Introduction: The radical subject and its critical theory

Dinerstein argues that a new radical subject that is unrecognisable with old analytical tools is in the making. This radical subject is plural, prefigurative, decolonial, ethical, ecological, communal and democratic. A critical theory should demonstrate those qualities, too. She reflects on the shortcomings of theory in understanding these changes by arguing against the resistance of social scientists, most of them critical theorists, to learn about this radical subject and to interrogate concepts, methodologies and epistemologies used to grasp radical change. Unlike both a social science obsessed with facticity and policy, and a critical theory obsessed with negative praxis, the new radical theory explored in this book seeks to critique capital-coloniality by means of the affirmation of life. Affirmation is not positive thinking or affirmationism. It is a form of theorising that, driven by ‘hope’, ventures beyond the given offering epistemological, theoretical and empirical openings that reflect a prefigurative and experiential critique that is already taking place at the grassroots. The chapter also presents the work of the contributors to the book and the process of theorising without parachutes.