Radical printshops (London)1968-98: democratic technics?

The paper is concerned with the relationship between various radical political discourses and the formation of, challenges to and, for the most part, subsequent demise of the numerous radical printing collectives that emerged in the UK in the 1970s.

These printshops attempted to enact their politics not just through facilitating the dissemination of counter hegemonic discourses but also through their working practices. However in the 1980s and 1990s alternative political agendas changed considerably. Through the historical case of the print collectives and drawing partially on the discourse theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe this research attempts to critically map and analyse specific shifts in radical discourses of production and participation.