Critical times. Crisis and politics of acceleration

Abstract

We live in times of crisis. The disruptive consequences of the 2008 financial meltdown were soon compounded in the following years by a series of political events that challenged central elements of the institutional order established in the previous decades. From the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street, from the "June Days'' in Brazil to the "yellow jackets" in France, from Brexit to the elections of Trump and Bolsonaro, from the protests in Hong Kong to the mass demonstrations in Chile, recent political dynamics indicate, in various ways, a growing popular discontent with existing modes of political representation. New waves of feminist, LGBTQI+, anti-racist and environmentalist movements, as well as the growing strength of a new right wing opposed to "political correctness," "globalism" and "global warming hysteria," also point to a reconfiguration of social struggles. In addition to these processes, there are now the shocks of the global pandemic and its still unforeseen consequences.