As they have delivered work from labor and industrial logics, artisans have likewise redeemed materials from their status and calculus as “inputs”.
20 Years After Seattle: Call for Reflections by participants in N30 WTO manifestation.
They were wearing [mostly] black. After 10 minutes in the room I asked myself “is this the new left?” I was pretty sure they wouldn’t
I had written my dissertation about this seeming convergence of movements. Everyone thought I was completely crazy. I didn’t think it would happen so soon.
So the topic of this session is innovation and social change in the food system. I’m going to start with some examples of innovation. There
1. Why Street Protest
• a fundamental right and contribution to democracy is to express our dissent
• collective manifestation of dissent creates news, encourages others, threatens elites
• the way to win (reforms) is to raise the costs of the current way of doing things until it becomes in the interests of the elites to do it our way
• threat/promise to take over
“You have presented things I have never seen in the same chain of meanings.”
Lecture to the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, 5 February 2015.
Historical evidence insists that oppression on its own does not produce social movement reaction. In places with little culture of resistance, there will be little social movement reaction to social problems, or occasional outbursts may not be sustained. San Francisco has had, regularly and recently over the last decades, a series of effective and sustained street manifestations, so there are people, organizations, networks, systems, etc. to make the next ones bigger and more robust.
So what is the cosmology of food sovereignty? Food is a community, not a commodity… But how do we turn this idea into culture? Alberto Melucci explains how it is that we create culture… through creating new spaces, identities, meanings, identities, commitments….
His explanation of his strategic capacities is “I am an electrician.” This reminds me of Matthew Crawford’s painstaking work on the “cognitive riches” of trade labour. (Summary here.) Crawford’s point is that trade work is satisfying. Wałȩsa’s point is that it is also a form of analytic training.
Andrew’s comparison of the global consolidation of media with the global consolidation of food, gave me an idea! I’ve been applying the model of the
Alana has studied one of the many vibrant alternatives to this juggernaut, the movement for food sovereignty, conceived and led by La Vía Campesina. Vía Campesina is typical of contemporary social movements in its recognition of the common interests of first and third world farmers, smallholders and laborers, producers and consumers and in its recognition of the centrality of women, indigenous people and culture to forming truly liberatory alternatives.
The first map is a graphic representation of my analysis of the US movement, and the other denotes the comparable elements existing in AU (to
I was invited to speak at Design your Day Job, organized by &Company, part of Vivid Ideas 2013. 25 May 2013 Sydney Australia I’m new to
Table of Contents An Underground Restaurant: Local Food, Artisan Economics, and Creative Political Culture 1 Not a potluck: is it food? is it performance art?
Participatory democracy has been studied as an auxiliary to state processes and as an institutional and cultural part of social movements. This paper examines the
My overview of the literature Key points to keep in mind about social movements there is considerable debate about how to define them. it’s not
4.22.08 Amory Starr Boston College Sociology Seminar Alternative Consumption Projects’ Use of Social Movement Strategies The paper I distributed is about local food as
‘A guidebook helps those who search. In a time of “infinite war”, when we confront the infinite stupidity, lies and arrogance of power, we search
“The Role of the University and the Role of Student Power” The University: Fortress or Beacon: Open Forum Colorado State University, 10 October, 2001 I
Confronting Globalization for Communities Confronting Capitalist Globalization University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 14-16 April, 2000 14 April, 7 pm, Corwin Pavilion. Hello. I’m very
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