Isaac Rosa & Gemma Barricarte

Energy crisis, climate emergency, rise of the far right... In the current context it seems difficult – almost irrational or naive – to conceive the possibility of a prosperous future. Both in reality and in fiction there is a total predominance of narratives that predict an inevitable collapse, built on the basis of unappealable scientific data that are impossible to ignore. The writer Isaac Rosa transfers this apocalyptic scenario of generalized discouragement to his novel Lugar seguro (Seix Barral, 2022), making a critical reading of these narratives and opening the door to a hopeful outcome that we often ignore. With this anti-dystopia, Rosa questions who are the beneficiaries of the ecologies of fear that dominate our daily life and our collective emotions, and that exploit citizen insecurity.

Without omitting the contradictions and limits of the current global scenario, in this dialogue we will question the hegemonic narratives of the present to make room for new scenarios that do not only foresee the cancellation of the future.

This debate is part of the course Ecologies of hope. Stories, emotions and politics in a world in crisis of the Institut d'Humanitats de Barcelona.