Rethinking Cornelius Castoriadis’s Crisis of Autonomy and Imagination: A Critical Engagement with Augusto Boal and Chela Sandoval

Abstract

This article examines Castoriadis’s diagnosis of a crisis of autonomy and imagination, which suggests a collapse in the ability to conceive profound social transformations. While he attributes the crisis of imagination to a decline in the will for autonomy, addressing this crisis requires examining the conditions under which imagination is suppressed. Nominating epistemic injustice as a starting point, I propose reevaluating the problem of radical imagination through the paradigm of domination as a systemic and structural issue. Instead of a crisis, the problem may lie in the inadequacy of methodologies for creating conducive conditions and for recognizing emancipatory technologies from the perspective of the oppressed. To address this, I engage in a dialogue with the works of feminist philosopher Chela Sandoval and the dramaturg Augusto Boal to explore how methodologies and resistance technologies of the oppressed might be fostered and revealed.