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THIS TUESDAY: Migration, labour,
media and organizing -- The back side of the information
society
08.Dec.03 - Everyone is an expert presents: Saskia Sassen,
Chicago/London, Valery Alzaga, Mexico City/Denver, Myoingjoon
Kim, Seoul, Shahidul Alam, Dhaka and many others
TUESDAY
DECEMBER 9 2003 | Workshop starting at 1 pm | Presentations at
7 pm | Université Ouvriére de Genéve | Place des Grottes |
Geneva (50 meters from the railway station)
What does
migrant workers struggle have to do with the information
society?
How can
information and communication technologies empower social
struggles on a global level?
What's the link
between the campaigns for freedom of communication and the
fight for freedom of movement?
On the eve of
the UN summit on the information society the EVERYONE IS AN
EXPERT association calls to a debate about issues that are not
present on the agenda of neither govermental nor
non-governmental organizations: migration, labour, and
organizing
Tabooing the so
called dirty side of the information society comes as no
surprise: It refers to a naive view on technology and
development but also responds to the real threat and
manifolded impact of migration patterns to the existing world
order.
Migration is
not just a collateral damage of global capitalism nor a
dispensable side-effect of the information society: The
political power of exodus and refusal is subverting the
souvereignity of both the nation states as well as the new
regimes of hyper-exploitation on a global level.
As
globalization from below, migration movements constitute a
global resistance against old and new economies and their
modes of exclusion, repression, division, separation,
detention and selection.
Migration is
the subjective, most pragmatic and realistic attempt, to
overcome a divide, no matter if it is conceived as digital or
analog.
COMBATING THE
MANAGEMENT PARADIGM
Digital rights
management, the intellectual property discourse and copyright
issues refer more than accidentially to the postmodern
concepts of border management, migration control and racism.
FROM THE
MOUNTAINS TO THE SCYSCRAPERS
Offside of the
information highways there are numerous tracks and trails,
where migrants carry revolutionary experiences from the
periphery to the metropolitan centers and create hybrids of
social resistance.
VIRTUAL
ORGANIZING AND AD-HOC NETWORKING
Collaborative
research projects, migrant rights campaigns and worker centers
form new organizing models that respond to corporate attacks
on organizing, make creative use of new technologies and reach
out far beyond the idea of unity and union.
This event has
been organized ad-hoc and very spontaneously. It is meant
rather as an strategic discussion than a conference. Therefore
the schedule is split up into two parts:
- A series of
presentations by researchers, theorists, labour as well as
media-activists focusing on strategic questions of freedom of
movement, freedom of communication, corporate attacks on labor
and human rights, the multitudes and the constitutive elements
of global struggles
- A workshop on
strategies with participants from various different
backgrounds presenting upcoming campaigns and projects, such
as the high-tech campaign of justice for janitors or the
noborder-tour in summer 2004.
everyone is an
expert
[expertbase.net]
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