Dystopia and Global Rebellion

Utopia

DYSTOPIA AND GLOBAL REBELLION

Dystopia and Global Rebellion

Global Studies Association of North America Annual Conference

4-6 May 2012

Universityof Victoria,Vancouver Island, Canada

(Co-sponsored by of the VP of Research, Dean of Social Sciences, and Centre for Global Studies)

Social crisis shakes Europe and the U.S., anti-immigration movements grow, nuclear meltdown radiates Japan, while spreading drought and floods are billboards for global warming.  It seems the future has arrived and it doesn’t look good.

Yet democratic movements spread like wildfire throughout the Middle East, youth movements come alive in the U.K., France, Chile and Spain, rebellion takes to the streets in Greece, and Occupy Wall Street wakes up the U.S. Dystopia and global rebellion indeed. This year’s conference theme focuses our attention on the problems and alternatives we face in our struggle for a just and better world.

Keynote Speakers and Panels:

“Economic Crisis and the Working Class: re-thinking class struggle” — Gary Teeple

“Anti-Globalization or Alter-Globalization? Mapping the Political Ideology of the Global Justice Movement” — Manfred B. Steger.

“Crisis of the Human Condition: Global Rebellion Hits the Wall” — Paul James.

“Building the Counter-Hegemonic Bloc to Neo-Liberal Dystopia” — William Carroll & Jerry Harris.

“Environmental Dystopia and the Green Alternative” — Martha McMahon, Kara Shaw & Waziyatawin.

“The Occupy Movement” — Carl Davidson, Lauren Langman, Jackie Smith, Jay Smith.

For more information on keynote speakers, schedule, registration and conference information go to: http://net4dem.org/mayglobal

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Ninth Annual Social Theory Forum

Social Movements

THE NINTH ANNUAL SOCIAL THEORY FORUM

April 18^th and 19^th 2012

The Campus of the University of Massachusetts Boston

100 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, MA 02125-3393, Tel: 617-287-5000

Conflict, Social Movements, and Social Change: Theory and Practice

Final Program

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 2012

8:30-9:25 – REGISTRATION AND BREAKFAST (Ryan Lounge, Third Floor of the McCormack Hall, Third Floor of the McCormack Hall )

9:25-9:30 – Opening the Conference     

Siamak Movahedi, Jorge Capetillo, Glenn Jacobs, & Darren Kew, the Conference Moderators

9:30-10: OPENING STATEMENTS

(Ryan Lounge, Third Floor of the McCormack Hall)

Winston Langley, Provost & Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

Professor of Political Science and International Relations, University of Massachusetts Boston

10:00-10:45:  Distinguished Lectures

(Ryan Lounge, Third Floor of the McCormack Hall)

Lauren Langman, Loyola University of Chicago, and

Valentine Moghadam, Northeastern University

 

From Tahrir Square to Zucotti Park and Beyond

 

11:00-12:30 Block

Session 1: Global Perspectives on the Occupy Movements

(Ryan Lounge, Third Floor of the McCormack Hall)

Langman, Lauren, Loyola University of Chicago and

Lundskow, George, Grand Valley State University

Down The Rabbit Hole to a Tea Party

Mutisi, Martha , African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)

Structures of Reconciliation: the Organ of National Healing in Zimbabwe.

Hagerty, Talia, University of Massachusetts, Boston

‘This is What Democracy Looks Like’: Strategic Nonviolent Conflict and the Case of Occupy Wall Street

Jeyapal, Daphne, University of Toronto

Space, race and the protest of others

Callahan, Mary-Jo, Central Connecticut State University

From Chiapas to New York: The Zapatista Influence on the Occupy Movement

 

Moderator: Jorge Capetillo-Ponce, Sociology, University of Massachusetts

Session 2: Conflict Resolution and Social Movement Theory

(Harbor Art Gallery, First Floor of the McCormack Hall)

Jarul, Tufail, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi-India

Kashmir Conflict and its Impact on the Seasonal Movement of the Bakarwal tribe and its future in the Valley of Kashmir

Kriesberg,  Louis, Syracuse University

Burdick, Samuel John, Syracuse University

Roy, Beth, University of California, Berkeley

Struggling on the Street and at the Table: How Social Action and Civil Dialogue can work together.

Stein, Andrew, The Lacanian group Apres Coup in New York City

Occupy Wall Street: Politics As Usual Or Social Justice Event?

Charles W Ogg, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Applying Relational Analysis to Labor as a Social Movement: The Sleeping Beast Awakes in Wisconsin.

 

Session 3: The Politics of Funding and the Pursuit of Social Justice

(Sociology Conference Room, Wheatley 4^th floor, room 22-23)

Diane Swords, Elizabeth Mount, Anya Stanger, Syracuse University

12:30-1:30 Lunch

 

1:30-2:20:  Distinguished Lecture

(Ryan Lounge, Third Floor of the McCormack Hall)

Louis Kriesberg, Maxwell School, Syracuse University

 

2:30-4: Block

Session 4: The Arab Spring Movements: Where are they now and where are they going?

(Ryan Lounge, Third Floor of the McCormack Hall)

 

Leila Farsakh, University of Massachusetts Boston (Moderator)

Lina Khatib, Program Manager for the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, Stanford University,

Tarek Masoud, Harvard University

Stuart Krusell, Associate Director, Office of External Relations, MIT

Session 5: Minority, Immigrant, and Gender Movements

(Harbor Art Gallery, First Floor of the McCormack Hall)

Zulfiqar, Ghazal, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Microfinance and the Promise of Social Change inSouth Asia

Dao, Loan, University of Massachusetts Boston

‘American Accent’: Counter-hegemonic Narratives of Undocumented and Non-citizen Asian (American) Youth

 

Jorge Capetillo-Ponce and Cedric Woods, University of Massachusetts at Boston

Latino/a or Native American?Changing Patterns of Collective Identification Among the Maya K’iche in the United States

Ahmad, Shabab, CUHP, Dharamsala H.P. India

Minority Status- Saga of Dispute: A Critical Review

Nair, Rashmi, Clark University, and

Johanna ay Vollhardt, Clark University

Solidarity between minority groups-voices from social movements in India

 

Moderator: Lorna Rivera, Women’s Studies,University of Massachusetts

Session 6: Nationalism, Autonomy, and Separatism

(Sociology Conference Room, Fourth Floor of Wheatley Hall   )

Subedi, Anand Prasad, University of Nepal

Conflict Affected Internally Displaced Families in Nepal: A Special Reference to (1996-2006) Decade Long Maoist Insurgency

Ozugurlu, Sonay Bayramoglu,Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey.

Keskin, Nuray Erturk, Ondokuz Mayis University, Samsun, Turkey.

Local and Regional self government? / Autonomy? A Study on the Turkish Case

Obeni, Ehioboh Sonia,

The Unifying Role of English in a Multicultural nation: The Case of Nigeria

4:30-6:30 Block

Session 7: Social Theory

(Ryan Lounge, Third Floor of the McCormack Hall)

 

Kozlarek, Oliver, Universidad de Michoacán, Mexico

The Humanist Turn: a Comparative Critque of Dehumanization

 

Solis-Gadea, Héctor Raúl, Universidad de Guadalajara, México

The Challenges of Social Theory in the Twenty First Century

Margarita Palacios, Birkbeck College, Germany

Hermeneutics and the Art of Disobedience: A critical reading of Ricoeur and Derrida

Arai, Tatsushi, School for International Training (SIT)

Toward Functional Coexistence: Peace building in the Context of Mutual Non-Recognition

D’Arcy, Michael, UC Berkeley – UC San Francisco

Shahid and the Mnay Struggles: Translating the Revolution and the Witness-as-Word

Moderator: Jorge Capetillo-Ponce, Sociology, University of Massachusetts

Session 8: Comparative Social Movements

(Harbor Art Gallery, First Floor of the McCormack Hall)

Galanes Luis, University of Puerto Rico at Cayey

Contemporary Social Movements: Lessons from theCaribbean

Muñoz-PROTO, Caolina, The Graduate center, CUNY and

Opotow, Susan, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Justice, Activity and Narrative: Studying the World March for Peace and Nonviolence

Awodola, Bosede, Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution-Abuja-Nigeria

Social Movements and 2011 General Election in Nigeria: Case Study of Neighbor 2 Neighbor

Agarwal Ankit, University of Pune, India

The Fade out of 2011 Indian Corruption Movement

7:00-Dinner

Location: TBA

THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2012

8:00-9:00 – REGISTRATION AND BREAKFAST (Ryan Lounge, Third Floor of the McCormack Hall, Third Floor of the McCormack Hall)

 

9:00-10:30 Block

 

Session 9: Digital Democracy, Social Media, and Movements I

(Ryan Lounge, Third Floor of the McCormack Hall)

Ogenga, Frederic, Maseno University-Kenya

Is Peace Journalism in the ‘war’ against terror? The Daily Nation and the East African Standard representation of Operation Linda Nchi in Somalia

Oravec, Jo Ann, University of Wisconsin at Whitewater

The Protest Culture of the Midwest: Comparison of Pre-Internet and Internet-Enabled Imagery and Organizational Strategies

Rastogi, Divyanshu & Gupta, Gazal

Social Media and Its Usage Trends: A Socio-cultural Perspective

Session 10: Digital Democracy, Social Media, and Movements II

(Sociology Conference Room, Wheatley 4^th. Floor, Room 22-23)

Clark, James,York University Toronto, Canada

‘Cyber Utopia’ readings of the Arab Spring: A neoliberal and pro-war fantasy

Mutisi, Martha, African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)

Countering State Repression through Digital Democracy: The Role of Electronic Media in Social Movements in Zimbabwe

Heisler, Jay, Saint Paul University, Ottawa, Canada

Nonviolent Propaganda: Examples from Burma and Iran

Session 11: Labor, Civil Society and Culture

(Harbor Art Gallery, First Floor of the McCormack Hall)

League, Panagiotis, Hellenic College

Rewriting Unwritten History: Nationalism, Folklore, and the Ban of the Cretan Violin

Dorsey, James, Nanyang Technological University-Singapore

Soccer as an Engine of Change and Assertion of Identity

Tucker, Terry, Middlebury College,Vermont

The Book of Mozilla in Conflict Resolution

Usman, Mohammed and Ibrahim Badamasi,  Babangida University, Lapai -Nigeria

Religious Revivalism, Boko Haram and the Nigerian Society

Singh, Harneet, Gulati, Ashish, Kumar, Duru Arun, & Netaji Subhas, Institute of Technology, Dwarka,New Delhi, India

Plight of Contract Labor in a Liberalizing Economy – An Indian Experience

10:40-12:10 Block

Session 12: Anti-Hegemonic Social Movements

(Ryan Lounge, Third Floor of the McCormack Hall)

Binkley, Sam, Emerson College (Moderator)

Social Movements and the Government of Intimacy: Expertise and the Intensification of Emotional Reciprocity.

Desai, Chandni, Institute for Studies in Education Center: Center for Urban Schooling, Ontario

Supression of Social Movements: Challenges to the Road Map to Peace.

Feng, Wen, Beijing University, China

Right against power: collective action of medical professionals in China.

Di, Jin Di, University of Saskatchewan-Canada

Institutional Change and earnings of migrants and non-migrants in urban China

 

Session 13:  Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and Torture

(Harbor Ar tGallery, First Floor of the McCormack Hall)

Aryal, Sanjaya, Mahidol University, Bangkok-Thailand

Transition without Justice: Flourishing Impunity in Nepal.

Soldz, Stephen, Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis

Opposing Psychologist Complicity in Torture

Bhoi, Dhaneswar, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India

Issues of Atrocity Against the Dalits: A Study of Students.

Mutisi, Martha, African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)

Dealing with the aftermath of genocide through the Concept of Abanyarwanda: A Case of ‘Ethic Amnesia’ in Rwanda?

 

Moderator: Siamak Movahedi, Sociology, University of Massachusetts

 

12:10-1:40 Lunch

 

1:40-2:30:  Distinguished Lecture

(Ryan Lounge, Third Floor of the McCormack Hall)

Donald L. Carveth

Professor of Sociology and Social & Political Thought, York University

Training and Supervising Analyst Canadian Institute of Psychoanalysis

Director Toronto Institute of Psychoanalysis

“A Civil War in Every Soul”: Progress and Regress in the Struggle for Modernity

2:30- 4:00 Block

Session 14: Sustainability and Environmental Movements

(Ryan Lounge, Third Floor of the McCormack Hall)

Allen, Fidelis, University of Kwa Zulu-Natal, South Africa

Issues, Strategies and Achievements of Environmental Advocacy Groups in South Africa and Nigeria

Gecker, Whitney, University of Massachusetts-Boston

Kromash, Kevin, Yale University

Food for Thought: Using Habermas to Analyze the Marketing of Food in the U.S. 

Medina, Fernando Campos, GSBC Graduate School Human Behaviour in Social and Economic Change

The de-politicization of the socio-ecological conflict in Chile, When the pollution and the sustainability prevent to observe the human injustice

Dainius, Genys, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas-Lithuania

The role of social conflict in civil society boundaries formation in the Baltic States

4:00-5:00 Block

Occupy Boston Documentary, Emerson College

Directed by John Forrester

(Ryan Lounge, Third Floor of the McCormack Hall)

 

Program & Registration details: http://www.umb.edu/news_events_media/events/the_ninth_annual_social_theory_forum 

 

**END**

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Zizek Studies Conference 2012

Zizek

ZIZEK STUDIES CONFERENCE 2012

Neo-liberal Perversions: Fantasy and Gaze in Contemporary Culture

The College at Brockport (SUNY)
Edwards Hall • 350 New Campus Drive • Brockport, NY 14420

April 28-29, 2012

Speakers: Slavoj Žižek • Joan Copjec • Paul Taylor • Jodi Dean

Sponsored by:
The International Journal of Žižek Studies
The Delta College Program at the College at Brockport (SUNY)
The Brockport Philosophy Club

http://zizekconference.webs.com/

For more information contact Antonio Garcia at agarciaj@indiana.edu  

The College at Brockport State University of New York

350 New Campus Drive, Brockport, NY 14420

**END**

 

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Europe in Crisis

Eurozone Crisis

EUROPE IN CRISIS

PERG Workshop – Europe in Crisis

Thursday, 19 April, 9.30 -17.00

JG 1008 (John Galsworthy building), Kingston University, Penrhyn Road

Europeis in a crisis. An international financial crisis has laid bare the fundamental flaws in the construction of the European economic policy regime. Monetary integration without fiscal and social integration has not only resulted in a mediocre economic performance, falling wage share and persistent imbalances, but has also left the peripheral countries without protection against the crisis. Rather than using fiscal policy to counteract a Great Depression in the European South, fiscal policies are firmly put into austerity mode. If the subprime financial crisis was not sufficient to lead to a new Great Depression, austerity might do so. The workshop will discuss the causes of the crisis in Europe, the present economic policy and strategies to deal with the crisis, and progressive alternatives forEurope.

9.00 Registration and coffee

9.30 Introduction

10.00-12.00 Roots of the crisis

-         E. Stockhammer, Kingston University: Rebalancing the Euro area: inflationary or depressive

-         D. Gabor, University of West England: The Missing Link: European bank funding strategies and ECB’s crisis policies

-         J. Grahl, Middlesex University: The First European Semester: an incoherent strategy.

12.00-13.20 Lunch

13.20 -15.20 EU Economic Policy

-         T van Treeck, IMK: Reducing Economic Imbalances in the Euro Area: Some Remarks on the Current Stability Programs

-         J Weeks, SOAS: Crisis Scams in Italy, Spain and the UK: Triumph of Ideology over Reality

-         T. Evans, Berlin School of Economics and Law: The crisis in the euro area

15.40-17.00 Progressive strategies for Europe

-         D. Sotiropoulos, Kingston University: The fundamental problem of Euro zone and the problem with ‘fundamentals’: an alternative (Marxian) approach to European economic policy context

-         R. Hyman, LSE, and R. Gumbrell-McCormick, Birkbeck: European Trade Unions: Responses to the Crisis

 

Political Economy Research Group (PERG)

The Political Economy approach highlights the role of effective demand, institutions and social conflict in economic analysis and thereby builds on Austrian, Institutionalist, Keynesian and Marxist traditions. Economic processes are perceived to be embedded in social relations that must be analysed in the context of historical considerations, power relations and social norms. As a consequence, a broad range of methodological approaches is employed, and cooperation with other disciplines, including history, law, sociology and other social sciences, is necessary. (http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/research/perg )

MA Economics (Political Economy) at Kingston University

http://www.kingston.ac.uk/postgraduate/booklets/FASS/political-economy-MA.pdf

MA Politics, Philosophy, Economics at Kingston University

http://www.kingston.ac.uk/postgraduate/booklets/FASS/PoliticsPhilosophyEconomics.pdf

 

**END**

 

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

A Talk on Liberalism by Domenico Losurdo

Domenico Losurdo

A TALK ON LIBERALISM BY DOMENICO LOSURDO

March 19, 2012
CUNY Graduate Center, Room C198
A Talk on Liberalism by Domenico Losurdo

http://www.versobooks.com/events/375-a-talk-on-liberalism-by-domenico-losurdo

The author of Liberalism: A Counter History discusses the dark side of Liberalism
On March 19, Domenico Losurdo will speak at the Graduate Center at CUNY about his latest book, Liberalism: A Counter-History, examining the ways in which liberalism, as a philosophical position and ideology, has historically been bound up with the most illiberal of policies: slavery, colonialism, genocide, racism and snobbery.

6.30pm – 7.30pm
CUNY Graduate Center, Room C198
365 Fifth Avenue
New York,NY10016

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

The Failure of Capitalist Production – Andrew Kliman

Andrew Kliman

THE FAILURE OF CAPITALIST PRODUCTION – ANDREW KLIMAN

 Salford Business School presents:

The Failure of Capitalist Production: Underlying Causes of the Great Recession

Professor Andrew Kliman of Pace University offers exemplary theoretical insight as well as analysis of economic data, and therefore explains the causes and the development of recent crises in unparalleled ways.

Andrew Kliman is the author of numerous academic articles and books that centre on the creation and the capture of economic value in Marx’s tradition.

Book details: http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745332390

For more information please contact:
Dr. Thoralf Dassler
t.dassler@salford.ac.uk

6pm, Tuesday, 6 March 2012
Room G21, Mary Seacole Building
Frederick Road Campus
University of Salford,M5 4WT

**END**

 

‘Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)  

 

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

A Crisis of Capitalism – Andrew Kliman

Capitalist Crisis

A CRISIS OF CAPITALISM – ANDREW KLIMAN

Andrew Kliman will speak on “A Crisis of Capitalism (Not Neoliberalism, Financialization, or Stagnant Wages)” for the Student  Action Initiative of  The New School on Wed. Feb. 22 at 8:00 p.m. The  talk will take place at 80 Fifth Avenue (SW corner of 14th St.), Room 529, and it is open to the public. Kliman will investigate the causes of the Great Recession and discuss the surprising results of data analysis which shows that the rate of profit has fallen ever since the end of the post-World War II boom.

Information: student-action-initiative@gmail.com

Andrew Kliman is Professor of Economics at Pace University. He is author of the just-published book, The Failure of Capitalist Production: Underlying Causes of the Great Recession, and of Reclaiming Marx’s “Capital”: A Refutation of the Myth of Inconsistency.

N.Y.U. Professor Bertell Ollman wrote about the new book, “One of the very best of the rapidly growing series of works seeking to explain our economic crisis. … The scholarship is exemplary and the writing is crystal clear. Highly recommended!”

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

The Anomie of the Earth

Aesthetics

THE ANOMIE OF THE EARTH

Call for Papers

The Universityof North Carolina at Chapel Hill, May 3-5, 2012 @ The Institute for the Arts and Humanities/Global Education Center

In collaboration with the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and NWO

The conference The Anomie of the Earth is a follow-up to the Post/autonomy conference held in Amsterdam in May 2011.

While the Post/autonomy meeting focused on the European dissemination of autonomist thought, the second conference will build on its American location and explore a plurality of notions and practices of cultural-political autonomy. Though privileging the context of North and South America, the conference will also address European, African and Asian perspectives.

A presupposition of the conference is that what Carl Schmitt has defined as the Western “nomos of the Earth” – i.e. the political, legal, and spatial configuration of a Euro-Atlantic modern global order – is currently being shaken by intense endogenous and exogenous forces. By discussing the potentials and limits of autonomy/autonomia within our actual conjuncture, the conference will address the emerging nomos and its new constellations of life and knowledge.

More specifically, the conference will thematize the intersections of autonomy/autonomia with four lines of research that have reframed current debates in the humanities and social sciences:

* Radical conceptualizations of life, labor, sovereignty, borders, precarity, migrations, communities and commons, multitude;

* Spatial, affective, ethical and ecological forms of resistance to neoliberal capitalism;

* Critical trends taking place at the edges of contemporary epistemologies; such as vitalisms, geo-philosophies, biopolitics, political anthropologies, new materialisms, political ontologies and ecologies, subaltern studies, embodiment and emergence theories;

* Decolonial studies and new theorizations of post-capitalist, non-liberal and non-statist modes of knowledge and political practice; decolonial feminisms.

These broad themes should be focalized through a specific engagement with autonomy/autonomia.

We welcome the submission of papers in English. Accepted papers will be posted online on the conference website (http://postautonomia.org/). For the panels, speakers will be asked to make short (10-15 minutes) presentations addressing the main topics of their papers.

Please send your paper, together with a short abstract, by March 1 to the.anomie.of.the.earth@gmail.com. Given the limited size of the conference, only a small number of papers will be accepted. Conference organizers will send acceptance notifications by March 21.

For further information, please contact the.anomie.of.the.earth@gmail.com

This conference is the second of a series within the project Precarity and Post-autonomia: the Global Heritage funded by NWO (Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research).
Confirmed Participants

Giuseppe Bianco (University of Warwick/CIEPFC)

Jodi A. Byrd (University of Illinois)

Gustavo Esteva (Universidad de la Tierra)

Silvia Federici (Hofstra University)

Michael Hardt (Duke University)

Catherine Walsh (Universidad Simon Bolivar)

Gareth Williams (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)

And the planning committee:
Federico Luisetti, John Pickles, Wilson Kaiser (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), Vincenzo Binetti (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)

in collaboration with, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: Samuel Amago, Yusuf Al-Bulushi, Emilio del Valle Escalante, Mark Driscoll, Arturo Escobar, Diana Marcela Gomez Correal, Lawrence Grossberg, Michal Osterweil, Michael Palm, Alvaro Reyes

and the NWO partners: Frans-Willem Korsten (Leiden University/Erasmus University Rotterdam), Joost de Bloois (University of Amsterdam), Silvia Contarini (Université Paris Ouest, Nanterre La Défense), Monica Jansen (Utrecht University)

Sponsors

NWO, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), and the Center for Global Initiatives, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Center for European Studies, The Institute for the Arts and Humanities, The Institute for the Study of the Americas, Department of Geography, Program in Comparative Literature, Department of Anthropology, Department of Communication Studies, Cultural Studies@UNC (UNC-Chapel Hill), Department of Romance Studies (Duke University)

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Sacrificial Citizenship: Neoliberal Austerity Politics – Wendy Brown

Wendy Brown

SACRIFICIAL CITIZENSHIP: NEOLIBERAL AUSTERITY POLITICS – WENDY BROWN

Committee on Globalization and Social Change presents:

Wendy Brown
Political Science, University of California Berkeley
“Sacrificial Citizenship: Neoliberal Austerity Politics”
February 14th, 2012 | 4:30pm-6:30pmC198 | Concourse Level, The CUNY Graduate Center | 365 5th Avenue, NYC

Wendy Brown is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is also affiliated with the Department of Rhetoric and with the graduate programs in Critical Theory and in Gender and Women’s Studies.

Professor Brown’s fields of interest include the history of political theory, 19th and 20th century Continental, critical, and cultural theory (including feminist, critical race, and postcolonial theory). She is best known for interrogating formations of power, political identity, citizenship, and subjectivity in liberal democracies. Her current work focuses on the relationship of political sovereignty to global capital and other transnational forces, including those associated with religion, law, culture and moral discourse.

Please join us for a Roundtable Discussion and Graduate Student Workshop with Wendy Brown, on February 15that noon in the Committee on Globalization Suite (5109)

Link to the post: http://globalization.gc.cuny.edu/sacrificial-citizenship-neoliberal-austerity-politics/
Link to The Committee on Globalization and Social Change: http://globalization.gc.cuny.edu  

**END**

 

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Richmond University London Annual Colloquium

 

Aesthetics

RICHMOND UNIVERSITY LONDON ANNUAL COLLOQUIUM

“The Future of the ‘Arab Spring’; Western Power-Politics in the Middle East in an Era of Diminished Expectations”

Friday, 23 March 2012, 17 Young Street, London W8 5EH (High Street Kensington)

Programme

10.00am Registration

10.30 Welcome Address by Prof John Annette, President, Richmond University

10.45-11.30 Opening address Prof Mustapha Kamal Pasha, University of Aberdeen, “The winter of neo-liberal discontent; the ‘Arab Spring’ in global context” (Chair/Discussant:  Prof Phil Deans, Provost, RU)

11.30 – 13.00 Prof Francois Nectoux, Kingston University, “France and the Libyan crisis”, Dr. Hasan Turunc, RU, “Turkish foreign policy and the ‘Arab Spring’” (Chair/Discussant: Dr. James Boys, RU)

13.30 – 14.15 Lunch

14.15 – 15.00 Keynote address by Prof Gilbert Achcar, SOAS, “Western power-politics in the Middle East in an era of diminished expectations” (Discussant:  Dr. Hadi Enayat RU, Chair: Prof Wolfgang Deckers, RU)

15.00 – 15.30 Discussion

15.30 – 16.00 Tea/Coffee

16.00 – 17.30 Dr Nicola Pratt, Warwick University, “The Arab-Israeli conflict in the wake of the ‘Arab Spring’”, Dr. Alexander Kazamias, Coventry University, “Egypt’s blocked revolution: the post-colonial state strikes back” ( Discussant: Dr. Preslava Stoeva, RU; Chair: Dr. Martin Brown, RU)

17.30 – 17.40 Profs Alex Seago, Head of Social Sciences, RU, and Vassilis K. Fouskas, RU, “Concluding remarks”

Further information and booking from: jelena.pivovarova@richmond.ac.uk, 0207-3688437

Visit the Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

**END**

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Centre for the Study of Education and Work: Update 18th January 2012

Work

CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION AND WORK: UPDATE 18th JANUARY 2012

EVENTS

VIDEO & DISCUSSION – THE WAY FORWARD: RETHINKING THE PROBLEM OF WORKPLACE SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Wednesday, February 1, 2012
6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
OISE, Room 5–170
252 Bloor St. West, Toronto

Video followed by a dynamic panel discussion.

Sponsored by the Workplace Learning and Social Change Collaborative Program, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto.

+++++

LEFT BEHIND – CBC DOCUMENTARY ON INEQUALITY

Monday, January 16, 23, 30
on Ideas at 9:04 pm, CBC Radio One

Over the past 30 years, the benefits of economic growth in Canada, the US and much of the rest of the world, have gone increasingly to the top one percent of the population. For the majority of families, however, incomes have stagnated. This rise in inequality coincided with a sea change in government policy. Beginning in the 1980s, governments in much of the English-speaking world embarked on what has been called the neoliberal revolution – deregulation, privatization and tax cuts, aimed at liberating markets and stimulating the economy. The rising tide was supposed to lift all boats, but it didn’t. Jill Eisen explores what happened.

Part 2 airs on Monday, January 23, and part 3 on Jan 30.

To listen to a podcast of Part 1, click here: http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/2012/01/16/left-behind/

+++++

INTERCHANGE: EVERYONE CAN BE A PEACEBUILDER WORKSHOP

Wednesday January 25, 2012
6:00pm – 8:30pm
Ellington’s Cafe, 805 St.Clair Avenue West (http://ellingtonsmusicandcafe.com)
Suggested Fee: $30 general, $20 InterChange members, $20 students/unwaged

Everyone can be a Peacebuilder!

Please join us for a creative and participatory ‘Peace Ambassadors’ Workshop in which you will:

­- learn core peace concepts and models
­- explore the idea of “peace literacy” and how it can be promoted
­- discover your unique peacebuilding role
­- find out more about the InterChange workshops and facilitators and how these can be brought to your community
­- share your values and ideas with like-minded people
­- use the metaphor of a picnic to help spread the Culture of Peace

Food and refreshments will be provided!

Registration is limited so please e-mail in advance to reserve your spot!

To RSVP and for more information, contact community@interchange4peace.org or
http://www.interchange4peace.org

+++++

LUNCHBOX SPEAKERS’ SERIES – A GOOD FOOD SOCIAL ENTERPRISE: LEARNINGS FROM FOODSHARE

Wednesday, Jan 25, 2012
Noon – 1:30 pm
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor St. West, (St. George Subway Station) Room 3-104

Zahra Parvinian, Director of Social Enterprise Programs, Alvin Rebick, Senior Manager of Kitchen and Focus on Food, and Meredith Hayes, Senior Manager of School Programs will introduce FoodShare Toronto’s social enterprise programs and discuss:  the organization’s different enterprise program models, as well as the challenges, sustainability issues, and other aspects related to running a food social enterprise.
   
*No registration required. Bring your lunch and a mug. Water, coffee, tea, and fresh-baked snacks from Lemon & Allspice will be provided.

For more information, please contact Andrea at secspeakerseries@gmail.com

Presented by the Social Economy Centre (OISE/UT) & Toronto Enterprise Fund.

This event will be webcast live on the Internet. For detailed instructions, please see our website at http://socialeconomycentre.ca/webcast-instructions
 
+++++

GREATER TORONTO WORKERS’ ASSEMBLY (GTWA) COFFEEHOUSE: OCCUPY DEBRIEF

January 27, 2012
7pm
Beit Zatoun, 612 Markham Street, Toronto

2011 – maybe it wasn’t quite 1968 but it was a year of great social upheaval. With 2011 behind us, the GTWA is holding the first in what will be a new series of Coffeehouses to discuss where we are as a movement, with this particular one featuring two local activists who were very involved in Occupy Toronto, and in particular building links between the Occupy movement and the labour movement. Is this the beginning of a new community/labour coalition that we’ve been waiting for? Will the Occupy movement be able to sustain itself and help awaken a dormant labour movement? How did the Occupy Toronto experience measure up with other Occupations? These and other issues will be topics of comradely discussion.

Speakers include two activists with the Occupy movement – Brendan Bruce and Lana Goldberg.

This Coffeehouse is organized by the Greater Toronto Workers’ Assembly Internal Education and Political Development Committee (IEPD).

+++++

NEWS AND VIEWS

CANADIAN LABOUR AT THE CROSSROADS?

By Doug Nesbitt, The Bullet

A wage cut of fifty per cent. An elimination of pensions. Cuts to benefits. These demands have inevitably led to a major showdown at a locomotive factory in London, Ontario between the 700 unionized workers of Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD) and Caterpillar, a massive U.S.-based corporation. The workers, members of Canadian Auto Workers Local 27, responded to the employer’s demands with a positive strike vote of 97 per cent. The employer, Progress Rail, a subsidiary of Caterpillar, locked out the workers on New Year’s Day.

In addition to facing down a notorious anti-union employer who hammered the American United Auto Workers in the 1990s, there are plenty of rumours about Caterpillar closing the London plant and moving operations to Muncie, Indiana. EMD workers in London make $36/hour while their counterparts in Muncie are paid only $12.50-14.50 (Cdn). Indiana is also on the cusp of becoming the first rust-belt state to introduce a “Right to Work” law, a notorious form of anti-union legislation made possible by the even more infamous Taft-Hartley law of 1947, the long-standing crown jewel of American anti-union legislation.

Read more: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/586.php

+++++

SPECIAL ISSUE OF GUERNICA ON SCHOOLING

Here is the summary of the contents in the current issue on global education:

In this issue, we examine global education and the shifting gap between rich and poor countries. “Into this gap,” writes author Zadie Smith, “well-meaning people tend to pour in two large groups: the Church Workers and the Aid Workers.” When it comes to education, Smith writes, “there were so few people writing development stories from a human perspective. Stories that were not especially concerned with a man’s eternal soul or his statistical representation, but with his life.” Enter Writers Bloc, a group of renowned scribblers launched into far-flung corners of the globe to report humanely on schools: Aleksander Hemon on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s ethnic education enforcers; Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on Nigeria’s schools as battleground for politics; Kamila Shamsie on the struggles of education reformers in Pakistan; plus, Nathalie Handal on Haiti, two years after the earthquake. Nor is the United States spared this scrutiny. Former Gates Foundation education entrepreneur Tom Vander Ark and Waiting for Superman’s Michelle Rhee discuss why Latvia and Russia are surpassing Americans in schooling. And more great poetry, blogs, art; and for fiction–instead—a play. And Guernica launches the global education issue with a pair of events in London.

Read more: http://guernicamag.com/newsletter/newsletter_browser_Jan16.html

+++++

CALL FOR PAPERS ON COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

Call for papers:  COMM-ORG (http://comm-org.wisc.edu) is a website and list-serve that attempts to bring together theory and practice, and academics and organizers, to advance the craft of community organizing.

COMM-ORG is looking for papers to publish on the COMM-ORG Papers page (http://comm-org.wisc.edu/papers.htm). All papers are also announced on the list-serve, which reaches over 1000 people across more than a dozen nations.

COMM-ORG welcomes papers from scholars, organizers, and scholar-organizers. I also welcome previously published hard-to-find writing.  Authors retain complete control over their work, and COMM-ORG supports authors revising their papers for submission to other outlets.

To submit a paper, contact the editor, Randy Stoecker, at rstoecker@wisc.edu

+++++

OCCUPY WALL STREET: WHY NOW? WHAT’S NEXT?

Naomi Klein and Yotam Marom in conversation about Occupy Wall Street. Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/10-1  

+++++
+++++
(END)

——————————————————————-

ABOUT CSEW (CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION & WORK, OISE/UT):

Head: Peter Sawchuk
Co-ordinator: D’Arcy Martin

The Centre for the Study of Education and Work (CSEW) brings together educators from university, union, and community settings to understand and enrich the often-undervalued informal and formal learning of working people. We develop research and teaching programs at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (UofT) that strengthen feminist, anti-racist, labour movement, and working-class perspectives on learning and work.

Our major project is APCOL: Anti-Poverty Community Organizing and Learning. This five-year project (2009-2013), funded by SSHRC-CURA, brings academics and activists together in a collaborative effort to evaluate how organizations approach issues and campaigns and use popular education. For more information about this project, visit http://www.apcol.ca

For more information about CSEW, visit: http://www.csew.ca

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

‘Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a new song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

The Global Emancipation of Labour

Global Power

THE GLOBAL EMANICIPATION OF LABOUR

Call for Papers: Volume 4 Issue 2 of Interface: A Journal for and about social movements 

Special Issue Theme: For the global emancipation of labour: new movements and struggles around work, workers and precarity

Special issue editors: Elizabeth Humphrys, Peter Waterman, Alice Mattoni, Ana Margarida Esteves

See: http://www.interfacejournal.net/2011/06/call-for-papers-volume-4-issue-2-for-the-global-emancipation-of-labour-new-movements-and-struggles-around-work-workers-and-precarity/

Once, the labour movement was seen as the international social movement for the left (and it was the spectre haunting capitalism). Over the last century, however, labour movements have been transformed. In most of the world membership rates have dwindled, and many act in defence of, or simply provide services to, their members in the spirit of interest or lobbying groups. Labour was once a broad social movement including cooperatives, socialist parties, women’s and youth wings, press and publications, cultural production and sporting clubs. Often it was at the core of movements for democracy or national independence, even of social revolution. Despite the rhetoric of ‘socialism’, ‘class and mass trade unionism’ or, alternatively, technocratic ‘organising strategies’, most union movements internationally operate strictly within the parameters of capitalism and the ideology of ‘social partnership’ (i.e. with and under capital and state).

New labour organising efforts are increasingly moving beyond traditional trade union forms, dependence on the state or parties of the left, and have found new forms linked to ethnic or geographical communities, working women, precarious workers, migrants and other radical-democratic social movements.

These changes may relate to the neoliberalisation and ‘globalization’ of capitalism, and its result in restructured industry and employment. They may also relate to the consequent disorientation of the left. Transformations at the political and economic level have not, however, meant the disappearance of labour movement. Multiple new expressions of labour discontent arise from the bases and the margins of the world of work.

New forms of organising and/or a revival?

Firstly, from the bases we find movements of workers, often in alliance with local communities or other social movements. They are to be found not only in advanced industrial and postindustrial economies, but also — more dramatically — at the capitalist periphery. Labour movements were important in the recent Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings. In the world’s second biggest economy, China, labour has been flexing its muscles in the most repressive and difficult of circumstances. Labour struggle has also begun to revive in the United States, and in the most dramatic fashion with the occupation of the legislature in Wisconsin.

Secondly, we see those who are situated at the margins of labour markets and who experience continuous uncertainty. Increasingly addressed as the ‘precariat’, this includes both high-skilled and low-skilled workers in the rich metropoles of the global North as well as in the slums and fields of the global South. The precarious are younger people, women and migrants, but increasingly those previously full-time workers whose rights and conditions are under attack due to the current economic crisis.

New and emergent movements are taking place at the local, national and transnational level, signaling the ongoing transformation of workers’ struggle all over the world. As capitalism reorganises, expands and reinvents, so too does resistance to its exploitation and subjugation. Some trade unions have encountered difficulty in working amongst workers who do not conform to the model of the full-time, male, family-wage-earning worker, and are seeking new ways of mobilizing and organising. This has been equally true amongst landless workers inBrazil, as with ‘undocumented’ or ‘excluded’ labour in California. Both at the bases and at the margins of the labour realms, women, men and youth are experimenting with radical new forms of struggle, new demands, new places / spaces of articulation, and perhaps re-discovering or re-inventing a global movement for ‘the emancipation of labour’.

Some places to start?

This issue of Interface: a journal for and about social movements seeks to reflect both this immense richness of experiences and the attempt to articulate what has been learnt in one place in ways that may be useful for activists elsewhere. We are looking for articles that tackle questions such as:

How are the geography and politics of labour struggles changing in the 21st century?

What use, and clarity, is there in the distinction between ‘old’ (labour) and ‘new’ social movements?

Is the historically central link with political parties and the state dead or can it be reinvented, and if so, how?

Have strategies such as ‘social movement unionism’, ‘community unionism’, ‘bio-syndicalism’, recognising precarity or movements organising informal workers been effective and how far? Where and to what extent are they successful?

What are the strengths and limits of labour organising among those for whom wage labour is only a part of their livelihood?

What are the relationships between trade unions on the one hand, and on the other hand solidarity economy movements, organisations working with precarious and unemployed workers, and identity- or community-based groups and the labour movement?

How are trade unionists engaging, or failing to engage, with the global justice and solidarity movement?

Are there new trade union or labour internationalism(s), and what form or forms demonstrate this?

What is the significance of information and communication technology (ICT), ‘knowledge workers’ and labour’s own cyberspace activities to such new worker movements?

We intend to explore such matters in this special issue of the new open-access, online, copyleft academic/activist journal, Interface: a Journal for and about Social Movements:  (http://www.interfacejournal.net/).

General submissions

Finally, as in all issues of Interface, we will accept submissions on topics that are not related to the special theme of the issue, but that emerge from or focus on movements around the world and the immense amount of knowledge that they generate. Such general submissions should contribute to the journal’s mission as a tool to help our movements learn from each other’s struggles, by developing analyses from specific movement processes and experiences that can be translated into a form useful for other movements.

In this context, we welcome contributions by movement participants and academics who are developing movement-relevant theory and research. Our goal is to include material that can be used in a range of ways by movements — in terms of its content, its language, its purpose and its form. We thus seek work in a range of different formats, such as conventional articles, review essays, facilitated discussions and interviews, action notes, teaching notes, key documents and analysis, book reviews — and beyond. Both activist and academic peers review research contributions, and other material is sympathetically edited by peers. The editorial process generally is geared towards assisting authors to find ways of expressing their understanding, so that we all can be heard across geographical, social and political distances.

We can accept material in Afrikaans, Arabic, Catalan, Croatian, Danish, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Maltese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Zulu. Please see our editorial contacts page for details of who to submit to.

Deadline and contact details

The deadline for initial submissions to this issue, to be published November 2012, is May 1 2012. For details of how to submit to Interface, please see the ‘Guidelines for contributors’. All manuscripts, whether on the special theme or other topics, should be sent to the appropriate regional editor. Submission templates are available online via the guidelines page.

 

Elizabeth Humphrys

Oceania &South-East AsiaEditor

lizhumphrys@me.com

**END**

 

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

 

‘Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)  

 

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a new song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski