Contention

About ninety years ago, John Dewey argued that democracy should be creative, emphasizing the daily, inventive efforts of individuals to resist authoritarianism. After a decade of global contention, it is evident that creativity is central to politics, yet it remains an ambiguous concept often conflated with artistic practices. This special issue aims to (1) develop a sociological conceptualization of creativity in contention (e.g., resistance, protests, social movements) and (2) present empirical studies on its use in contesting gender-based violence, colonial legacies, neoliberal pressures, and the undervaluing of care work. Creativity in contention is defined as the collective, intentional reconfiguration of cultural and material elements in unexpected ways. It spans tactical, affective, spatial, performative, ideological, linguistic, and embodied dimensions, and it is shaped by context, power, perception, and time.

Creative efforts to make feminicide visible are a vital part of challenging this ubiquitous global phenomenon. From an abolition feminist perspective, this article explores how such creative efforts can mitigate the related risks of racist instrumentalization and reinforcing vulnerability to this violence. After outlining the problems with seeking protection from the criminal legal system and the state, and the underlying perceptions of vulnerability to feminicide as natural and inevitable, the presentations of this vulnerability in five creative efforts are analyzed: The REDress Project by Jaime Black, Zapatos Rojos by Elina Chauvet, Un Violador en tu Camino by Las Tesis, Lote Bravo by Teresa Margolles, and an installation by Colectiva SJF. The result is a toolkit of questions that can be considered when developing creative efforts.

This article explores decolonial memory activism as a form of contentious politics, focusing on activities at the AAA Juncture (arts, academy, activism). It asks how precisely artistic interventions contest colonial erasure and mobilize affective engagement for political and epistemic change. Drawing on two case studies from Augsburg, Germany, it demonstrates that these interventions not only contest dominant memory regimes but also Eurocentric epistemic structures that underlie collective memory. Through creative processes, the artistic interventions foster prefigurative epistemologies and gesture toward alternative ways of knowing and doing memory. By highlighting the interplay of pedagogy, creativity, and affect in these examples of decolonial memory activism, the article offers valuable insights into its potential and its challenges by looking at a concrete case in Germany.

This article presents an innovative account of creativity and protest viewed through the lens of the Domestic Dusters research project, which tactically positions a cleaning cloth as a surprising and unconventional tool for social resistance. It reflects on its tactical and political use in collaboration with the grassroots organization We Care, which advocates for the rights of unpaid carers. Underpinned by autoethnographic and collaborative craft-based methodologies that entice social change, embroidered dusting cloths were displayed and presented to politicians at the Welsh Parliament by carers calling for recognition of their important but often-hidden and undervalued roles. This work makes a distinctive contribution to the theory and practice of doing politics, engaging audiences, and making social change.