Practices of sharing marginalised lived experiences are framed as providing insight into injustices; yet social inequalities influence whose experiences, and whose interpretations of these experiences, are seen as valid.
Lived Experiences and Social Transformations analyses academic and activist encounters with lived experiences, arguing that these practices reinforce or disrupt power relations. Through the example of UK activists sharing their experiences of poverty, Wren Radford advocates for collaborative interventions that emphasise the critical, creative knowledges enmeshed in marginalised experiences. The book compellingly enacts this approach to practical theology; rooted in concrete issues and argued through poetic writing, artwork, and interdisciplinary sources.
CL Wren Radford, Ph.D. (2019), University of Glasgow, is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Manchester. Wren develops collaborative research projects with community groups around socio-economic inequalities, and publishes and teaches on research methodologies, liberative theologies, and literature and theology.
Contents Acknowledgements List of Figures Introduction 1 Sharing Lived Experiences as a Political Practice
2 Practical Theologies and Lived Experiences
3 Locating This Research
4 The Structure of This Book
Part 1: Developing an Approach for Working with Lived Experiences
1
The Dynamics of Sharing Lived Experiences 1 ‘The Difficulties of Telling and Listening’
2 Social Relations
3 Critical Interpretations and Creative Work
4 Concluding
2
Passionate Ambivalence 1 Theological Knowledge Making and Disciplinary Desires
2 Engaging Lived Experiences
3 Practical Theology as a Process of Making
4 Risking Transformation
5 Concluding
Part 2: Creative Interventions into Austerity
3
Tracing the Labyrinth 1 One
2 Two
3 Three
4 Four
5 Five
6 Six
4
Disrupting Austerity Cultures of Judgement and Disbelief 1 Austerity Cultures of Judgement and Disbelief
2 Testimonial Spaces
3 Judgement and Disbelief as Social and Material
4 Art-Activism as Creative Interventions
5 Creative Interventions in Cultures of Judgement and Disbelief
6 Concluding
Part 3: Theological and Political Disruptions
5
Transformations in the Everyday 1 Troubling ‘Transformation’
2 Poetic Modes of Transformation
3 Putting Cultures of Judgement on Trial
4 Incarnational and Performative Interventions
5 Cultural Transformations in the Everyday
6 Everyday Transformations as Social, Material, and Spiritual
Academics and postgraduate students in practical theology, theological ethics, and theologians engaged in social and political issues. It may also be of interest to faith-based practitioners involved in activism and social justice.