Doing Otherwise is a conference dedicated to exploring collective, conflictual, and materially grounded forms of action that challenge the dominant moral grammar of hustle, productivity, and entrepreneurial individualism. Bringing together scholars - particularly early-career researchers and PhD students - working across organization studies, cultural analysis, labour, design, activism, and critical theory, the conference asks what it means to act otherwise at a time when agency is so often recognized only when it is individualized, market-oriented, and economically validated.

In addition to gather academic contributions on direct action, commoning, refusal and grassroots organizing, also but not exclusively connected to art and cultural production,  the conference holds the broader ambition to question the current means, aims and structure of academia and scholarly work. 

Alongside paper presentations and scholarly discussion, the conference will thus host conversations, workshops, and moments of exchange with activists, practitioners, and professionals whose experiences speak directly to the themes at stake. On the same line, the programme will include a dedicated discussion on what kinds of knowledge academia today enables, what responsibilities it entails, and whether academic work can still sustain meaningful relations with the social worlds it studies.

To ensure maximum accessibility, there is no registration fee for the conference.

For any information contact doingotherwise.lab@proton.me