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