Here, Katerina Paramana introduces the articles in the “Political Economy and the Arts” special section of this issue. In the current climate of geopolitical upheaval (from Ukraine, to Gaza, Iran, Venezuela, and Greenland), the articles illuminate what arts do to produce resistance at a micro level by re-writing problematic narratives, visibilizing marginalized communities, imagining alternative models and futures, and working towards equitable space-making.
Articles by Katerina Paramana
Katerina Paramana is an artist-scholar and Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Theatre and Performance at Brunel University of London (UK). She is author of Contemporary Performance and Political Economy: “Oikonomia” as a New Ethico-Political Paradigm (2025), co‐editor of the volumes Performance, Dance and Political Economy: Bodies at the End of the World (2021) and Art and Dance in Dialogue (2020), founding book series co‐editor of Dance in Dialogue, and founding editor of the “Political Economy and the Arts” special section at Lateral. At Brunel University, among other roles, she is Lead of the Performance, Cultures, and Politics Research Group and of the Arts and Humanities Research Peer-Mentoring Scheme for Academic Staff and PGR Director for the Global Lives Research Centre. She serves on the Board of Directors of Performance Studies International (PSi). She is co-founder of the PSi Advisory Committee on Antiracism and Anticolonialism and of the PSi Peer-Mentoring Scheme. Her performances have been presented in theatres and galleries in the US, UK, and Europe (katerinaparamana.com).
Introduction – Performance and Political Economy: Bodies, Politics, and Well-Being
In this article, Katerina Paramana introduces Lateral’s special section, “Political Economy and the Arts,” and its first set of articles, “Performance and Political Economy: Bodies, Politics, and Well-Being,” and provides the rationale and context for this section’s topic. In the face of a multiplicity of world-wide problems and suffering, this special section aims at a reinvestment in desire for change in order to resuscitate and reinvest in hope. The articles therein provide insights into the current relationship between politics, human and non-human bodies, and their well-being (and why it is necessary we take action to change it) which might help us steer the wheel before we drive off the cliff.