PACT-C is led by Marjan Ivković, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory of the University of Belgrade. The research team includes experts from the University of Belgrade, Aarhus University, UCLouvain, University of Vienna, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Université Paris Cité.
We’ve asked Marjan to share some insights about their project and what they are aiming to achieve this year. Let’s have a closer look at PACT-C.
What is your project about?
The aim of our project is to deepen the understanding of processes through which new collective actors striving for social change emerge in conditions of major societal crises such as the 2008 financial meltdown and the Covid-19 pandemic. Our premise is that new collective political actors can be formed when individual political affects become collective through a dynamic we term “emerging collective affectivity”, a pre-discursive form of shared affectivity that emerges among diverse – even mutually agonistic – social groups facing pronounced uncertainty. This ephemeral collectivity, we argue, can evolve into a new collective actor that transcends existing group boundaries and identities and formulates far-reaching demands for social change, but it can also dissipate quickly. The project will investigate key factors influencing whether an instance of emerging collective affectivity will evolve into a new collective actor or not.
What are you aiming to achieve with this project?
The principal outcome of the project will be a theory of collective actor formation in conditions of crisis that bridges the gap between literature on transformative political action and that on affects and collective intentionality.
The major event of the project will be a two-day workshop in Belgrade in September 2025 in which partners will present working papers, followed by in-depth discussions. Working papers will be published online, while the final papers presenting different aspects of the theoretical model will be published in a special issue of a relevant journal.
In which way has your project an interdisciplinary approach?
The group from the Project Lead’s institution – the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory in Belgrade – is itself interdisciplinary, consisting of philosophers focusing on social ontology, theoretical sociologists focusing on the effects of social contingency and domination, and a social psychologist with expertise in collective identities. This group has already collaborated in formulating the concept of “emerging collective affectivity” which serves as the starting point for the project. Partners from other institutions bring in different types of expertise necessary for understanding the conditions under which this ephemeral collectivity may or may not evolve into a full-fledged collective actor. These include, among other, expertise in the social psychology of individuation within “collectives of care” (Aarhus), intersubjectivity and subjectivation within social movements (UCLouvain), the role of political emotions in contentious politics (Vienna) and analyses of socio-ecological practices in the face of climate change (Paris Cité).
