SeminarWorkshops

Making Global Civil Society

A weekend gathering for collective reflection amongst activists and academics.

November 4, 5 & 6 - 2005.

Lancaster University, North West England.

Seminars and Workshops

The gathering will have sessions that include several/multiple presentations, position, and discussion papers. Each session should self-organise note-taking in order to provide FeedBack. The sessions (click on the links for details) have been grouped in this way:

Friday:

Welcome/Introduction 16:00 - 16:30

• General Hellos and practical stuff

• Update from the George Fox Six (Matt Wilson)
  • See also posting/debate on [Indymedia]
  • and a comprehensive Indymedia [newswire posting]

OpeningPlenary 16:30 - 18:00

• Global Uprisings Collective: Introducing Ideas, Questions and Themes (Graeme Chesters, Michal Osterweil - email: osterwei AT email.unc.edu). More on this [.pdf file]

Position papers:

• How do we win? (Laurence) http://knowledgelab.pbwiki.com/f/How+do+we+win.doc

InfoTainment 21:00 (after food!)

• Tactical Arts: C.R.A.P and the History of Subvertising (Northern Arts Tactical Offensive) http://www.beyondtv.org/nato/

Saturday:

Melting the AcademiaActivism Border 9:30 - 11:30

• Reflections on Experiences - incl. the radical theory forum, the bemgelada network, ephemera, IFIwatch, encounters in open space (Sian Sullivan, Rodrigo Nunes, Emma Dowling, Steffen Boehm, Michal Osterweil, Tadzio Mueller, Zoe Young, Pennie Quinton - email: osterwei AT email.unc.edu or esd AT riseup.net) Download the proposal as a [file - plus presentation of a developing directory of activist research and experience (Mayo Fuster Morell - email: lilaroja AT gmx.net) .pdf file]

notes from this session [.doc file]

How can we build a different world: TheoryforAction 9:30 - 11:30

• What is common to the ways in which movements have gone from simply defensive battles to more fundamental challenges to the social order (drawing on experiences from the Narmada anti-dam movement, Argentinian unemployed workers movement, Irish anti-capitalist movement)? And what should movements be doing if they want to take these struggles further and construct that "different world"? (Sara Motta, Alf Nilsen, Terry Dunne, Laurence Cox, Tracey Ryan - email: S.C.Motta-Mera AT lse.ac.uk; Alf.Nilsen AT sos.uib.no; room101ucg AT yahoo.co.uk; laurence.cox AT nuim.ie and bobssista AT care2.com) [.pdf file]

Papers:

- Reinventing development in the South: patterns of popular protest in India and Argentina (Sara, Alf) - Joining the dots in the North: connecting local resistance and the anti-capitalist movement in Ireland (Terry, Tracey) - What should the movement of movements do if we want to win? (Alf, Laurence) http://knowledgelab.pbwiki.com/f/Chapter+5+Lancaster+draft.doc

NetworkingFeminism 13:15 - 15:00

• FEMACT: Exploring Feminisms and Activisms (Jude Clark, Hannah Berry, Barbara Biglia, Johanna Motzkau, Alexandra Zavos - email: femact AT investigaccio.org)[.pdf file]

• "Networks give us the possibility to dream": Women’s Movement, Democratisation and Translocal Networking in Malaysia (Anna Spiegel - email: anna.spiegel AT uni-bielefeld.de) [.pdf file]

AntiCapitalism and the Workplace: Connecting Sites of Struggle 13:15 - 15:00

• Enclosure and Resistance in the Knowledge Economy: Science, Capitalism and the Universities (Larry Reynolds) [.pdf not available]

• Precarious and Immaterial Labour: Problems and Possibilities for Anti-Capitalist Resistance (Benn Trott) .pdf file not available.

• Participatory Economics: a very short introduction (Matt Wilson) .pdf file not available.

• Activist Research, Research Activism and Vice Versa: What's in a Name? (Rodrigo Nunes) [.pdf file]

CommodificationandResistance in Theory and Practice 13:15 - 15:00

• Demanding the Impossible: Leaps of Faith, Lines of Fight (Gavin Grindon - email: gavin AT cyber-rights.net) [.pdf file]

• "But aren't we all just selfish individuals?": Interrogating the Commodity Hegemony (Tadzio Mueller - email: tadziom AT yahoo.com) [.pdf file]

SocialOrganisation and The Movement of Movements 15:15 - 17:15

• -Grassrooting Network Imaginaries (Paul Routledge - email: proutledge AT geog.gla.ac.uk)- Paul has fallen ill, and won't make it :-( but you can here download his whole paper as a [.pdf file]

• Analysing proposals by social movements regarding so-called "global governance" (Thibault Le Texier - email: t.letexier AT ritimo.org) [abstract as .pdf file] [full paper as .pdf file]

• Local-Global Organising: A Philosophical Argument (bluegreenearth, Ireland - Tim Barton - email: tim_decenter AT yahoo.com). Website at BlueGreenEarth and the European Social Ecology Institute. An editorial at the latter site gives a fuller version of the argument. The philosophical poiints will be expanded on in seperate essays as the Institute evolves, with input from Robert Allen of Ireland From Below; Steve Booth of Green Anarchist; and others from the An Talamh Glas / BLUE collective. [.pdf file]

• The Concept of Horizontalisation: its meanings and its dilemmas (Nina Marolt - email: n.marolt AT sussex.ac.uk) [.pdf file]

LandandCommunity 15:15 - 17:15

• Experiences and Hopes of Community Building (anon.) [.pdf not available]

• Planning, human rights, and sustainable communities (Mike Hannis - email: m.a.hannis AT lancaster.ac.uk) [.pdf]

• Land Reform in Scotland: Restructuring power relations to "right historical wrongs"? (Andy Samuel - email: a.samuel AT abertay.ac.uk) [.pdf]

• Radical Communities: dwellings, alt tech- examples of our day to day lives from front line Temporary Autonomus Zones to land coops (Alex Plows and others - email: plowsa AT cardiff.ac.uk) [.pdf not available]

31.10.05 the pdf for this session IS available if you click on the LandandCommunity link above and access the pdf from there. lots of pictures :-) alex

MobilisationandMobility 15:15 - 17:15

• G8 Mobilisation in Germany: Heading off to Scotland (Elli Grindel) .pdf file not yet available.

• The Role of the Political Tourist in Making Global Civil Society: Thinking about Travel under Capitalism and Feedback from the Boundaries-to-Bridges Tour, 2003 (Fabian Frenzel - email: fab AT in-no.org) [.pdf file]

• Embedded Protest: "official" vs. "unofficial" protest - a group presentation on strengthening and undermining the system through protest (Fabian Frenzel - email: fab AT in-no.org, Gavin Grindon - email: gavin AT cyber-rights.net, Mike Hazzelby, Dougald Hine) [.pdf file]

Sunday

GlobalCivilSociety: Concepts and Issues 10:00 - 11:30

• Global civil society in the water sector – exploring the “blue” diversity (Lena Partzsch - email: Lpartzs AT zedat.fu-berlin.de) [.pdf file]

• -Competing Visions of Democracy in Contemporary Civil Society (Kevin Gillan)- Kevin can unfortunately not make it :-(

• "Up the Mode" in the Era of Post-Neoliberalism: Political Economy in the Recent Late Stages of Capitalism (Thomas Weaver - email: tweaver AT email.arizona.edu) [.pdf file]

Action Research and SelfOrganisation in the Margin 10:00 - 11:30

• Experiences with the Self-Organisation of Drug Users (James Attwood - email: jamesba6512 AT yahoo.com) [.pdf file]

• Action Research with and Founding of the International Union of Sex Workers (Ana Lopes - email: ana AT iusw.org) [.pdf file]

CounterSpin: Remembering and Presenting the Movement 10:00 - 11:30

• Euromovements.org (Alexandra Hache - email: alexhache2002 AT yahoo.es) [.pdf file]

• Experiences of the Counter Spin Collective at the G8 Summit 2005: Facilitating 'the message' to the World's Media (akanada - email: akanada AT riseup.net) [.pdf file]

• Radical popular education as counter-narrative (Isabelle Fremeaux - email - isafrem AT yahoo.com) [.pdf file]