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
â1âSharing Lived Experiences as a Political Practice
â2âPractical Theologies and Lived Experiences
â3âLocating This Research
â4âThe Structure of This Book
Part 1: Developing an Approach for Working with Lived Experiences
1 The Dynamics of Sharing Lived Experiences
â1ââThe Difficulties of Telling and Listeningâ
â2âSocial Relations
â3âCritical Interpretations and Creative Work
â4âConcluding
2 Passionate Ambivalence
â1âTheological Knowledge Making and Disciplinary Desires
â2âEngaging Lived Experiences
â3âPractical Theology as a Process of Making
â4âRisking Transformation
â5âConcluding
Part 2: Creative Interventions into Austerity
3 Tracing the Labyrinth
â1âOne
â2âTwo
â3âThree
â4âFour
â5âFive
â6âSix
4 Disrupting Austerity Cultures of Judgement and Disbelief
â1âAusterity Cultures of Judgement and Disbelief
â2âTestimonial Spaces
â3âJudgement and Disbelief as Social and Material
â4âArt-Activism as Creative Interventions
â5âCreative Interventions in Cultures of Judgement and Disbelief
â6âConcluding
Part 3: Theological and Political Disruptions
5 Transformations in the Everyday
â1âTroubling âTransformationâ
â2âPoetic Modes of Transformation
â3âPutting Cultures of Judgement on Trial
â4âIncarnational and Performative Interventions
â5âCultural Transformations in the Everyday
â6âEveryday Transformations as Social, Material, and Spiritual
6 Enacting Disruptive Encounters
â1ââFace-to-Faceâ Sharing
â2âCollaborative Practices
â3âCreative Arts-Based Research Practices
â4âFragile, Ongoing, Responsive Practices
Concluding Bibliography Index
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.