[URBANTH-L] CFP: Making Global Civil Society: Grassroots Practice and Academic Theory of Globalization from Below

[Angela Jancius]

please forward widely - sorry for x-posting

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CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS AND INTERVENTIONS

Making Global Civil Society:
Grassroots Practice and Academic Theory of Globalisation from Below

A weekend gathering for activists and academics.

November 4, 5 & 6 - 2005

Lancaster University, North West England.

With support of the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) at Lancaster
University, the "Knowledge Laboratory on Globalisation from Above and
Below" is happy to invite you, your affinity group, your collective, or
your organisation to contribute to its first event.

The aim of the gathering is to discuss key aspects of the historical
development of the capitalist economy that drives globalisation from
above - such as enclosures, (precarious) labour, structural violence,
colonialism, and their justifying cultural imagery - and to make visible
alternative architectures of social organisation emerging through the
processes of globalisation from below, that is, through grassroots
movements cooperating to create a global civil society based on human
rights and mutual aid, and to restore the (intellectual) commons, in the
street, on the land, and in cyberspace.

We are particularly interested in contributions that relate people's
experiences of, perspectives on, motivations for, and frustrations with
their involvement in grassroots movements. The idea is to bring together
first-hand accounts of the successes and failures of social, cultural
and political projects and experiments with theoretical elaborations by
academics trying to understand the reality of globalisation and the
connections beween its manifestations from above and below. By letting
academics listen to narratives from global civil society we hope to
create an atmosphere in which practice can inform theory and where
theoretical academic perspectives can facilitate a reflection on
activist practices.

If you are engaged in any form of social, political, or cultural
activism and have a story to tell, issues to explore, or anything else
you would like to share in this forum, then get in touch and suggest a
contribution or presentation.

Academic presentations should be in areas relevant to social movements,
such as:

* conceptions of global civil society, counter-public sphere and
counter-hegemonic movements

* the dynamics of enclosing knowledge and genetic material

* history and change of precarious labour

* resisting enclosures, resisting precarity, constructing alternatives

* transformations of colonialism: biocolonialism, TRIPs and structural
adjustment

* networked databases, biometrics, and border control

* subversive and transhuman uses of technology

* reclaiming/liberating urban spaces and rural land

* sexual politics, discourse, and resistance

* radical media and art collectives

* self-organisation and consensus processes conceptually

* non-central, non-hierarchical networks and governance; network-centric
thinking

* human rights as  community building, form of resistance, and as global
vision of movements


Participation is limited to a hundred people.  A LIMITED AMOUNT OF
TRAVEL GRANTS AND FREE ACCOMODATION FOR ACTIVISTS ARE AVAILABLE  -
CONTACT US NOW.

SEND SUGGESTIONS FOR WORKSHOPS, PRESENTATIONS, AND PAPERS (MAX. 1 PAGE)
TO: n.moeller [at] lancaster.ac.uk

- further info will be made available on
http://knowledgelab.blogspot.com (download .pdf file of this call from
there, too!)

Costs, incl. (predominantly organic and vegan) Friday dinner, Saturday
lunch and dinner:

Volunteers/unpaid activists: Free
Unfunded students: Donation
Funded students, Lancaster academics: £20 (additional donation welcome!)
Representatives of smaller NGOs: £35 (negotiable)
Representatives of bigger NGOs: £65
Academics: £65