When Work Is Sex

WHEN WORK IS SEX: BODIES, CHOICE AND CAPITALISM

See: http://www.xtalkproject.net/?p=1224
Radical Politics & Critical Perspectives for the Sex Worker Movement
17 December Conference 2015, London
Register Now – tickets on sale http://www.eventbrite.com/e/when-work-is-sex-bodies-choice-and-capitalism-conference-tickets-18706273969

Sex worker activism in the United Kingdom is once again gathering momentum and energy. From Twitter, to the streets of Soho and regular organising meetings, in student unions and universities, sex worker activists can be heard and our voices are strong. The recent decision by Amnesty International to include sex workers’ perspectives in their policy development has reflected a wider shift that sees the value and necessity of incorporating sex workers’ organisations in decision making about the sex industry. But we know that the demand for decriminalisation is just the beginning, not the end of the struggle to transform our industry. We also know that the growing strength of the sex worker movement is producing a number of conflicts and disparate perspectives on how to achieve radical change and transformation. Within our industry there are different experiences of migration, gender and race that impact our safety and ability to earn a living. We often face the paradox of wanting to critique our workplaces, bosses and work but end up having to defend ourselves from radical feminist representations of our experiences and the claim that we are victims in need of rescue. The energy and time it takes fighting to be heard means we often don’t have the space to focus on the very institution we want to bring down: that of capitalist work itself.

When Work is Sex: Bodies, Choice and Capitalism is an opportunity for sex workers, activists and academics who are interested in the politics of work and sex to come together to take stock of the sex worker movement and to consolidate and to strengthen the multiple campaigns, plans and struggles that are already in motion. It will also be a space to debate and discuss some of the different politics and perspectives that have developed in the sex worker movement. We are interesting in asking questions and debating what the goals and orientation of the sex worker rights movement should be. What should a union for sex workers look like? How useful (or limited) is the language of rights? What demands are being made and which should be being made? How can we ‘scale up’ our activities? How can we develop a more robust anti-capitalist orientation? The conference is open to those who are interested in where the sex worker led movement has come from, where it is going and how we can develop a more radical politics of sex work.

The conference is organised into three streams Bodies, Choice and Business. We would like to invite participation in the form of papers, panels and workshops framed around the following themes:

Bodies – How can we address questions and experiences of violence, safety and sexual violence? What does the politics of safe(r) spaces and victimhood mean within the sex worker movement? What are the connections between the criminalisation of (some) bodies and (some) violence? How can we develop a radical concept of autonomy and how could a feminist politics intersect with these concepts?
Choice – How do the discourses of choice, work and identity structure the politics of sex work. How can we approach the politics of consent and notions of freedom? How useful is the claim that sex work is ‘my choice’. What is the role of the entrepreneur in late capitalism and in the sex industry? How can we move beyond the claim for rights and towards a more radical anti-capitalist position?
Business – What are we selling? What are they buying? What does a politics of reproduction bring to the discussion of sex work? How does sex work organise gender and reproductive labour? How has migration changed the conditions of the sex industry? How can we understand our relations of exploitation and complicated class positions in the sex industry?

Submissions for conference papers, panels and workshops are due November 1st. Please send submissions to dec17conf@gmail.com with your name (or working name if you prefer), title, short (300 words max) description and any access or equipment needs you have.

This conference has been organised by the x:talk project and is supported by the Sex Worker Open University, SCOT-PEP and STRASS (France). Email dec17conf@gmail.com to add your organisation’s names to the list of supporters.

On December 17 – the International Day to End Violence against Sex Workers we renew our commitment to solidarity. The majority of violence against sex workers is not just violence against sex works — it’s also violence against transwomen, against women of color, against drug users and against migrants. We cannot end the marginalization and victimization of sex workers without also fighting transphobia, racism, stigma and the criminalization of drug use.

First Published in http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/news/distributed/when-work-is-sex-dec-17-conference-call-for-participation

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

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Violence, Representations and Sexuality

Aesthetics

VIOLENCE, REPRESENTATIONS AND SEXUALITY

FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL NETWORK FOR SEXUAL ETHICS AND POLITICS – INSEP

CALL FOR PAPERS – INSEP2015

13th ‐ 15th July, 2015, Ghent University, Belgium
Hosted by CEVI – Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry
Faculty of Arts and Philosophy
Ghent University, Blandijnberg 2
9000 Ghent – Belgium
See: http://www.insep.ugent.be/insep2015/
General Conference Theme – Violence, Representations and Sexuality

The relationship between violence and sexuality is one of the most critical areas of engagement for sex and sexuality research and activism. There continues to be an epidemic of violence against women and children – rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment and abuse – across the globe, manifest in different cultural customs and practices, authority structures, hetero‐patriarchal and hetero‐normative regimes at both national (and supranational in the case of trafficking) and everyday micro levels. This epidemic is often met with: limited regulatory responses suffused with heterosexist assumptions; legal authorities that fail to prioritise or regard it is less important than other criminal activity; indifference; and/or claims that the prevalent cultural milieu makes it impossible to act. While some efforts have been made in North America, Europe and Australasia to effect change, in many parts of the globe sexual subjection and suffering continues to be seen as a normal state of affairs.

Equally, across the globe sexual difference and departures from heterosexuality are met by varying degrees of violence, ranging from physical attack and murder, to prejudicial and pathological assumptions that are present even in the social context of equality and rights discourses. To be different is still to be ‘othered’ to varying degrees, and that ‘othering’ often takes damaging forms of practice against those who present themselves as different.

The cultural and representational contexts are of particular importance here. It is in the representational form that we most saliently see the cultural demarcations of legitimacy and illegitimacy for sex and sexuality. Through representations, tensions are played out in the public arena that are sometimes manifest only in inter‐subjective or hetero‐normative meaning making. In societies where gay men and lesbians are formally recognised, there remains a dichotomy between the ‘respectable’ different that operates within homonormative constraints and lives without troubling heteronormative assumption, and the ‘queer’ whose personal practices challenge or disrupt cultural and social norms as a feature of being themselves. Likewise, the representation of sex in mainstream medias often reinforces particular understandings and meanings suffused with power, presumption and prejudice. Against that, alternate forms of media can play an important role in promote constructive understandings of the relationship between desire, pleasure and healthy satisfaction.

Violence and sexuality also creates a nexus of troubling contradictions. Recently, the fetishisation of ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’, e.g., normalises a commodified and limited exploration of sexual imagination, whilst BDSMers and others who wish to move beyond difference as an adjunct to genito‐centric and penetrative sex remain culturally prejudiced against and subject to different and sometimes punishing pathologies and legal regulatory regimes. Pornography and prostitution represent other areas of contestation. Is pornography or prostitution inherently violent? Or is there room for sufficient levels of agency and choice? The juxtaposition of pain, violence and sex, whether in practice or in representation, whether consenting or not, splits those radical voices who often support sexual freedom. Does violence and sexuality represent a fault‐line for disagreement? Is that disagreement one of language and representation or of power, degradation and its effects? We welcome papers that explore any aspect of the relationship between violence, representation, sexuality and sex. As always, we also welcome other papers that reflect innovative, creative and thought‐provoking work on sexual ethics and politics in general. For this purpose we retain open streams at the conference. Please feel free to email the conference organisers for further inquiries.

Acceptance Policy

The fifth international conference of INSEP welcomes papers, presentations and panels focusing on conceptual and theoretical debates, cultural and political analysis and empirical studies from which conceptual, ethical and political conclusions are drawn.

INSEP seeks to provide a critical and dynamic space for cutting edge thinking, new research and key discussions and debates about issues of sexual ethics or politics, whether conceptual and theoretical discourse, analytical studies or aesthetically or empirically constituted insights. INSEP sees the value in the fullest range of approaches to the study of sexual ethics and politics, including: gendered and feminist perspectives; distinctive lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and transsexual perspectives; queer perspectives; and approaches from more general positions such as liberalism, Marxism and democratic theory.

The 2015 conference seeks to be an inclusive space for discussion, welcoming dialogue and vigorous debate, but not sectarianism. We consider paper proposals and panel proposals from any disciplinary field, and are willing to consider expositions that take less orthodox forms.

To facilitate funding applications ‐ please note INSEP has no funds of its own – we operate a ‘rolling’ process of abstract review and acceptance or rejection, and can provide documentation where it is required to facilitate funding. Our turnaround time for refereeing is 10 days.

Submission & Timeline: Submissions for papers (250 words), panels or workshops (500 word stipulating participants) should reach us by Monday 15 June at the latest. Earlier of course, is better.

Normal acceptance/rejection notification ‐ 10 days. All delegates/paper‐givers must register by Monday 23 June, and we encourage earlier registration when acceptances have been communicated.

Please send abstracts to: insep.network@gmail.com

The conference fee for the full three days is 150 Euros, which includes the conference pack and refreshments. A concessionary rate of 100 Euros is available to students and postgraduates.

INSEP publishes a journal and a book series with Barbara Budrich Publishers. We would anticipate commissioning publications from the conference and, dependent on quality and coherence, may publish a collection based on themes emerging from the conference. INSEP also welcomes submissions to the journal and proposals to the Book Series.

About INSEP

Sexual ethics and politics lie at the heart of how we understand and practice our sexual lives. They form the basis from which we understand and engage with diverse and different sexualities. Both, however, are currently open to question. On the one hand, discussion of sexual ethics has previously been confined to the auspices of an abstract intellectual discourse, effectively separating it from practice. Sexual politics, on the other hand, has seen progressive advances through world‐wide activism by grass‐roots movements, NGOs and national and international agents, but in the push for progress, the space for self‐critique and reflexivity is often eradicated. INSEP wants to activate a critical dialogue between sexual ethics and politics by connecting them and exploring the ways they can contribute to each other. The sexual is political and just as sexual politics could be enriched by emancipatory ethical thinking, sexual ethics should connect with contemporary sexual activism, politics and practices aiming for the realisation of sexual equalities and justice.
For more info on INSEP & the 2015 conference please visit:

INSEP2015: http://www.insep.ugent.be/insep2015/
INSEP – http://www.insep.ugent.be/
Journal INSEP – http://budrich‐journals.de/index.php/insep
Paul Reynolds
Reader in Sociology and Social Philosophy
Edge Hill University, UK
reynoldp@edgehill.ac.uk
Tom Claes
Associate Professor of Ethics
Ghent University, Belgium
Tom.Claes@UGent.be

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.co.uk/

Beyond Homonormativity?

Feminism

BEYOND HOMONORMATIVITY?

Brunel Centre for Social and Political Thought

“The Art of Government: Perspectives in Social and Political Thought”

Workshop: Beyond Homonormativity? Reconsidering Queer Emancipation

Friday 16th January 2015, 2-6pm, MRJD118, Brunel University, London

Lisa Duggan’s analysis of “the new homonormativity … a politics that does not contest dominant heteronormative assumptions and institutions but upholds and sustains them” stress the problem of western, mostly white, “middle class”, urban, lesbian and gay formations’ political aspirations toward acceptance within contemporary neoliberal economic and political systems. These aspirations factually discard earlier GLBT commitments to economic redistribution, liberation and emancipation in the 1970s. Some examples include claims for normative domestic kinship arrangements relying on neoliberal philosophies of privacy, United States and European exceptionalism and homonationalism marginalizing racialized formations, and the concomitant embracing and promotion of models of gay globalization and formal cultural identity that exclude non-normative sexualities.

This workshop asks participants to think about homonormativity as an occasion to go beyond the simple, although necessary, critiques of sexual formations’ reactionary politics and to reflect on positive alternatives of strategies and politics from queer political formations’ experiences and needs.

Does the accent on discourse, norms, identities and individuality, on which the concept of homonormativity mostly relies, obscure wider structural, historical and ideological causes of the contemporary depoliticization and normalization of gay and lesbian formations, or it is a way to highlight the threat of domestication and of foreclosing of radical and outlaw possibilities of queer?

Can a critical analysis of non-Western and non-white sexual and gender diversity and categorizations contribute to a better understanding and critique of the individualistic and liberal conception of Western and colonial sexual epistemology? Can inputs from Marxism on the relationship between commodification, consumption and culture and recognition of actual queer commons in every day life contribute to a theorization of queer ethics that could disentangle the liberal ideology of private/public divide in the interests of new queer and sexual politics? Are there actually existing alternative sexual practices and ethics and queer anti-capitalist politics that could open up a perspective on emancipation?

The workshop will highlight and showcase these and other connected questions from different but interrelated political, methodological and theoretical approaches.

 

Speakers

Gavin Brown, University of Leicester

Gianfranco Rebucini, Brunel University, London

Paul Reynolds, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk

Leticia Sabsay, London School of Economics and Political Science

 

Organised by Gianfranco Rebucini, Braudel Fellow at Brunel University.

For more information, contact: gianfranco.rebucini@gmail.com

BSPT: http://www.brunel.ac.uk/cbass/politics-history-law/politics/research/bspt

 

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

GUTS: Canadian Feminist Review

Feminism

GUTS: CANADIAN FEMINIST MAGAZINE

CALL FOR PAPERS

 

Next up? GUTS talks about sex in issue 3

Conceptions of bodies, sexuality, and desire have been rallying points for feminist activism, research, and advocacy in different historical moments. Looking back to the 1970s, advocates of the Canadian women’s movement made courageous and influential efforts to secure safe access to abortion clinics, to establish supportive women’s shelters and rape crisis centres, and to better understand women’s reproductive and sexual health. The effects of this movement on Canadian society are undeniable. Take, for example, the Abortion Caravan (1969-70), a national feminist protest that mobilized over 500 activists from all over the country to demand that the government amend its abortion policy. Although abortion was not removed from Canada’s criminal code until 1988, the Caravan brought women’s reproductive rights to the forefront of the country’s consciousness. Coinciding with the Western world’s sexual liberation movement, second wave feminism in Canada made space for conversations about women’s sexuality beyond the bedroom.

Despite clear advances made by early forms of feminist organizing and advocacy in Canada, female and queer bodies remain contested terrain in government social policy:provincially funded abortions are increasingly inaccessible, sex workers face anti-prostitution legislation, and women’s shelters, rape crisis centres, and women’s rights advocacy groups are invariably strapped for cash. All-too-frequent instances of sexual objectification of and violence against women today indicate that sex remains relevant to feminist analysis. And yet, despite the importance of sex to feminism in popular sex-positive discourses, women’s struggles are too often configured as isolated matters, rather than symptoms of a larger patriarchal structure.

For this issue, we set out to demystify sexuality while attending to the ways sexual liberation has evolved into a new brand of feminism that promotes sex as a means of achieving selfhood and financial independence. Pop-feminist discussions of sexuality are too often reduced to a crude consumerist notion of individuality, measured by one’s purchasing power and an ability to sleep with whomever one wants. Although sex positivism once provided a clear avenue toward instituting social and political change, its contemporary manifestation in today’s fabulous, independent, sexually liberated feminist icons only serves to conceal gendered and racialized forms of oppression that continue to inform our daily realities.

Our sex issue invites contributors to recover the politics of bodies, sexuality, and desire.

Potential topics for submissions might include:

• Abortion and reproductive rights
• Critiques of monogamy
• Non-heteronormative sexuality and love
• The romanticization of two-spirited sexuality
• Asexuality
• Polyamorous culture
• Sex-work activism in Canada
• The contemporary anti-porn movement
• Feminist porn (does it exist?)
• Rape culture, consent, and sexual violence
• Violence against and the disappearance of Indigenous women
• Online dating and post-physical relationships
• Disability and sex
• Beauty, consumerism, and self-marketing in a neoliberal economy
• Erotic fanfiction and feminine forms of escape

 

Submission Guidelines:

GUTS accepts personal and journalistic essays; poetry and fiction; reviews of books, TV, music, and film; creative interviews and conversations. GUTS also accepts images and videos relevant to our theme.

Please submit a short proposal (150-300 words) describing your project no later than July 15, 2014 to submit@gutsmagazine.ca

Final submissions (500-4000 words) will be due on September 1, 2014.

For further information about the submission guidelines, please email us at submit@gutsmagazine.ca

Yours,

GUTS

GUTS: http://gutsmagazine.ca/

GUTS Call for Papers: http://gutsmagazine.ca/4502/call-submissions-issue-3/

Feminism

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

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski?ev=hdr_xprf

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

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

Feminisms and Marxisms

Aesthetics

FEMINISMS AND MARXISMS

Feminisms and Marxisms: Connecting Struggles, Rethinking Limits
Call for Papers within the framework of the 10th Historical Materialism Conference, Making the World Working Class.
7-10 November 2013, London, SOAS.
Deadline: May 21

Abstracts for papers and panels should uploaded to:
http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/conferences/annual10/submit

(Visit http://feminismsandmarxisms.wordpress.com/)

Our present poses enormous political and analytical challenges to those committed to the struggle against the oppression and exploitation of women. It demands the creation of spaces for the development of an oppositional culture able to confront new forms of domination, rethink its own assumptions and foster serious political responses. One year ago Historical Materialism launched a call for papers on Feminisms and Marxisms with the aim to provide a space for a dialogue between Feminist and Marxist critiques of capitalism in their various articulations. The response to the call went beyond our most optimistic expectations, demonstrating the vitality and wealth of new research inspired by Marxist-Feminist approaches.

This call aims to build on last year’s discussions, giving voice to a new generation of anti-capitalist feminists and continuing a collective reflection about how Feminisms and Marxisms can together contribute to criticising and transforming the present. At this year’s conference, we aim to think beyond the issue of the compatibilities or tensions between Feminism and Marxism as separate traditions, and explore the way in which they provide the tools to intervene in contemporary debates about labour, oppression and power. We also hope to foster new approaches to old debates, from social reproduction to patriarchy, and advance the understanding of the historic limits and contemporary potentials of Marxist-Feminist theorisations of capitalism.

We welcome papers that address (but are not confined to) the following themes:
Marxist-Feminism in the 21st century
Social Reproduction Feminism and Intersectionality Theory
The Political Economy of Sex Work and Sex Workers’ Struggles
Class/Gender Intersections: Masculinities, LGBTQ, Queer Studies and Trans Politics.
Homophobia and Heteronormativity
Gendered Labour Exploitation
Feminist and Marxist critiques of Racism and Islamophobia
Marxist Feminism and Materialist Feminism
Securitization and Carceral Detention
Theories of Sexuality, Bodies, Embodiment
Feminisms, Marxisms and Art Theory
Gender, International Migration and the Political Economy of Care
Feminist-Marxist Critique of Sexual Violence
Diaspora, Indigeneity, and Solidarity in Marxisms and Feminisms
Inclusive Theories of Class and Resistance
Marxist-Feminist critiques of historical and 21st-century fascism
Feminism and Autonomist Marxism: Understanding the legacy
Marxism and Feminist economics

We welcome and encourage people to submit panel proposals. When you do so, please send an abstract of the general theme of the panel together with the abstracts of the individual papers in the panel. For individual paper proposals, it is helpful, although it is not necessary, to indicate the theme (above) to which your paper could contribute. This will help us to compose the panels.

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Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales); and at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo (new remix, and new video, 2012)

‘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

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Centre for the Study of Education and Work: Update 17th November 2012

Education Crisis

CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION AND WORK: UPDATE 17th NOVEMBER 2012

EVENTS

FREE SCREENING OF “DEBTOCRACY”

Friday, December 7, 2012
7:30pm until 10:00pm
Centre of Gravity Circus Training Studios
1300 Gerrard Street East, Toronto

Event organized by: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Cinema.Politica.Danforth

“Debtocracy” (Greek: hreokratía) seeks the causes of the debt crisis and proposes solutions sidelined by the government and the dominant media.

Aris Chatzistefanou and Katerina Kitidi discuss with economists, journalists and intellectuals from all over the world, who describe the steps that led Greece to the current debt trap – to debtocracy. The documentary follows the course of countries like Ecuador, which created Audit Commissions, and tracks the similar process in Greece.

Debtocracy features the academics David Harvey, Samir Amin, Costas Lapavitsas and Gerard Dumenil; the philosopher Alain Badiou; the head of Ecuador’s Audit Commission Hugo Arias; the president of CADTM Eric Toussaint; journalists like Canadian Avi Lewis (co-creator of the documentary “The Take”) and Jean Quatremer; as well as public figures like Manolis Glezos and Sahra Wagenknecht (from the German party Die Linke).

To be followed by a panel discussion!

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BOOK LAUNCH OF “MONSTERS OF THE MARKET: ZOMBIES, VAMPIRES AND GLOBAL CAPITALISM”

Tuesday, December 4, 2012
7:30pm
The Gladstone Hotel (in the Ballroom)
1214 Queen Street West, Toronto

A night to celebrate the launch (in paperback) of David McNally’s “Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism” and the book’s receipt of the 2012 Deutscher Prize. With MCs Faria Kamal and Alan Sears, remarks from Himani Bannerji and talk and short reading by David.

Drawing on folklore, literature and popular culture, this book links tales of monstrosity from England to recent vampire- and zombie-fables from sub-Saharan Africa, and it connects these to Marx’s persistent use of monster-metaphors in his descriptions of capitalism. Reading across these tales of the grotesque, McNally offers a novel account of the cultural economy of the global market-system.

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BOOK LAUNCH & PUBLIC LECTURE – “SEX, RACE AND CLASS: THE PERSPECTIVE OF WINNING (A SELECTION OF WRITINGS 1952-2011)”

Monday Nov. 26
7:00 p.m.
George Ignatieff Theatre
Trinity College, 15 Devonshire Place, Toronto

In 1972, Selma James set out a new political perspective. Her starting point was the millions of unwaged women who, working in the home and on the land, were not seen as “workers” and their struggles viewed as outside of the class struggle.

For James, the class struggle presents itself as the conflict between the reproduction and survival of the human race, and the domination of the market with its exploitation, wars, and ecological devastation. She sums up her strategy for change as “Invest in Caring not Killing.”

This selection, spanning almost six decades, traces the development of this perspective in the course of building an international campaigning network.

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CANADIAN LABOUR INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: TORONTO

November 24-25, 2012
2:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Innis Town Hall
2 Sussex Ave., Toronto
   
Take in a series of labour-related films at CLiFF-Toronto, a film festival that seeks to tell the stories of workers (unionised and non-unionised) and those who seek justice on the job and dignity in their workplace. The festival is platform for stories that have been made into films, but cannot find an audience beyond the film makers’ own circle of influence.

The film We Are Wisconsin (http://wearewisconsinthefilm.com/) will be playing on Saturday, November 24.

Additional films are also being shown on Saturday, December 1 and Sunday, December 2, 2012.

Download the program for a full list of films and for alternate locations: http://labourfilms.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/TorontoProgram22OctB.pdf

Further details are available on the CLiFF website: http://labourfilms.ca/

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TALK: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE NEW ATTACK ON CANADIAN UNIONS

Monday, Dec. 3
2:30-4:30 p.m.
Ross Bldg., Room S674 (Verney Room)
York University, Toronto

With Andrew Jackson, Packer Chair for Social Justice, York University

Part of “Dispatches from the Global Labour Movement” series, sponsored by York University’s:
– The Centre for Research on Work and Society
– Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy
– Canada Research Chair in the Political Economy of Gender and Work
– Work and Labour Studies Program
– The Department of Political Science
– The Department of Social Science

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NEWS & VIEWS

CHORUS OF WARNINGS GROW: ‘SAY NO TO US AUSTERITY’

by Common Dreams staff

As President Obama and Washington lawmakers embarked on fiscal negotiations to address federal budget concerns and the impacts of a stubborn economic recovery, nearly 350 prominent economists, under the banner “Jobs, Not Austerity,” issued a statement warning that the “obsessive concern with cutting deficits that has infected both parties” is a serious threat to making sound economic policy decisions in Washington.

Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/11/16-7

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TOP LABOUR STORIES THIS WEEK: FROM EUROPE’S GENERAL STRIKE TO MIGRANT WORKERS’ PLIGHT IN CANADA

by Lori Theresa Waller, rabble.ca

It’s been a significant week for the labour movement worldwide, with an unprecedented multi-national general strike yesterday in Europe. So we feel like it’s an appropriate time for us to launch a new weekly feature, recapping the top stories from the labour movement. Each week top labour
stories will be compiled and summarized by our new labour reporter, Lori Theresa Waller. If you have a suggestion for next week’s list, contact lori@rabble.ca

 

Read more: http://rabble.ca/news/2012/11/labour-news-round-weeks-top-stories

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VIDEO: LARRY ROUSSEAU AT OFL EQUITY CONFERENCE

by rabbleTV

Larry Rousseau speaks at Ontario Federation of Labour’s Equity Conference
9-11 November 2012.

Watch the video: http://rabble.ca/rabbletv/program-guide/2012/11/best-net/larry-rousseau-ofl-equity-conference

For more information, please visit http://ofl.ca/index.php/equity2012/ and http://psac-ncr.com

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HOW CHICAGO TEACHERS GOT ORGANIZED TO STRIKE  

by Labor Notes

The seven-day Chicago Teachers Union strike in September beat back a mayor bent on imposing very bad “education reforms.” But how? The win was possible because of years of patient organizing, focused on getting members to step up.

Read more: http://labornotes.org/2012/10/how-chicago-teachers-got-organized-strike
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INTERNS, UNITE! (YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE – LITERALLY)

by Greig de Peuter, Nicole Cohen, Enda Brophy, Briarpatch Magazine If decent, full-time work is getting harder to come by, the same can’t be said for internships, whether unpaid or barely paid.

Unpaid interns frequently perform work that used to be done by entry-level paid staff, and are also denied access to labour protections and benefits extended to traditional workers. More importantly, few people can afford to work for free. If doing an unpaid internship persists as an obligatory rung on today’s shaky career ladder, the professions drawing on this system will be transformed to favour those from wealthier backgrounds. Beyond parents (not all of whom can remortgage to support their 22-year-old’s cashless gig in an expensive city), subsidies come from personal loans or part-time jobs. “Paying your dues” is a lazy cliché rather than an ethical argument for why it’s acceptable for young people to donate their labour. From street protests to online campaigns, the emerging intern activism is one part of the wider effort by fresh actors to reformat labour politics for precarious times.

Read the full story here: http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/interns-unite-you-have-nothing-to-lose-literally

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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

 

****END****

 

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

‘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

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

Glenn Rikowski’s MySpace Blog: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski/blog

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

 

Glenn Rikowski’s paper, Critical Pedagogy and the Constitution of Capitalist Society has been published at Heathwood Press as a Monthly Guest Article for September 2012, online at:

http://www.heathwoodpress.com/monthly-guest-article-august-critical-pedagogy-and-the-constitution-of-capitalist-society-by-glenn-rikowski/

 

Heathwood Press: http://www.heathwoodpress.com 

 

The Individuality Pr♥test: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/transcontinental/the-individuality-prtest

 

I Love Transcontinental: http://ihearttranscontinental.blogspot.co.uk/

 

 

Feminisms and Marxisms

Sara Carpenter and Shahrzad Mojab

FEMINISMS AND MARXISMS

Call for Papers: In the framework of the 9th Historical Materialism Conference, ‘Weighs like A Nightmare’, SOAS, Central London, 8-11 November 2012

Feminisms and Marxisms 

A new generation of anti-capitalist feminists has emerged in the last years across the world. Although not without tensions and disagreements, these new feminist currents have been in constant dialogue with different traditions of Marxism and the Marxist critique of political economy in areas ranging from social science, philosophy to art history. With the aim of providing a space for this dialogue, the 9th Historical Materialism conference inLondonwelcomes presentations exploring the synergies between the feminist and the Marxist critiques of capitalism in their various articulations. 

Paper proposals (between 200 and 300 words) should be submitted by registering at: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/conferences BEFORE 10 May 2012. Submissions will be peer reviewed. Please be aware that the conference is self-funded therefore we are unable to help with travel and accommodation costs.

Themes of particular interest for the conference include:

      Marxist and Socialist feminism in the 21st century

      The critique of the political economy of sex work

      Autonomia and Feminism: A legacy?

      Intersectionality theory and Marxism

      Feminist and Marxist critiques of liberal feminism

      Queer studies, LGBTQ and Marxism

      Feminist and Marxist critiques of gendered labour exploitation

      Feminist and Marxist critiques of racism and Islamophobia

      The political economy of gender and carceral detention

      Feminism, Marxism and art theory

      Women’s collectives and the contemporary art world

      Feminist, Marxism and the visual cultures of globalisation

      Gendered international migrations

      Commodification of care

      Social reproduction

Please note that the following donations are requested in support of conference costs:

£50 waged/15 unwaged on pre-registration
£75 waged / 25 unwaged at the door

**END**

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

‘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

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

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

Glenn Rikowski’s MySpace Blog: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski/blog

Petrocultures

Culture

PETROCULTURES

Call for Papers, Panels and/or Workshop Proposals

Petrocultures: Oil, Energy, Culture

University of Alberta: September 6, 7th and 8th, 2012

 

The “Petrocultures: Oil, Energy, Culture” conference will take place on September 6, 7th and 8th, 2012, at the University of Alberta (Edmonton, Canada).  Keynote speakers include Allan Stoekl (Penn State University), Warren Cariou (University of Manitoba) and Ursula Biemann (video artist, Switzerland). 

Petrocultures will bring together scholars, writers, filmmakers and artists from around the world who are engaged in an exploration of the social and cultural dimensions and impacts of oil and energy.  The conference will examine and (re)assess how energy has been and remains an intrinsic part of socio-political life and cultural productivity, with a focus on two areas of research:

1)  How does our understanding of socio-cultural objects, events and phenomena change if we frame an analysis of them explicitly in relation to oil (and energy more generally)? What insights would we gain across the disciplines from such a theoretical/methodological maneuver? For instance, what might happen if we frame cultural and intellectual periods (as we do in the study of literature) not in terms of movements (e.g., modernism), nations (British modernism), or centuries (18th, 19th, 20th…), but in relation to dominant forms of energy at any given moment?

2)  How do energy resources that fuel the exploitation of the environment impact not only everyday life but also the form and content of its representation? What is the potential of these cultural representations produced through multiple technologies of publication and artistic/communicative production (e.g., art, film, literature), to rupture and/or change the ways in which we live with and relate to oil? 

 

We invite papers, panels and workshop proposals that take up the above questions as well as contributions that address any of the wide range of topics related to petrocultures:

 

● labour in petrocultures (influx of temporary foreign workers, transient labour forces, the rights or lack thereof of labour, etc.)

● the composition of communities in historical and contemporary oil economies

● education in energy societies

● health (sex, drugs, addiction)

● the intersection of cultural and environmental issues (resource management, water and oil, etc.)

● Aboriginal cultures and societies (land and mineral rights, community safety, race in petrocultures, etc.)

● gender issues and women’s rights in male dominated labour markets

● politics and social-political life in petro-states

● and the impacts of all of these issues on forms of cultural production (art, literature, film, etc.) that attempt to represent and address the socio-cultural realities of living alongside oil technologies.  

 

Papers will be accepted based on the merit of the proposed study, originality of approach, and fit with the aims and theme of the conference.  Graduate students are especially encouraged to apply. Please indicate when you submit your abstract whether you are interested in also participating (at your own cost) in a three day excursion on (September 9th- 11th) to Northern Alberta to tour the oil/tar sands. A selection of papers and presentations from the 2012 conference will be published in an edited collection on Petrocultures by McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Deadline for submission: October 15, 2011.  Decisions will be announced by December 1st, 2011.  

Please send all proposals to: petrocultures@gmail.com (c/o Imre Szeman and Sheena Wilson)

 

Types of submissions:

· 15-20 minute individual presentation: conference paper.

· 45-60 minute panel/roundtable (3-4 presenters).

· 90-minute workshop (hands-on learning, interactive): Interactive sessions that encourage participant involvement. 

 

These workshops can be focused on generating discussion and recording ideas on specific subjects and themes.  These workshops can also encourage creative responses to oil and energy (e.g., through a writing workshop, a visual arts workshop etc.)

Propose an individual paper: Please send a 250 word abstract and a 100 word biography, as well as your contact information

Propose a panel: Please send a 250 word abstract for the panel, with a descriptive title for each presentation, and a 50 word bio and contact information for all members of the panel. When submitting the proposal, please copy it to all panel-participants to facilitate future correspondences. 

Propose a workshop: The Petrocultures conference will be the ideal venue for exploring theoretical and practical approaches to oil and energy in culture.  If you would like to lead a workshop session either independently or with other presenters, please submit a 250 word abstract for the workshop, with a 100 word bio for all workshop leaders.

Petrocultures is supported through funding from the Kule Institute for Advanced Study (UniversityofAlberta), Campus Saint Jean (UniversityofAlberta) and the Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies.

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Borderlands E-Journal – Volume 9 Number 3 (2010)

Jacob

BORDERLANDS E-JOURNAL – VOLUME 9 NUMBER 3 (2010)

Special Issue on:
Religion & Sexuality
Editor: Aaron Goodfellow

http://www.borderlands.net.au/issues/vol9no3.html

INTRODUCTION

Aaron Goodfellow
Religion/Sexuality: Politics/Affects

ESSAYS

Veena Das
Sexuality, Vulnerability, and the Oddness of the Human: Lessons from the Mahabharata

Naveeda Khan
Images That Come Unbidden: Some thoughts on the Danish cartoons controversy

Éric Fassin
Celibate Priests, Continent Homosexuals: What the exclusion of gay (and gay-friendly) men from priesthood reveals about the political nature of the Roman Catholic Church

Deepak Mehta
Self-Dissolution, Politics and the Work of Affect: The life and death of Sufi Baba

Bhrigupati Singh
Asceticism and Eroticism in Gandhi, Thoreau and Nietzsche: An essay in geo-philosophy

François-David Sebbah
Erotic Face and Ethical Face After Levinas

REVIEWS & ESSAYS

Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel
A Human Right to Stupidity
(Jacques Derrida, The Beast and the Sovereign Volume 1, trans. Geoffrey Bennington, Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 2009.)

Vineeth Mathoor
(Anouar Majid, We Are All Moors: Ending Centuries of Crusades against Muslims and Other Minorities, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.)

Guy Lancaster
Promoting Conflict or Peace through Identity

—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)

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

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

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

Diminishing Returns? Feminist Engagements with the Return to ‘The Commons’

Feminism

DIMINISHING RETURNS? FEMINIST ENGAGEMENTS WITH THE RETURN TO ‘THE COMMONS’

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An international workshop hosted by the Kent Centre for Law, Gender, and Sexuality and Kent Law School

Wednesday 23 March 2011
Kent Law School
Canterbury, UK*
12-6pm

With presentations by:

Rosemary Coombe (York University, Canada)
Radhika Desai (University of Manitoba, Canada)
Denise Ferreira da Silva (Queen Mary, UK)
Nina Power (Roehampton, UK)

Discussed by:

Donatella Alessandrini (Kent, UK)
Brenna Bhandar (Kent, UK)

The day will consist of two sessions, broken up with a light lunch (provided) and followed by dinner (not provided). Please join us for part or all of the day. More information about the theme of the workshop can be found below.

The event is free but spaces are limited. To book a spot please register by emailing Stacy Douglas at: S.M.Douglas@kent.ac.uk before 1 March 2011.

*There are some funds available for postgraduate students who wish to travel to Kent for the workshop. If you are interested please email Stacy Douglas at S.M.Douglas@kent.ac.uk with a brief case for support as well as an estimated cost for your train travel. Information about traveling to Kent can be found here.

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Background:

Garrett Hardin’s now infamous essay “Tragedy of the Commons” (1968) stands as a Hobbesian analogy for what he claims are the inherent destructive capacities of human beings that perpetually stand in the way of realizing a free community of individuals with shared resources. Hardin’s essay suggests that, when faced with the responsibility of sharing the commons, individual human self-interest – or fear of it – will win out over practices of collectivity, sharing, and mutual aid.

More recently, there has been a resurgence in political theory and political philosophy in addressing the concept of “the commons”. Some of the most popularly cited references to the idea can be found in the work of Slavoj Žižek (2009) and Hardt and Negri (2009). This work has further been expounded upon in international conferences devoted to the “Idea of Communism” in London (2009) and Berlin (2010).  Steeped in the philosophy of Spinoza, Hardt and Negri use a notion of the common that “…does not position humanity separate from nature, as either its exploiter or its custodian, but focuses rather on the practices of interaction, care, and cohabitation in a common world, promoting the beneficial and limiting and detrimental forms of the common” (2009). For Žižek, the commons is comprised of culture (“primarily language, our means of communication and education, but also shared infrastructure such as public transport, electricity, post, etc…”), external nature (“from oil to forests and the natural habitat itself”), and internal nature (“the biogenetic inheritance of humanity”), and are all increasingly enclosed by the forces of global capital. It is the process of our exclusion from these commons (“our own substance”) that Žižek argues should effectively proletarianize us into fighting for something more than capitalist liberal democracy – a system whose laissez-faire violence is justified through the empty gesture of “universal inclusion” without any material bite. Žižek’s answer to this political conundrum is a call for communism.

And yet, the past century has seen vast and varied critical feminist engagements with historically changing concepts of communism and “the commons”. Struggles for universal suffrage, critiques of universality, denouncements of the hollowing out of the welfare state as a result of neoliberalisation, and challenges to the concept of the human, are all examples of a rich and diverse feminist tradition of engagement with the concept of “the commons”. Given the popular return to the idea of the commons, what more does feminist analysis have to give to this conversation? Does the concept still have potential for future feminist projects? If so, what is this potential and what do these projects look like? How do they resonate – or not – with those of the past? Further, given the broader theme of the workshop series, what role – if any – does the “the state” play in these imaginings?

The Kent Centre for Law, Gender, and Sexuality (KCLGS) and Kent Law School invite you to participate in a workshop exploring the contemporary feminist work of Rosemary Coombe, Radhika Desai, Denise Ferreira da Silva, and Nina Power as it resonates or clashes with these questions. For more information or to register, email S.M.Douglas@kent.ac.uk or visit www.kent.ac.uk/law/kentclgs/. 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

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

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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

International Socialism Journal Issue 129

Socialism and Hope

INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM JOURNAL ISSUE 129

http://www.isj.org.uk/

CONTENTS:

Analysis
The student revolt and the crisis

Mad as hatters? The Tea Party movement in the US
Megan Trudell

Police killings and the law
Simon Behrman

Labourism and socialism: Ralph Miliband’s Marxism
Paul Blackledge

True crime stories: some New Labour memoirs
John Newsinger

Marxism and disability
Roddy Slorach

Decoding capitalism
Joseph Choonara

What’s wrong with school history?
Andrew Stone

Why we should be sceptical of climate sceptics
Suzanne Jeffery

Tony Cliff’s Lenin and the Russian Revolution
John Rose

Feedback

Sex work: a rejoinder
Gareth Dale and Xanthe Whittaker

Discussing the alternatives
Grace Lally

Book reviews

A tangled tale
Yuri Prasad

Revolution rewritten
Jack Farmer

Analysing honour
Mark Harvey

Globalising Gramsci
Adrian Budd

Intellectual weapons
Alex Callinicos

Pick of the quarter

This quarter’s selection

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

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

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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Centre for the Study of Education and Work – Update 3rd January 2011

No Future

CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION AND WORK – UPDATE 3rd JANUARY 2011

EVENTS

SOCIAL ECONOMY CENTRE 2010-2011 WORKSHOP SERIES

January: Marketing in Non-Profit and other Social Purpose Organizations with Sharon Wood and Trish Krauss, The Belmont Group

Friday, January 28, 2011
9:30 am – 4:00 pm
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Room 5-240
252 Bloor Street West, Toronto (St. George subway station)

Cost: $140 + HST. Each additional participant from the same organization will receive a $15 discount, as will those who register for more than one workshop. Student rate available.
Refreshments, coffee & tea served,  but lunch not provided.

To Register:  Access the online registration form at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FY65KMM, or contact Lisa White at secworkshops@gmail.com, or 416-978-0022
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FREE SCREENING OF ‘WHY WE FIGHT’

January 7, 2011
7:30 – 9:30pm
Centre of Gravity
1300 Gerrard St. East, Toronto

You are invited to a free screening of the film, ‘Why We Fight’ – which deals with the concept and escalation of the ‘military-industrial complex,’ generally, and that phenomenon in the U.S. more particularly.

Helping us through discussions of issues associated with this film will be Dr. Peter Langille, PhD in Peace Studies from the University of Bradford, Advisor to the UN and other governments about issues of international peacekeeping. Dr. Langille also has authored several books, including Changing the Guard: Canada’s Defence in a World in Transition.

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CONFERENCE –  BUILDING THE WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT

January 29 – 30
Ryerson Student Centre – Oakham House
63 Gould Street, Toronto

The Labour Committee of the Greater Toronto Workers Assembly (GTWA) is organizing a conference where activists can come together to talk about the attacks on the working-class in every dimension of our lives, reframe the public discussion and launch a united activist network of workers from all sectors, unions and precarious workers, new immigrants and non-unionized workers to mobilize a new kind of working class movement. 

The conference is a chance to come together to build the fight-back we’ve all been waiting for, but which will never happen unless we make it happen. We need a new kind of fighting working-class movement – a movement that builds across workplaces, communities and unions and the non-unionized majority of the working class.

Registrations are now open! Please visit our website for more details and to register: http://www.workersassembly.ca/callout2011.

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SEMINAR – COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN SEX WORK RESEARCH

January 5
10:00 am – 12:00 noon
208N – North House, Munk School, 1 Devonshire Place, University of Toronto

Speaker: Emily van der Meulen (Lupina Post-Doctoral Fellow)

Sponsored by Comparative Program on Health and Society

Register online at: http://webapp.mcis.utoronto.ca/EventDetails.aspx?eventid=9330

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WORKSHOP –  PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH USING A SOCIAL ANALYSIS SYSTEMS [SAS2] APPROACH

February 8 – 10, 2011
80 Hayden Street (Bloor and Yonge Streets)
Toronto

Carleton University and PWRDF are pleased to offer a SAS2 Introductory Workshop.

In the workshop you can expect:

* Three days of hands-on learning using Participatory Action Research
* Tools for group-based inquiry and problem-solving
* Time to work on issues and problems that matter to you
* A chance to appreciate and acquire the skills to adapt SAS2 to your context
* Engaging and fun approaches designed to make SAS2 easy to grasp, and even easier to use.

For more information on the workshop click here: http://sas2dialogue.com/SAS2training.html

For information on the SAS2 approach to Participatory Action Research see: http://sas2.net

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NEWS & VIEWS

2011: CALLING TIME ON CAPITALISM

by Richard Wolff, guardian.co.uk

Recent decades have seen a massive redistribution of wealth, imposing the cost of successive crises on the poorest. Enough!

Read more: http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/83-83/4461-2011-calling-time-on-capitalism

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EQUALITY, A TRUE SOUL FOOD

by Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times

John Steinbeck observed that “a sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.”

That insight, now confirmed by epidemiological studies, is worth bearing in mind at a time of such polarizing inequality that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans possess a greater collective net worth than the bottom 90 percent.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/opinion/02kristof.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

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NEW PENSION PLAN JUST ANOTHER LUMP OF COAL

by Ish Theilheimer, Straight Goods

Canada is facing a crisis of seniors’ poverty as millions of Baby Boomers retire from, get forced out of, or simply lose their work. Most privately employed and self-employed Canadians don’t have pensions or adequate savings to retire in security. Adding to the number of seniors in poverty, pensioners from companies like Mitel have seen their pension plans consumed as their companies folded, leaving them with nothing but public benefits.

Read more: http://www.straightgoods.ca/2010/ViewArticle.cfm?Ref=1071&Cookies=yes

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ONTARIO ACADEMIC LIBRARIANS CONCERNED ABOUT SEVERE BUDGET CUTS

Ontario’s university libraries appear to be bearing a sizeable share of the cuts as universities grapple with budget cutbacks. A new report, based on a questionnaire sent to Ontario’s academic librarians, describes widespread staffing reductions, neglect of library collections, and delays in technology investments.

“Ontario’s academic librarians are at the forefront of supporting students and faculty in their research and teaching, tending to extensive collections, and introducing new technology advances to keep up with the demands of the digital world,” said Constance Adamson, an academic librarian at Queen’s University and vice-president of Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA).

Read more: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/December2010/06/c2731.html

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LOOKING INTO THE CRYSTAL BALL: 2011 PREDICTIONS FROM THE CCPA

by rabble.ca

Happy new year rabble readers! As we round out another decade, thoughts turn to the future, and our partners at the The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives have weighed in on the issues facing Canada in the years ahead. They flag the economy, social unrest, drift, democracy, dirty oil and corporate Canada as things to watch in 2011 and beyond.

Read more: http://rabble.ca/news/2011/01/looking-crystal-ball-2011-predictions-ccpa

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PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS AND THE CONSULTATIONS FOR AUSTERITY

by Jordy Cummings and Patrick D. LeGay, The Bullet

Nearly six months have gone since the G20 Summit in Toronto when we supposedly entered what some have referred to as “permanent austerity” – the “new normal” of capitalist social relations. Whilst using the significant resources of the state to inject liquidity into markets and ensure corporate and banking profits, ruling classes simultaneously are cutting public services across the board, imposing user fees and letting public transit rot, and, in the specific case at hand, kicking labour’s ass while convincing the public bureaucracy that there is no alternative.

Read more: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/446.php

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ONLINE JOURNAL ARTICLES

Changing the Climate: Ecoliberalism, Green New Dealism, and the Struggle Over Green Jobs in Canada
James Patrick Nugent
Labor Studies Journal published 28 December 2010
http://lsj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0160449X10392528v1

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“The Very Model of Modern Urban Decay”: Outsiders’ Narratives of Industry and Urban Decline in Gary, Indiana
S. Paul O’Hara
Journal of Urban History published 30 December 2010
http://juh.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0096144210391613v1

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The Connection Between Latino Ethnic Identity and Adult Experiences
Vasti Torres, Sylvia Martinez, Lisa D. Wallace, Christianne I. Medrano,
Andrea L. Robledo, and Ebelia Hernandez
Adult Education Quarterly published 29 December 2010
http://aeq.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0741713610392765v1

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Occupations, Human Capital and Skills
Alec Levenson and Cindy Zoghi
Journal of Labor Research
Volume 31, Number 4, 365-386
http://www.springerlink.com/content/74h65v565218v535/

(END)

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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 CSEW, visit: http://www.csew.ca

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

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

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

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

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com