds the importance of everyday utopias as sites of political imagination in which novel forms of life are actively developed and tried out. The article concludes by suggesting that everyday utopias subvert conventional understandings and practices of labour and social reproduction.
This article analyses reproductive labour in everyday utopias. Everyday utopias refer to spaces and practices that experiment with alternative forms of life and create new social imaginaries. Drawing on ethnographic research in three everyday utopias in Finland, the article argues that labour plays a key role in transformative politics by prefiguring socially and ecologically sustainable forms of life not conducive to capitalist logic. The article brings together feminist social reproduction theory and utopian studies to shed light on different forms of reproductive labour in everyday utopias. It identifies four forms of labour: manual, affective, mnemonic and experimental. In particular, experimental labour foregrounds the importance of everyday utopias as sites of political imagination in which novel forms of life are actively developed and tried out. The article concludes by suggesting that everyday utopias subvert conventional understandings and practices of labour and social reproduction.
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