In moments of deep political crisis, imagination becomes a battlefield. The futures we envision—whether hopeful or dystopian—can heal our democracies or hasten their erosion. This presentation asks: When does political imagination act as a cure, and when does it turn into poison?

Drawing on political imagination—the ways groups envision their socio-political reality, its boundaries, limits, and possibilities (Taylor, 2004)—I explore its power both to preserve rigid social orders and to create alternative ones (Castoriadis, 1987). In times of crisis, this capacity is amplified: imagined futures can expand democratic possibilities or produce destructive visions that erode them (Castoriadis, 2012; Fry & Tlostanova, 2020).

My doctoral research examines these dynamics through the Jewish–Arab encounter in Be’er Sheva, focusing on Jewish and Arab community members linked to the bilingual schools founded by the Hagar Association. Based on in-depth interviews with educators, community staff, association leaders, and influential parents, the study addresses both their engagement with Hagar and their broader social and political experiences in a context defined by segregation, inequality, and ongoing war.

By analyzing these experiences through the framework of political imagination, the talk will map conditions under which the Jewish–Arab encounter acts as cure or poison—when it fosters imagining democratic futures, and when it forecloses them or fuels the imagining of anti-democratic ones. It will invite the audience to consider how theory can serve not merely as description, nor to interpret the present and past, but as an active force in shaping political futures.