Research summary
Our imaginations can be incredibly powerful. In fact, they have the power to shape society, the economy and politics. As Canada Research Chair in The Radical Imagination, Dr. Max Haiven is using a media and communication technologies lens to explore how.
He and his research team are developing theories to inform the interdisciplinary study of the imagination. They are exploring ways to activate the imagination to bring academics, artists and arts professionals, and activists and advocates together for social justice. They are also experimenting with digital modes of collaborating and communicating. For example, Haiven and his team are using participant observation, ethnography and interviews to learn how activists across Turtle Island (North America) are generating new and radical ideas about how to be human on a troubled planet in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their aim is to challenge conventional approaches to some of the most significant social challenges of our time.