The Authority Research Network (ARN) is a research collective spanning the UK, Ireland, USA and Brazil. We engage with questions of authority, positive power, political subjectivity and experience. As a research network, we work collaboratively through conceptual retreats and research projects, as well as working alongside colleagues from other organizations and conducting our own research.
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Why research authority today?
Amidst the contemporary celebration of contingency, creativity and finitude, when traditions and social structures are seen to be fragmenting, authority is often considered in decline and/or undesirable. Through a number of individual and collaborative projects, the Authority Research Network explores the positive role of experimental, non-traditional forms of authority in producing openings for new ways of knowing, feeling and seeing. Through historical, political, sociological and geographical research, we ask how relations of authority are generated and mobilised, and how they might open up new forms of politics. In order to do this, we seek to critically interrogate the crucial role of experience, experiment, and the arts in new and emerging forms of authority.
On Method
The ARN is committed to experimenting with methods for collaborating and researching. This centres around multi-day residential 'retreats' or residencies. These take place in locations separated from the distractions of everyday life, where we bring our varied interests and specialisms to bear on key theoretical readings that relate to the core problems motivating that retreat.
At retreats we experiment along three dimensions:
With the nature of the 'thinking subject' - exploring forms of collaborative and collective thinking.
With the 'activities of thinking' - experimenting with creative ways of stretching thought through forms of writing, diagramming and brainstorming.
With the 'speed of thinking' - the retreat format allows crucial time for 'unthinking' thoughts, playing with ideas and allowing reflections to sediment and fresh thoughts to emerge, while cooking, walking or simply talking about other things. We have found that combining 'fast' thinking with 'slow' thinking is an effective way of deepening our understanding of topics.
Most presentation and paper writing is carried out in a series of workshops that take place in the months following a retreat.