TY - BOOK ID - 91811878 TI - Change and the politics of certainty PY - 2019 SN - 1526147262 152611903X 1526119013 PB - Manchester, UK Manchester University Press DB - UniCat KW - Social change KW - Change KW - Political science. KW - Political aspects. KW - Social aspects. KW - Administration KW - Civil government KW - Commonwealth, The KW - Government KW - Political theory KW - Political thought KW - Politics KW - Science, Political KW - Social sciences KW - State, The KW - Change, Social KW - Cultural change KW - Cultural transformation KW - Societal change KW - Socio-cultural change KW - Social history KW - Social evolution KW - Ontology KW - Catastrophical, The KW - change KW - certainty KW - security KW - desire KW - fantasy KW - hope KW - intellectuals KW - activists KW - autobiographical KW - narrative UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:91811878 AB - Despite the imperative for change in a world of persistent inequality, racism, oppression and violence, difficulties arise once we try to bring about a transformation. As scholars, students and activists, we may want to change the world, but we are not separate, looking in, but rather part of the world ourselves. The book demonstrates that we are not in control: with all our academic rigour, we cannot know with certainty why the world is the way it is, or what impact our actions will have. It asks what we are to do, if this is the case, and engages with our desire to seek change. Chapters scrutinise the role of intellectuals, experts and activists in famine aid, the Iraq war, humanitarianism and intervention, traumatic memory, enforced disappearance, and the Grenfell Tower fire, and examine the fantasy of security, contemporary notions of time, space and materiality, and ideas of the human and sentience. Plays and films by Michael Frayn, Chris Marker and Patricio Guzmán are considered, and autobiographical narrative accounts probe the author’s life and background. The book argues that although we might need to traverse the fantasy of certainty and security, we do not need to give up on hope. ER -