IPAK.CENTER

We believe in possibility of transforming the world by means of changing the ways in which we reflect on it, by changing relationships we establish and maintain with others thus preparing terrain for different, unthinkable and unexpected horizons of sociability.

Research Center for Cultures, Politics and Identities (IPAK.Center) is founded as a result of long-term cooperation of students, scholars, activists, artists and other political friends from Serbia, SEE, Europe, and from all around the world.

Situated at the Faculty for Media and Communications in Belgrade the Center is involved in cultural and political research studies devoted to reflecting on and questioning of rather complex issues of identity formation, difference, otherness and diversity, cultural, political and activist doing, as well as with shared researches deployed locally, regionally and globally.

Mission of the Center is to encourage, spread and advance critical thinking and to initiate innovative discourses, to develop trans-disciplinary knowledge and contemporary research. By participating in socially and politically engaged cultural production the Center will provide conditions for improvement of democratic principles of the social life and academic disciplines that are not based on hierarchy and hegemony. Main goal of the Center is to promote multiple identities, minority thinking and different forms of socio-political life.

IPAK CENTER supports critical, non-normative education, research and activist agency that questions embedded and stable notions of identity, as well as predominant discourses in categorizing and creating meaning and valuing of individuals, groups and communities; the Center also contributes to the development of new discourses, which deal with socio-cultural identity, difference and diversity.

IPAK CENTER works in cooperation with selected local/regional/international educational institutions, cultural, political, and activist organizations and focal point groups (Women, queer communities, Roma, and other minority groups).

We read feminist theory, queer theory and contemporary philosophy, we read Derrida, Judith Buttler, Foucault, Rancier, Nancy, Wendy Brown and others; however, we do not want our thinking and agency to remain confined either to academic or any other institutional frames. We believe in a possibility of a change, in a possibility of creating potentially large platform of people gathered around idea that it is necessary to change existing paradigms of thinking; we believe that different political communities are possible, we believe in action and non-normative, non-hegemonic social production.

The endeavors and goals the Center has set will be pursuit by the work of four complementary, interweaving and, yet distinct departments:

  • research and analysis
  • education
  • art
  • activism and advocacy

We believe in possibility of transforming the world by means of changing the ways in which we reflect on it, by changing relationships we establish and maintain with others thus preparing terrain for different, unthinkable and unexpected horizons of sociability.

Research Center for Cultures, Politics and Identities (IPAK.Center) is founded as a result of long-term cooperation of students, scholars, activists, artists and other political friends from Serbia, SEE, Europe, and from all around the world.

Situated at the Faculty for Media and Communications in Belgrade the Center is involved in cultural and political research studies devoted to reflecting on and questioning of rather complex issues of identity formation, difference, otherness and diversity, cultural, political and activist doing, as well as with shared researches deployed locally, regionally and globally.

Mission of the Center is to encourage, spread and advance critical thinking and to initiate innovative discourses, to develop trans-disciplinary knowledge and contemporary research. By participating in socially and politically engaged cultural production the Center will provide conditions for improvement of democratic principles of the social life and academic disciplines that are not based on hierarchy and hegemony. Main goal of the Center is to promote multiple identities, minority thinking and different forms of socio-political life.

IPAK CENTER supports critical, non-normative education, research and activist agency that questions embedded and stable notions of identity, as well as predominant discourses in categorizing and creating meaning and valuing of individuals, groups and communities; the Center also contributes to the development of new discourses, which deal with socio-cultural identity, difference and diversity.

IPAK CENTER works in cooperation with selected local/regional/international educational institutions, cultural, political, and activist organizations and focal point groups (Women, queer communities, Roma, and other minority groups).

We read feminist theory, queer theory and contemporary philosophy, we read Derrida, Judith Buttler, Foucault, Rancier, Nancy, Wendy Brown and others; however, we do not want our thinking and agency to remain confined either to academic or any other institutional frames. We believe in a possibility of a change, in a possibility of creating potentially large platform of people gathered around idea that it is necessary to change existing paradigms of thinking; we believe that different political communities are possible, we believe in action and non-normative, non-hegemonic social production.

The endeavors and goals the Center has set will be pursuit by the work of four complementary, interweaving and, yet distinct departments:

  • research and analysis
  • education
  • art
  • activism and advocacy

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

RAA Department`s team conducts research projects in the field of humanities and social sciences, tackling variety of contemporary cultural, social and political phenomena by the means of transdisciplinary methodologies, yet being sensitive to the specificities of the research contexts by introducing and establishing critical paradigms of situated knowledge. The research and analytical endeavor of the RAA Department aims to introduce critical and engaged standpoints in relation to exigent and burning issues, and to offer transformative, pluralist and democratic visions of knowledge, thinking, identities, visual cultures, media representations, cultural policies and multiple political phenomena.

EDUCATION

Education department gathers prominent scholars in the field of gender, cultural, queer studies and social sciences whose research capacities and knowledge depositories ate to be deployed for offering trainings, implementing educational programs and developing critical pedagogies for all interested parties and social actors, including state institutions, stakeholders, educational institutions, activists, artists, cultural workers and youth.

ART

Art Department gathers group of creative people engaged in the field of arts, cultural production, visual arts and media, all of whom approach these fields either as direct producers or as scholars. Art department`s goal is to promote art, media and cultural production as strong, relevant and necessary agents in the processes of critical cultural and social reflection of our times. Art, media and cultural production are platforms whereby political transformation could be enacted and democratic and open modes of distributions of sensible and common life could be en staged and envisioned.

Department accomplishes its goals by means of fostering and organizing cultural events, public actions, creative interventions in public spaces, exhibitions, as well as by initiating and opening reflective spaces whereby different media, cultural and art practices and phenomena can be discussed, debated, problematized and analyzed. Art department is also focused on monitoring and advocacy in the field of cultural policies, democratization of media landscapes and participatory and collaborative urban planning.

ACTIVISM AND ADVOCACY

Activism and advocacy department is dedicated to in-depth analysis and reflection of hegemonic strategies and methodologies in different activist struggles for equality, justice and diversity while setting its specific interest in politics of minority, including queer activism, feminist activism, human rights struggles for inclusion and equality of ethnic and racial minorities, etc.

For the purpose of achieving its goals AA Department bases its action and work strategies on mobilization of wide and non-exclusionary networks of different stakeholders, social and political actors and activist groups, as well as cultural workers and scholars from different disciplines.

IPAK

 

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IPAK.CENTAR

office@ipakcentar.org

Karađorđeva 65

11000 Belgrade

Serbia