Society for Socialist Studies
Society for Socialist Studies
socialiststudies.ca
presents:
empire@the.edge
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Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences
University of Victoria
June 5 – June 8, 2013
empire@the.edge
…proletarian revolutions, (…) constantly criticize themselves, constantly interrupt themselves in their own course, return to the apparently accomplished, in order to begin anew; they deride with cruel thoroughness the half-measures, weaknesses, and paltriness of their first attempts, seem to throw down their opponents only so the latter may draw new strength from the earth and rise before them again more gigantic than ever, recoil constantly from the indefinite colossalness of their own goals – until a situation is created which makes all turning back impossible, and the conditions themselves call out:
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
Karl Marx, 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
Gone are the days when capitalist triumphalism celebrated cheap credit, computers, and venture capital as the building blocks of a new economy. The empire of capital that was going strong and global after the fall of Soviet communism now is on the edge of collapse, too. Its economy weighed down by piles of bad loans and junk bonds, its politics stuck in unwinnable wars oversees and faced with rising discontent at home, and its natural basis shaken by ecological destruction and climate change. The only reason it hasn’t fallen off the cliff is that nobody pushed it. The forces of opposition are disoriented. Some think their imagined communities of nations, races, or religion could shelter them against the hardships inflicted by empire’s efforts to preserve its accumulated power and wealth. Others say that another world is possible but avoid naming it. They are weighed down by the failures, horrors, and disappointments that statist socialism had produced in the 20th century. Not surprisingly, political upsurges remain short-lived and fragmented. The crisis of capitalism coincides with a crisis of the left. To get to the edge of a lasting upswing of struggles for progressive change, activists and scholars need to face experiences of the past and turn them into building blocs for an alternative future.
Contents
Welcome to Congress 2013 …..4
Keynote Address …..5
Featured Events …..6
Programme at a Glance .....7
Detailed Programme
June 5 ….11
June 6 ….16
June 7 ….21
June 8 ….26
Cross-listed Sessions ….28
Participants and Abstracts ….30
Call for Book Proposals ….51
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Welcome to Congress 2013
Dear comrades:
I’d like to welcome you to Congress 2013 on behalf of the Society for Socialist Studies (SSS). Heartiest thanks to all the members, executives (past and present), the journal's editorial board and its editor, and friends of SSS. It is only for them that a journey which has started in the tumultuous time of 1960s has been still continuing in search of a just society. In addition, I would like to thank especially Ingo Schmidt, Murray Cooke, Matthew Brett, David Huxtable, Debbie Dergousoff, Elaine Coburn, Darrell McLaughlin, and Ken Collier for their continuous contributions to our organization.
This year, 120 speakers will speak on various topics in 4 days with only one aim: exploring ways to push the empire, which is @the.edge right now, over the edge and through into the dustbin of history. Papers will be read, papers will be critically analyzed, and tough questions will be thrown to the speakers from the audience every day. Small groups of comrades will go for beer in the evenings to clear their jammed heads. Four days will pass very quickly among much warmth and comradeship. After that? Is it not the time to internalize what we have learned? So many things to do….
It is important to increase the membership of the Society for Socialist Studies and get more members involved into our activities because it is a forum for change. However, it is equally important to develop comradeship in our neighborhoods, among our friends and families, among our colleagues and co-workers. Most of them may not be aware of the great man, who was born in 1818, but they can be our comrades, because they have seen you, a relentless fighter in the all spheres of life against all kinds of oppressions.
After all, we make our own history even though we do not, to paraphrase Marx, make it under circumstance chosen by ourselves.
In solidarity,
Kanchan Sarker
Keynote Address
Johanna Brenner
Twenty-First Century Socialist Feminism
Thursday, June 6, 2013
14:00 – 16:00
Hickman 105
Johanna Brenner is Professor Emerita at Portland State University and is a long-time activist currently working on a labor-community solidarity project, Portland Rising, and with Bus Riders Unite, an organization of transit-dependent bus riders in Portland Oregon. Her most recent publications include "Socialist-Feminist Strategy Today" (with Nancy Holmstrom) in Socialist Register 2013 and "Gender Inequality," forthcoming in The Marx Revival (ed. Marcello Musto) Palgrave-Macmillan 2013.
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Featured Events
Social Democracy and British Columbia's Working Class
A Community Workshop organized by the Canadian Committee on Labour History
Sunday, June 2, 1-5pm, Legacy Art Gallery, 630 Yates Street, Victoria, BC,
Coffee house/social to follow @ 5pm
Fresh on the heels of the BC provincial election, this workshop brings together activists and academics to consider the past, present and future of social democracy and BC's working class. It seeks to provide context to current debates and strategies over labour laws, social programs and the balance of power in the workplace and communities.
Featuring:
. Jim Sinclair, British Columbia Federation of Labour
. Tara Ehrcke, Greater Victoria Teachers' Association
. William Carroll, co-editor of Challenges and Perils: Social Democracy in Neoliberal Times
. Ingo Schmidt, co-editor and -author of Social Democracy After the Cold War
Sponsored by the Canadian Committee on Labour History, University of Victoria Social Justice Studies Program and the Society for Socialist Studies.
To register, contact CCLH secretary Ben Isitt: isitt@uvic.ca. Registration fee $20, waived for students and the unwaged.
Bryan Palmer: Eric Hobsbawm Memorial Lecture
Wednesday, June 5, 14:45-16:15, Fraser 159
Bryan D. Palmer, Canada Research Chair at Trent University, is the author of 12 books, editor of 5 collections of essays/oral biographies/pamphlets, and editor of the journal Labour/Le Travail. A recent book, James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left, 1890-1928, published by the University of Illinois Press in 2007, was judged the best book published by a historian in Canada in a field other than Canadian history. Another book, Cultures of Darkness: Night Travels in the History of Transgression – from Medieval to Modern (New York: Monthly Review, 2000) was awarded a Choice Gold Seal Award in that magazine’s annual competition for outstanding academic titles.
The Rik Davidson/Studies in Political Economy 2012 Book Prize Lecture
Wednesday, June 5, 2013, 5:00 pm, C-116 David Strong Building
Karen Bakker: Commons versus Commodities: Water Privatization and the Global Water ‘Crisis’
Karen Bakker is the winner of the 2012 Rik Davidson/Studies in Political Economy Book Prize for her book Privatizing Water: Governance Failure and the World’s Urban Water Crisis [Cornell University Press 2010]
Co-sponsored by the Canadian Political Science Association and the Society for Socialist Studies
Movie and Discussion with Ammar Aziz: Hashtnagar – A Land, Forgotten
Thursday, June 6, 10:45-12:15, Fraser 205
This documentary portrays an obscure area in the middle of the politically disturbed, terror stricken areas of the Khyber Pakhunkhwa, bordering Afghanistan, in Pakistan. The valley, called Hashtnagar, looks surrealistic as it is carrying on the legacy of Marxism-Leninism in its culture, strongly inspired from the (former) Soviet Union, which can be felt in the whole ambiance, larger-than-life posters of the communist figures, folk songs and traditional theater. The film, though, portrays an overall life in the valley, emphasizes a female guerrilla fighter, a roaming street theater group along with other people from the community who continue to resist against feudalism, capitalism and religious fundamentalism.
Socialist Studies Meet and Greet – Social Event
Thursday, June 6, 19:00, Cenote Café, 768 Yates Street, Victoria
Margarethe von Trotta’s Movies: A Discussion of Hannah Arendt and Screening of Rosa Luxemburg
Friday, June 7, 9:00-10:30 and 10:45-12:15, Fraser 152
Featuring:
. Karin Doerr, Concordia University
. Sima Aprahamian, Concordia University
. Ingo Schmidt, Athabasca University
Poetry Reading with Arpine Konyalian Grenier: Willed Capital: Where the Word Meets Itself
Friday, June 7, 14:45-16:15, Fraser 204
I am interested in change. I’m interested in the will to align invention with transformation, a will, however, ready to face what follows – the risk, the reward, the unknown. How does resisting feed exploration or, how much of exploration is actually resistance? The will with which one applies intelligence makes the difference, says Ben Davis of Ranciere’s emancipatory stance on intelligence and learning; and that, without the unethical, without luck or fate either. Will brings forth what matters, like some Higgs emanating mass. We are its beneficiaries, not victims, capable of resisting norms to redistribute and recalibrate as necessary. To resist is to create, changing the state outside a state by increasing capacity, revitalizing outlook.
Arpine Konyalian Grenier comes from science, music, languages and the arts. Her work has been described as a mosaic of narrative that takes us out of a provincial concentration on life to encompass broader social and geopolitical issues with a decidedly urban and postmodern sensibility. She studied at the American University of Beirut, and at Bard College, New York. Her poetry and translations have appeared in numerous publications including Columbia Poetry Review, Sulfur, The Iowa Review, Fence and Envoi. She has authored four collections, most recently, The Concession Stand: Exaptation at the Margins (Otoliths, 2011). The Phenomenology of Giving is an upcoming issue she guest edited for Big Bridge. She lives in Tucson, Arizona. She reads from her recent work titled, What’s Green, What’s Blue.
‘Idle No More’ and Indigenous Resurgence, 16:00-19:00, June 7, Longhouse at UVic
Session organizer: Elaine Coburn, American University in Paris, ecoburn@aup.edu
Contemporary colonialism is the political, economic, legal and general context for Indigenous communities, clans, nations and tribes. This means that colonialism, in its shape-shifting forms, requires clear-sighted analysis in order to be resisted by Indigenous peoples whose lands and lives it threatens in ways that are at once familiar and new. Yet colonialism cannot remain the horizon for Indigenous peoples. Instead, Indigenous resurgence means transcending colonial politics, economics, legal frameworks and ways of being, at all levels: the global, state, community and individual level. This means rootedness in land, language, spirit, and in all aspects of everyday living, so that Indigenous peoples act individually and together as Indigenous peoples: using Indigenous languages, ethics and philosophies, laws and institutions to govern ourselves. The roundtable offers considerations of these themes in light of the ‘Idle No More’ Movement.
Presenters:
Elaine Coburn, American University in Paris, ecoburn@aup.edu
Lynda Lange, University of Toronto
Taiaiake Alfred and Jeff Corntassel, Indigenous Governance Program
Students from the Indigenous Governance Program
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Programme at a Glance
| |Wednesday, June 5 |
| |Room Fraser 152 |Room Fraser 150 |Room Fraser 204 |Room Fraser 205 |
|9:00 – 10:30 |A.1: Labour and |A.2: Canada and the War on |A.3: Genocide and the |A.4: Canadian Politics |
| |Electoral Politics in |Afghanistan |Politics of | |
| |Canada | |Reconciliation | |
|10:45 – 12:15 |B.1: Labour and |B.2: Socialist Register 2013: |B.3: Pan-Canadian |B.4: Environmental Movements |
| |Extra-Parliamentary |The Question of Strategy |Struggles After the |and the Left |
| |Politics in Canada | |Quebec Student Strike I | |
|13:00 – 14:30 |C.1: Geopolitical |C.2: Labour Studies |C.3: Pan-Canadian |C.4: Arts, Culture & Campuses |
| |Economy: After US | |Struggles After the | |
| |Hegemony, Globalization,| |Quebec Student Strike II | |
| |and Empire | | | |
|14:45 – 16:15 |Bryan Palmer: |
| |Eric Hobsbawm Memorial Lecture |
| |Room: Fraser 159 |
| |Thursday, June 6 |
| |Room Fraser 152 |Room Fraser 157 |Room Fraser 204 |Room Fraser 205 |
|9:00 – 10:30 |D.1: Socialist Commodity|D.2: The Left After Politics |D.3: Marxisms and |D.4: A Popular-Democratic Bloc |
| | | |Feminisms on the Edge I |in Latin-America |
|10:45 – 12:15 |E.1: The Making of |E.2: 21st Century |E.3: Marxisms and |E.4: Movie and Discussion: |
| |Global Capitalism |Commemoration of Genocide & |Feminisms on the Edge II |Hashtnagar – A Land, Forgotten |
| | |Atrocities | | |
|14:00 – 16:00 |Keynote Address |
| |Johanna Brenner: Twenty-First Century Socialist Feminism |
| |Room: Hickman 105 |
|16:00 – 17:00 |AGM of the Society for Socialist Studies |
| |Room Hickman 105 |
| |Socialist Studies Meet and Greet |
|19:00 |Social at Cenote Café, 768 Yates Street, Victoria |
| |Friday, June 7 |
| |Room Fraser 152 |Room Fraser 157 |Room Fraser 204 |Room Fraser 205 |
|9:00 – 10:30 |F.1: M. von Trotta’s |F.2: Urban Crisis and the |F.3: Radical Theory |F.4: Marx’s Concept of an |
| |Movies: Discussion of |Environment | |Alternative to Capitalism |
| |Hannah Arendt, Screening| | | |
| |of Rosa Luxemburg | | | |
|10:45 – 12:15 | |G.2: Labour and Indigenous |G.3: Radical Politics |G.4: Movie: Whispers of |
| | |Politics in Canada | |Revolution |
|13:00 – 14:30 |H.1: Too Asian? Race & |H.2: American Empire and |H.3: Social Reproduction,|H.4: Rethinking Rosa Luxemburg |
| |Racism in the Academy |Neoliberalism |Commodification, and |I |
| | | |Sexualities | |
|14:45 – 16:15 |I.1: Capitalist Crisis |I.2: Migrant Workers: |I.3: Poetry Session: |I.4: Rethinking Rosa Luxemburg |
| |and Ideological Struggle|Exploitation and Solidarity |Willed Capital – Where |II |
| | | |the Word Meets Itself | |
|16:00 – 19:00 |Idle No More |
| |Featured Socialist Studies Event at the Longhouse |
|Saturday, June 8 |
| |Room Fraser 152 |Room Fraser 157 |
|9:00 – 10:30 |J.1: Social Murder: |J.2: Editorial Board Meeting: |
| |Social Determinants of |Socialist Studies Journal |
| |Health | |
|10:45 – 12:15 |K.1: Crisis, Austerity, |K.2: Socialist Strategy and |
| |Alternatives |Mass Politics I |
|13:00 – 14:30 |L.1: Labour & Capital in|L.2: Socialist Strategy and |
| |Contemporary China |Mass Politics II |
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Detailed Programme: Wednesday, June 5
A.1 Labour and Electoral Politics in Canada, 9:00-10:30, Fraser 152
Convenor: Larry Savage, Brock University, lsavage@brocku.ca
Speakers:
Bryan Evans, Ryerson University, b1evans@politics.ryerson.ca
Peter Graefe, McMaster University, graefep@mcmaster.ca
Dennis Pilon, York University, dpilon@yorku.ca
Larry Savage, Brock University, lsavage@brocku.ca
A.2 Roundtable/Book Launch: Empire’s Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan, 9:00-10:30, Fraser 150
Roundtable Organizer: Todd Gordon, Laurier Brantford, tsgordon@wlu.ca
The war in Afghanistan has been a major policy commitment and central undertaking of the Canadian state since 2001: Canada has been a leading force in the war, and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on aid and reconstruction. After a decade of conflict, however, there is considerable debate about the efficacy of the mission, as well as calls to reassess Canada’s role in the conflict. An authoritative and strongly analytical work, Empire’s Ally provides a much-needed critical investigation into one of the most polarizing events of our time. This Roundtable/Launch for the book brings together several of the contributing authors to discuss their chapters and future directions in Canadian foreign and security policy in Afghanistan and beyond.
Speakers:
Greg Albo, York University, albo@yorku.ca
Todd Gordon, Laurier Brantford, tsgordon@wlu.ca
Paul Kellogg, Athabasca University, pkellogg@athabascau.ca
Anthony Fenton, York University, fentona@yorku.ca
Mike Skinner, York University, m.skinner@sympatico.ca
Derrick O’Keefe, Rabble, editor@rabble.ca
A.3 Genocide and the Politics of Reconciliation, 9:00-10:30, Fraser 204
Global Structures of Oppression:
Capitalism, Canada and Structural Genocide
Garry Leech, Cape Breton University, garry_leech@cbu.ca
Subject to Recovery:
Health Support Provision in Canada’s Reconciliation Process
Robyn Green, Carleton University, robyn_green@carleton.ca
The Rwandan Gacaca Courts:
A National Campaign for Reconciliation or Power Consolidation?
Maria G. Krause, Queen’s University, 12mgk1@queensu.ca
A.4 Canadian Politics 9:00-10:30, Fraser 205
Towards the Third Way?
Developments in Canadian Social Democracy Since 1990
Matt Fodor, York University, mattnfodor@
The Failure to Socialize Canadian Green Politics:
A Case Study of the BC Green Party
Stuart Parker, Simon Fraser University, stuart@
B.1 Labour and Extra-Parliamentary Politics in Canada, 10:45-12:45, Fraser 152
Convenor: Larry Savage, Brock University, lsavage@brocku.ca
Speakers:
Rosemary Warskett, Carleton University, rosemary_warskett@carleton.ca
Aziz Choudry, McGill University, aziz.choudry@mcgill.ca
Charles Smith, STM College, csmith@stmcollege.ca
Dennis Soron, Brock University, dsoron@brocku.ca
B.2 Roundtable: The Socialist Register 2013: The Question of Strategy, 10:45-12:45, Fraser 150
The resurgence of social movements has put the question of strategy back on the left’s agenda. The 2013 volume of the Socialist Register on “The Question of Strategy” surveys some of the most explosive mobilizations around the world. But it also asks, what are the challenges, both political and intellectual, for the anti-capitalist left today? A prominent theme is the importance of feminism as an integral part of anti-capitalist movements, both within the advanced capitalist world and in the Global South. This roundtable brings together two of the editors and three of the contributors to the volume to continue this fundamentally important discussion with us.
Chair:
Leo Panitch, York University, lpanitch@yorku.ca
Speakers:
Greg Albo, York University, albo@yorku.ca
Johanna Brenner, Portland State College, brennerj@pdx.edu
Meg Luxton, York University, mluxton@yorku.ca
Susan Spronk, University of Ottawa, susan.spronk@uottawa.ca
B.3/C.3 Pan-Canadian Campus Struggles after the Quebec Student Strike: Prospects and Challenges, 10:45-12:15 and 13:00-14:30, Fraser 204
Session Organizer: Alan Sears, Ryerson University, asears@ryerson.ca
The Quebec student strike of 2012 was a massive mobilization that won a rare victory against the austerity agenda. The strike was built through methods of democratic, activist unionism that offer a model for campus struggles in Quebec and elsewhere. The austerity agenda will pose many challenges for activists over the next few years, as user-pay, cutbacks and neo-liberal restructuring set the frame for a post-secondary system organized along managerialist corporate lines, aligned ever more closely to capital. This session will explore the state agenda in post-secondary and the possibilities for effective mobilization to resist the austerity agenda.
New Debt Politics and the Austerity Agenda:
A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Media and the Quebec Tuition Protests
Robert McGray, Concordia University, rmcgray@education.concordia.ca
Faculty Unionism at the Crossroads: Self-Interest or Solidarity?
Anne Forrest, University of Windsor, forrest@uwindsor.ca
Creative Approaches to Law in Response to State Repression:
Lessons from the Quebec Student Strike
Honor Brabazon, honorbrabazon@
Democracy and the Quebec Student Strike
Hugo Bonin, York University
Democratic, Activist Student Unionism: The Case of ASSÉ
Xavier Lafrance, York University, xlafrance@
B.4 Environmental Movements and the Left, 10:45-12:15, Fraser 205
Session Organizer: Kanchan Sarker, UBC-Okanagan kanchan.sarker@ubc.ca
Theoretically, the Left should actively take part in environmental movements. However, it is rarely seen that Left has played the role of vanguard in an environmental movement or even been significant part of it. In most cases, they keep a safe distance or sometimes they are a small part of it, or sometimes, they even criticize environmental movements.
Market Environmentalism and the Left:
The Politics of Carbon Trading
Mark Hudson, University of Manitoba, Mark.hudson@ad.umanitoba.ca
Commodity Chain Governance, Accountability, and Raw Material Exports: The Political Economy of Western Canadian Fossil-Fuel Staples
James Lawson, University of Victoria, lawsonj@uvic.ca
Who’s Not Interested? Environmentalists and the Left
Susan Machum, St. Thomas University, smachum@stu.ca, Michael Clow, St. Thomas University, mclow@stu.ca
Environmental Movements in India and the Dilemma of Indian Left
Kanchan Sarker, UBC-Okanagan, kanchan.sarker@ubc.ca
C.1 Roundtable/Book Launch: Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire, 13:00-14:30, Fraser 152
The Roundtable will be an engagement with Radhika Desai’s recently published Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire. The book radically reinterprets the historical evolution of the world order, as a multi-polar world emerges from the dust of the financial and economic crisis. It also offers a radical critique of the theories of US hegemony, globalization and empire which dominate academic international political economy and international relations, revealing their ideological origins in successive failed US attempts at world dominance through the dollar. In doing so, Geopolitical Economy revitalizes revolutionary intellectual traditions, which combine class and national perspectives on ‘the relations of producing nations’. At a time of global upheavals and profound shifts in the distribution of world power, the book forges a vivid and compelling account of the historical processes, which are shaping the contemporary international order.
Chair:
Ingo Schmidt, Athabasca University, ingos@athabascau.ca
Speakers:
Sabah Alnasseri, York University, alnaseri@yorku.ca
William K. Carroll, University of Victoria wcarroll@uvic.ca
Radhika Desai, University of Manitoba, Radhika.Desai@ad.umanitoba.ca
Paul Kellogg, Athabasca University, pkellogg@athabascau.ca
Stephen McBride, McMaster University, mcbride@mcmaster.ca
Gary Teeple, Simon Fraser University, teeple@sfu.ca
C.2 Labour Studies, 13:00-14:45, Fraser 150
Education in the Making of the Chinese Communist Revolution:
The 1927-1936 ‘Land Revolution Era’
Shiling McQuaide, shilingm@athabascau.ca
Union Democracy as a Foundation for a Participatory Society:
A Theoretical Justification and Historical Case Example
Tom Langford, University of Calgary, langford@ucalgary.ca
B.3/C.3 Pan-Canadian Campus Struggles after the Quebec Student Strike: Prospects and Challenges, 10:45-12:15 and 13:00-14:30, Fraser 204
C.4 Arts, Culture & Campuses, 10:45-12:15, Fraser 205
Naive Art in the USSR as an Odd Project of Proletarian Hegemony
Anna Suvorova, Perm State Academy of Art and Culture, suvorova_anna@mail.ru
Comrades, Chords and Choruses:
Folk Music and the Left in 20th Century Canada
Gary Cristall, Capilano University, garycristall@
Foreign Universities in Post-Soviet Central Asia:
Curriculum, perceptions and clash of ideologies
Rahimov, Ruslan, American University of Central Asia, ruslanlyon@.
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Detailed Programme: Thursday, June 6
D.1 Roundtable: Socialist Commodity, 9:00-10:30, Fraser 152
Roundtable Organizer: Alexey Golubev, golubevalexei@
The round table “Socialist Commodity” brings together historians and anthropologists from Canada, Switzerland and the United States to discuss how material things of the social world materialized and objectified political practices, ideological constructs, social relations and cultural phenomena that were specific for socialist societies. Serguei Oushakine will present his research of official practices aimed to reduce the complexity of the Soviet commodity to its use-value during the period of late socialism. Petra Rethmann will discuss the temporal and affective dimensions of the Soviet book as a commodity form in Moscow’s black market in 1988/89. Zinaida Vasilyeva’s contribution will address the world of Soviet self-made things through practices of production, exchange and consumption in late socialism. Finally, Alexey Golubev will talk about discursive shifts in visual representations of consumer commodities in the USSR during the 1960s and 1970s.
Chair and discussant:
Anne Gorsuch, University of British Columbia
Speakers:
Serguei Oushakine, Princeton University
Petra Rethmann, McMaster University
Zinaida Vasilyeva, University of Neuchâtel
Alexey Golubev, University of British Columbia
D.2 The Left After Politics – A Studies in Political Economy Roundtable, 9:00-10:30, Fraser 157
In "The Left After Politics" (Studies in Political Economy 87), Thom Workman raised the point that despite the Left's remarkable energy and activism, we are losing the class war that capital is waging against working people at home and abroad. The problem, he argued, is that our activism is overwhelmingly reactive and/or spent on minimal salvage efforts that sublimate the instinct to rebel. He argued that if we are to go forward we must withdraw from civic politics and 'Left electoralism', and redirect that energy towards promoting public conversations about capitalism's role in producing misery, war, and environmental degradation. The piece sparked a friendly debate (SPE 89, SPE 90) with Herman Rosenfeld, Rebecca Schein, and Justin Paulson, in which all participants were in substantial agreement about the difficulties plaguing Left organizing, but disagreed about the avenues for exiting the current impasse. This roundtable will continue the conversation and debate about the meaning of a Left public culture and the mechanisms by which to create it.
Chair:
Greg Albo, York University
Speakers:
Thom Workman, University of New Brunswick
Rebecca Schein, Carleton University
Justin Paulson, Carleton University
D.3/E.3 Marxisms and Feminisms on the Edge, 9:00-10:30 and 10:45-12:15, Fraser 204
Session Organizers: Elaine Coburn, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and American University of Paris, ecoburn@aup.edu, Abigail Bakan, Queen’s University, bakana@queensu.ca
Ancient Questions, New Approaches: This panel considers socialist experiences of the past, and visions of and strategies for 21st century socialism, from the perspective of Marxist, feminist and Marxist-feminist, contributions. Issues of empire, imperialism, and colonialism will be considered from the perspective of feminist contributions, and intersections of these contributions with Marxist understandings and misunderstandings, of power. Informed by historic debates but resisting sterile reiterations, the focus will be on questions posed by 21st century international political economy, broadly conceived, addressing both theoretical and empirical challenges. Papers for this panel will attempt to advance new contributions generated by Marxist feminist critiques of empire.
‘Unspeakable Things’: Feminist Challenges to Class-Only Marxism
Elaine Coburn, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and American University of Paris
Revisiting Mary O’Brien: Surrogate Mother to Materialist Feminism?
Annette Burfoot, Queen’s University
Indigeneity, Migration and National Belonging
Sunera Thobani, University of British Columbia
Feminism, Marxism and Origin Stories: Revisiting Engels and Indigeneity
Abigail Bakan, Queen’s University
Diverse Conversations: This panel features the diverse, interdisciplinary, and multiple approaches that are emerging in scholarship that attends to the relationship of Marxisms and feminisms. Ranging from issues of ideology, political economy, intersectionality and resistance, and addressing varied geographic and experiential case studies, this panel indicates the expansive research that is suggested by the contributions of dialogues across, between and within Marxisms and feminisms.
Creating New Meanings: Creating Freedom in Micro-feminist Socialist Spaces
Nadine Changfoot, Trent University
An Institutional Ethnography of Outcomes and Disjuncture in Village Economic Development
Debbie Dergousoff, Simon Fraser University
New Proposals for a Post-Sandinista society in Nicaragua: The Women’s Country, Gioconda Belli’s (Neo)feminist Treatise?
Sophie M. Lavoie, University of New Brunswick
Pornography, or the Embodiment of Ideology
Christopher Helali, MassBay Community College
D.4 From Passive Revolution to New Socialist Transformism? Public Policy and the Building of a Popular-Democratic Historical Bloc in Latin America, 9:00-10:30, Fraser 205
Session Organizers Gerardo Otero, Simon Fraser University, otero@sfu.ca and Efe Can Gürcan, Simon Fraser University, egurcan@sfu.ca
Within a democratic polity in which subordinate groups and classes are becoming increasingly mobilized, there is always the danger that favourable public policy will work ultimately for the consolidation of bourgeois hegemony. When this happens, the result is a deepening of “passive revolution” as observed by Antonio Gramsci: the process by which demands from those groups are partially accommodated and neutralized. A crucial requirement for the transition to a “new socialist transformism”, in which popular-democratic forces begin to solidify their new hegemonic project is wining state power democratically. This is in part what we are seeing in some Latin American countries. The problem is that each historical situation is a diverse combination of social forces. In some, like Argentina and Brazil, significant bourgeois sectors are still represented in the winning “left” parties, with a strong bureaucratic-class component. In Bolivia and Ecuador, however, the popular-democratic movements are stronger. They could thus play an important role in steering the construction of a new popular-democratic, socialist historical bloc. For its part, Venezuela represents a situation in which too much rides on the charismatic leader—Hugo Chavez—and subordinate groups and classes are being organized from the top, although also allowing for autonomous bottom-up self-organization. The prime goal of the Chavez regime is not necessarily the self-determination of subordinate classes but to insure their support of the leader. This is a particularly dangerous situation as it can easily degenerate into a bureaucratic-class-controlled state. The question to be addressed in this session is: what are the necessary conditions for subordinate groups and classes to advance in their self organization, promoting a new socialist transformism toward a popular-democratic historical bloc, while wining and supporting democratically-elected leaders?
State, law and public policy in the dispute for a new hegemony in the recent Latin American experience.
Wladimir Rodrigues Dias, New University of Lisbon
Class, Identity and Empowerment:
The Political-Cultural Formation of Bolivia’s MAS
Sandra Salt, Efe Can Gürcan and Gerardo Otero, Simon Fraser University
Post-Neoliberalism and Empowerment from Below:
Popular-Democratic Urban Movements in Argentina and Venezuela
Efe Can Gürcan and Gerardo Otero
E.1 Authors Meet Critics: The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of the American Empire, 10:45-12:15, Fraser 152
The Roundtable will be an engagement with Leo Panitch’s and Sam Gindin’s The Making of Global Capitalism. The book demonstrates the intimate relationship between modern capitalism and the American state, including its role as an “informal empire” promoting free trade and capital movements. Through a powerful historical survey, they show how the US has superintended the restructuring of other states in favor of competitive markets and coordinated the management of increasingly frequent financial crises. The Making of Global Capitalism, through its analysis of the first great economic crisis of the twenty-first century, identifies the centrality of the social conflicts that occur within states rather than between them. These emerging fault lines hold out the possibility of new political movements transforming nation states and transcending global markets.
Chair:
Ingo Schmidt, Athabasca University, ingos@athabascau.ca
Speakers:
Marjorie Cohen, Simon Fraser University, mcohen@sfu.ca
William K. Carroll, University of Victoria,wcarroll@uvic.ca
Leo Panitch, York University, lpanitch@yorku.ca
E.2 Counter or Parallel Narratives to Twenty-First-Century Commemoration of Genocide and Atrocity, 10:45-12:15, Fraser 157
Session Organizers: Karin Doerr, Concordia University, karin.doerr@concordia.ca, Sima Aprahamian, Concordia University, simaaprahamian@yahoo.ca
This panel presents papers with multi-disciplinary, feminist, and socialist perspectives that highlight obstructions to the efforts of individual and official remembrance after genocide and atrocity, ranging from national denial, to political opposition, to personal rejection. We also welcome work that draws on insights and frameworks gleaned from previous genocidal crimes to construct effective tools to investigate and commemorate other instances of extreme harm inflicted on a group.
Chair/Discussant:
Dorota Glowack, Dalhousie University, glowacka@dal.ca.
Papers:
Commemoration of Genocide in the Face of Perpetrator Denial:
The Armenian Genocide of 1915-1922
Sima Aprahamian, Concordia University, simaaprahamian@yahoo.ca
What’s Green, What’s Blue: The Silent G
Arpine Konyalian Grenier, Poet/Independent Scholar, Tucson, Arizona, arpine@
Voices against Remembering in Germany’s Holocaust Memorial Culture
Karin Doerr, Concordia University, kdoerr@alcor.concordia.ca Counter Memorialisation of the 1984 Sikh Genocide: Politics of Identity and Modes of Resistance
Indira Prahst, Langara College, indira_prahst@
D.3/E.3 Marxisms and Feminisms on the Edge, 9:00-10:30 and 10:45-12:15, Fraser 204
E.4 Movie and Discussion: Hashtnagar – A Land, Forgotten, 10:45-12:15, Fraser 205
Organizer: Ammar Aziz, Film Maker
This documentary portrays an obscure area in the middle of the politically disturbed, terror stricken areas of the Khyber Pakhunkhwa, bordering Afghanistan, in Pakistan. The valley, called Hashtnagar, looks surrealistic as it is carrying on the legacy of Marxism-Leninism in its culture, strongly inspired from the (former) Soviet Union, which can be felt in the whole ambiance, larger-than-life posters of the communist figures, folk songs and traditional theater. The film, though, portrays an overall life in the valley, emphasizes a female guerrilla fighter, a roaming street theater group along with other people from the community who continue to resist against feudalism, capitalism and religious fundamentalism.
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Detailed Programme: Friday, June 7
F.1/G.1 Margarethe von Trotta’s Movies: A Discussion of Hannah Arendt and Screening of Rosa Luxemburg, 9:00-10:30 and 10:45-12:15, Fraser 152
Speakers:
Karin Doerr, Concordia University, karin.doerr@concordia.ca,
Sima Aprahamian, Concordia University, simaaprahamian@yahoo.ca
Ingo Schmidt, Athabasca University, ingos@athabascau.ca
F.2 Urban Crisis and the Environment, 9:00-10:30 and 10:45-12:15, Fraser 157
Industrial Food: Alienation and the Process of Abstraction
Tom Cheney, York University, tcheney@yorku.ca
Interrogating the "Detroit Future City Framework"
Grant Yocom, Brock University, gy00aa@brocku.ca
F.3 Radical Theory, 9:00-10:30, Fraser 204
Rethinking the Ideal of Equality:
G.A Cohen's Critique of Karl Marx and Karl Marx's Critique of G.A Cohen.
Igor Shoikhedrod, University of Toronto, igor.shoikhedbrod@utoronto.ca
John Rawls, Amartya Sen and Socialism
Justin P. Holt, New York University, jh129@nyu.edu
Analysis of the Anarchist Personality
Sirus Kashefi, Osgoode Hall Law School, s.kashefi@
F.4 Roundtable/Book Launch: Marx’s Concept of an Alternative to Capital, 9:00-10:30, Fraser 205
Roundtable organizer: Sandra Rein, University of Alberta, srein@ualberta.ca
This session is dedicated to a discussion of the newly released book by Dr. Peter Hudis which conducts a close, textual analysis of the various writings in which Marx did address the need for and nature of an alternative to capital. Given our time of crisis and the growing demands for real alternatives, this book is not only timely, it is a significant contribution to the philosophical necessity of conceptualizing a post-capitalist society.
Speakers:
Peter Hudis, Oakton Community College, phudis@oakton.edu
Sandra Rein, University of Alberta, srein@ualberta.ca.
Paul Kellogg, Athabasca University, pkellogg@athabascau.ca
F.1/G.1 Margarethe von Trotta’s Movies: A Discussion of Hannah Arendt and Screening of Rosa Luxemburg, 9:00-10:30 and 10:45-12:15, Fraser 152
G.2 Labour and Indigenous Politics in Canada - A Studies in Political Economy Roundtable, 10:45-12:15, Fraser 157
This panel explores the relationship between labour and indigenous struggles in Canada, including struggles over development projects, the role of trade unions in representing indigenous workers, and the lessons learned from efforts to build relationships between organized workers and indigenous communities.
Chair:
Donna Patrick, Carleton University, donna_patrick@carleton.ca
Speakers:
Gabrielle Slowey, York University
Lindsay Bell, University of Toronto
Dave Bleakney, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
G.3 Radical Politics, 10:45-12:15, Fraser 204
Occupy Movement and the Diversity of Demands
Kaveh Boveri, University of Montreal, kaveh.boveiri@umontreal.ca
Participatory Economics (Parecon)
Pascal Lebrun, lebrun.pascal@courrier.uqam.ca
A Worthwhile Struggle: Building Socialism in One Kitchen
Meg Luxton, York University, mluxton@yorku.ca
G. 4 Movie: Whispers of Revolution, 10:45-12:15, Fraser 205 (cross-listed with the Canadian Sociological Association)
Organizer: Garry Potter, Wilfrid Laurier University, Garrypotter34@
A 90 minute documentary film showing. The film is a compendium of different sorts of resistance strategies and actions around the world.
H.1 “Too Asian”: Race and Racism in the Academy, 13:00-14:30, Fraser 152
Roundtable Organizer: Michael C.K. Ma, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, mikeckma@
Race, racism, and xenophobia are key operating components of Nation and Empire. This workshop is a roundtable discussion focusing on the race and racism fomented by the November 2010 Macleans article ”Too Asian”. The panel will discuss (i) the general features of the "Too Asian" article, (ii) The response in the community & academy, (iii) The 2012 "Happy Too Asian" Dialogue, (iv) Implications for class room and campus, (v) Race/racism and Asian Canadian status, (vi) Current anti-racist work and future struggles in the academy.
Chair:
Michael C.K. Ma, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, mikeckma@
Speakers:
Sid Tan, Chinese Canadian National Council – National Chapter
Adele Perry, Canada Research Chair in Western Canadian Social History, University of Manitoba
Jane Ku, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology, University of Windsor
Davina Bhandar, Department of Canadian Studies, Trent University
Kirsten McAllister, Department of Communications, Simon Fraser University
H.2 American Empire and Neoliberalism, 13:00-14:30, Fraser 157
A Critique of Panitch and Gindin’s Concept of American Imperialism
J.Z. Garrod, Carleton University, jzgarrod@
Politicizing depoliticization: resistance to ‘privatization by stealth’ in Canada
Heather Whiteside, Simon Fraser University, heather.whiteside@sfu.ca
The Triumph of Neoliberalism in Canada:
Political and Economic Background from Confederation to the Present
Aidan D. Conway, York University, and John F. Conway, University of Regina, John.Conway@uregina.ca
H.3 Social Reproduction, Commodification and Sexualities, 13:00-14:30, Fraser 204
Session Organizer: Alan Sears, Ryerson University, asears@ryerson.ca
The marxist-feminist conception of social reproduction provides valuable tools for understanding the complex ways in which life in capitalist societies is gendered, racialized and sexualized. Yet, there are limitations in the way the conception has been used, focussing disproportionately on unpaid labour processes in generational reproduction. While the study of these unpaid labour processes is incredibly valuable, the conception of social reproduction can be pushed much further to reframe understandings of sexuality and intimacy in everyday life. The papers in this session explore new dimensions of social reproduction, contributing to a critical understanding of embodiment and social relationships.
Thongs, Sex Bracelets and Bunny Logos: A Social Reproduction Feminist Approach
Susan Ferguson, Wilfrid Laurier University, sferguson@wlu.ca
The Political Economy of Feelings: Commodification and Intimate Relations in Crisis Times
Genevieve LeBaron, University of British Columbia, genevieve.lebaron@ubc.ca
The Social Reproduction of Queerness
Alan Sears, Ryerson University, asears@ryerson.ca
H.4/I.4 Rethinking Rosa Luxemburg, 13:00-14:30, 14:45-16:15, Fraser 205
Session Organizer: Ingo Schmidt, Athabasca University, ingos@athabascau.ca
Leftists of different sorts have criticized Luxemburg for neglecting the women’s question, downplaying nations’ right to self-determination and misunderstanding Das Kapital. On the other hand, communists hailed her as a founding member of the German Communist Party, while social democrats praised her for her critique of Lenin’s Bolsheviks. The 100th anniversary of the publication of her Accumulation of Capital is a good opportunity to rethink all of her economic and political theories that, upon fresh reading, speak to so many of today’s troubles with capitalism. Her theory of capitalist penetration of non-capitalist milieus explains the colonization of native lands, human bodies and the privatization of public sectors but also the more subtle destruction of moral economies that are crucial for the formation of critical and oppositional consciousness. Her theory of collective learning through struggle and self-emancipation of working classes could help to rebuild socialist movements after the failure of the statist socialisms of the 20th century.
Presenters:
Rosa Luxemburg and Feminist Theory: A Necessary Contribution in a Time of Crisis.
Sandra Rein, University of Alberta, srein@ualberta.ca.
The Unknown Rosa Luxemburg: Her Contribution to Anthropology, Ethnology, and Economic History
Peter Hudis, Oakton Community College, phudis@oakton.edu
A Century+ of Luxemburg’s Mass Strike, The Political Party and the Trade Unions: Still Relevant in the Twenty-First Century?
William A. Pelz, Institute for Working Class History, iwch@
From the ‘Liebknecht Strike 1916’ to the German November Revolution 1918 – Factor Furthering and Impeding Revolutionary Mass Action during WWI
Ottokar Luban, International Rosa Luxemburg Society, oluban@gmx.de.
Accumulation of Capital – Economic Underpinnings of Rosa Luxemburg Democratic Socialism
Ingo Schmidt, Athabasca University, ingos@athabascau.ca
I.1 Capitalist Crisis and Ideological Struggle (cross-listed with the Canadian Sociological Association), 14:45-16:15, Fraser 152
Session Organizer: Dave Broad, University of Regina, Dave.Broad@uregina.ca
In 1959, Daniel Bell pronounced the end of ideology. With the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1989, Western pundits pronounced the triumph of capitalism and the end of history. But capitalism continues to produce bubbles, busts, and deepening recessions, culminating in the Great Recession of 2008, and counting. People have responded with protests and alternatives in some countries. But throughout the Western world we seem to confront an ideological impasse to getting beyond capitalism. What is to be done to break this impasse?
Is ‘Hope’ Really ‘Power? Considerations for Implementing Human Rights Ideology into Meaningful Practice
Shannon Mullen
Expose, Oppose, Propose: The role of the CCPA in Developing a Contemporary Social Democratic Community of Practice in Canada
William K. Carroll & David Huxtable
Private Futures, Public Dystopia: Reification and Political Imagination in Advanced Capitalist Society
Aaron James Henry
I.2 Migrant Workers: Exploitation and Solidarity, 14:45-16:15, Fraser 157
Immigrants, along with the relocation of work to low-wage countries, are often portrayed as the reason for job and wage losses in rich countries. This roundtable looks at the reasons why people leave their homes, and often families, to look for work in foreign countries, how the pitting of workers from poor and rich countries boosts corporate profits, and discusses the challenges of working class solidarity across borders.
Speakers:
Fernanda Sanchez Jaramillo, BCGEU, HEU, fernandasanchezjaramillo@
Chandu Claver, Migrante BC, chandu_claver@
I.3 Poetry Session with Arpine Konyalian Grenier: Willed Capital: Where the Word Meets Itself, 14:45-16:15, Fraser 204
I am interested in change. I’m interested in the will to align invention with transformation, a will, however, ready to face what follows – the risk, the reward, the unknown. How does resisting feed exploration or, how much of exploration is actually resistance? The will with which one applies intelligence makes the difference, says Ben Davis of Ranciere’s emancipatory stance on intelligence and learning; and that, without the unethical, without luck or fate either. Will brings forth what matters, like some Higgs emanating mass. We are its beneficiaries, not victims, capable of resisting norms to redistribute and recalibrate as necessary. To resist is to create, changing the state outside a state by increasing capacity, revitalizing outlook.
Arpine reads from her recent work titled, What’s Green, What’s Blue
H.4/I.4 Rethinking Rosa Luxemburg, 13:00-14:30, 14:45-16:15, Fraser 205
Detailed Programme: Saturday, June 8
J.1 Social Murder: Social, Economic and Environmental Determinants of Health, 9:00-10:30, Fraser 152
Session Organizer: Rachel Tutte, BC Health Coalition, rtutte@vcn.bc.ca
Governments and business economists keep telling us that our public health care system is unsustainable, but their corporate solutions just make our health care more expensive and our health worse. To save the health care system and improve our health we need to address the chronic diseases and cancers that are the major causes of illness and death today. To do this we need to look at the social, economic and environmental conditions that are making us sick, and to think about the dramatic changes necessary to stop the corporate, profit-maximizing economic system we labour under today.
Chair:
Rachel Tutte, BC Health Coalition, rtutte@vcn.bc.ca
Speakers:
Trevor Hancock, University of Victoria
Robert Chernomas or Ian Hudson, University of Manitoba
Shari Laliberte, University of British Columbia
J.2 Editorial Board Meeting: Socialist Studies Journal, 9:00-10:30, Fraser 157
K.1 Crisis, Austerity, Alternatives, 10:45-12:15, Fraser 152
Session Organizer: Ingo Schmidt, Athabasca University, ingos@athabascau.ca
Governments and central banks responded to the financial and economic crises 2008/9 with deficit spending, bail out of financial firms, and cheap money supplies. Public deficits that were soaring because of the crises and political responses to it soon paved the way to austerity policies. Interestingly enough, international institutions like the OECD and the IMF, who wrote austerity scripts since the early 1980s, are now warning national governments that too much of this medicine might kill the patient. At the same time, monetary policy remains loose to a degree that some economists are warning against inflation and new financial bubbles. However, technocratic debates between Keynesians and Monetarists are mainly concerned with stabilizing the accumulation of capital and pay little or no attention to the social and ecological consequences of the accumulation process and its crises. This roundtable deals with the question why the crises and austerity in its aftermath produce much discontent but little alternatives. It also asks what such alternatives may look like and how they could contribute to a progressive political project.
Speakers:
The Neoliberal Crisis and Issues of Social Reproduction and Gender
Marjorie Griffin-Cohen
The Crisis and Economic Alternatives
Greg Albo, York University, albo@yorku.ca
Canadian Experiences: NUPGE’s Fair Taxation Campaign
Rachel Tutte, BC Health Coalition, rtutte@vcn.bc.ca
Experiences from Europe: The Working Group for Alternative Economic Policies
Ingo Schmidt, Athabasca University, ingos@athabascau.ca
K.2/L.2 Breaking out of our Shell: Socialist Strategy and Mass Politics, 10:45-12:15 and 13:00-14:30, Fraser 157
Session organizers: Murray Cooke, York University, mcooke@yorku.ca, Alan Sears, Ryerson University, asears@soc.ryerson.ca
The economic crisis lingers on. Economic insecurity is rampant. Popular discontent simmers. Yet, neoliberalism, and more so capitalism itself, remains secure. Socialist politics are far removed from the day-to-day realities of the broad working class. How can socialists reach beyond our usual networks to engage a wider constituency? How can socialists approach electoral politics, trade union organizing and social movement activism in a way that defends past gains and works for further reforms while also building toward radical transformation? How can direct democracy and equity be reconciled as we build mass movements? There are no easy answers. What are the most fruitful lines of discussion and action?
Speakers:
How can Workers break the Captivity of Precarity? Struggles in Toronto and San Salvador against Neoliberal Seizures of Labour
Chris Vance, York University, red@tao.ca
The Neoliberal Condition:
Public Education Restructuring and Labour Responses in the US and Canada
Chris Bailey, York University, cbail@yorku.ca
Solidarity: Unity and Differences in Political Movements
Renée McBeth, University of Victoria, renee_mcbeth@
Gramsci and the 99%: How Contemporary Social Movements are Re-Defining Counter-Hegemonic Theory and Practice
Benjamin Levy, Simon Fraser University, blevy@sfu.ca
Mainstreams and Counter-Currents: Democracy and Anti-Capitalism in the Age of Austerity
Murray Cooke, York University, mcooke@yorku.ca and Alan Sears, Ryerson University, asears@soc.ryerson.ca
L.1 Labour and Capital in Contemporary China, 13:00-14:30, Fraser 152
Session Organizer: Ingo Schmidt, Athabasca University, ingos@athabascau.ca
China constantly makes the news as a leading export country and a rising super power. Yet, much less is known about the political and economic conditions within China. This roundtable provides insights on recent conflicts within its ruling Communist Party, on the condition of the Chinese working class and the challenges and opportunities of organizing transpacific working class solidarity.
Speakers:
Contentious Politics: Delicate (Re-)Balancing Between Ideology, Labor and Capital in Reform-China
Guoxin Xing, Simon Fraser University, guoxinx@sfu.ca
Workers in Today’s ‘World Factory’: The Condition of Chinese Working Class
Xinying Hu, Simon Fraser University, xyhu1223@
Chinese and Canadian working class solidarity
Cathy Walker, retired, Canadian Auto Workers Union, cathywalker856@
Cross-listed Sessions
G. 4 Movie: Whispers of Revolution, 10:45-12:15, Fraser 205 (cross-listed with the Canadian Sociological Association)
I.1 Capitalist Crisis and Ideological Struggle (cross-listed with the Canadian Sociological Association), 14:45-16:15, Fraser 152
The primary host for the following sessions is the Canadian Sociological Association. Please check the CSA-Program for detailed information:
Social Movements: Case Studies, June 5, 15:15-16:45, 17:00-18:30
Caring@the Edge: What Counts as Care? Defining the Terrain, June 6, 8:45-10:15
Caring@the Edge: Care Workers, Identities, Culture and Meaning, June 6, 13:30-15:00
Nationalism in Practice, June 6, 8:45-10:15, 13:30-15:00, 3:15-16:45
Social Movements in Theory, June 6, 10:30-12:00
Subverting the Corporatization of Canada’s Universities, June 7, 15:15-16:45, 17:00-18:30
Is There Post-Neoliberalism? Economy, Politics and Public Policy in a Globalized World, June 8, 10:45-12:15 and 13:00-14:30
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Participants and Abstracts
Albo, Greg, York University, albo@yorku.ca
Presenter: Empire’s Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan, 9:00-10:30, June 5,
Presenter: Socialist Register – The Question of Strategy, 10:45-12:15, June 5
Chair: The Left After Politics – A Studies in Political Economy Roundtable, 9:00-10:30, June 6
Presenter: Crisis, Austerity, Alternatives, 10:45-12:15, June 8
Alnasseri, Sabah, York University, alnaseri@yorku.ca
Presenter: Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire, 13:00-14:30, June 5
Aprahamian, Sima, Concordia University, simaaprahamian@yahoo.ca
Presenter: Counter or Parallel Narratives to Twenty-First-Century Commemoration of Genocide and Atrocity, 10:45-12:15, June 6
Abstract: This paper attempts to examine memorials, monuments and commemorations in the case of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1922. Based on narratives of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide & commemorations the paper highlights individual or collective memory of the victim group and the denial of the perpetrator nation state & recent counter narratives. Armenians are still traumatized at the face of the on-going denial of the calamity and the intensification of denial by the perpetrator at the eve of the 100th anniversary of the Genocide.
Speaker: Margarethe von Trotta’s Movies: A Discussion of ‘Hannah Arendt’ and Screening of ‘Rosa Luxemburg’, 9:00-10:30 and 10:45-12:15, June 7
Aziz, Ammar, Film Maker, Pakistan,
Organizer: Movie and Discussion – Hashtnagar: A Land, Forgotten, 10:45-12:15, Fraser 205
Bailey, Chris, York University, cbail@yorku.ca
Presenter: Breaking out of our Shell: Socialist Strategy and Mass Politics, 10:45-12:15 and 13:00-14:30, June 8
Abstract: This essay assesses the current character of kindergarten to grade 12 public education as well as significant examples of left resistance to the neoliberal restructuring of public education in the US and Canada. I will focus on the recent struggles over education reform and collective bargaining in Chicago, Ontario and British Columbia to demonstrate this shifting educational environment. I aim to examine how teachers’ unions can effectively develop their capacities to mount resistance movements beyond the realm of the particular round of collective bargaining and into the social sphere. This entails an examination of the organizational character of each union.
Bakan, Abigail, Queen’s University, bakana@queensu.ca
Presenter & Session Organizer: Marxisms and Feminisms on the Edge, 9:00-10:30 and 10:45-12:45, June 6
Abstract: The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State, written by Frederick Engels in 1884, is one of the most important texts in classical Marxism. There have been numerous analyses offered by socialist feminists, including anthropologists Eleanor Leacock and Evelyn Reed. However, indigenous feminism offers a particularly important contribution. The Origins story deserves re-reading, based on Marx’s notebooks on the work of American settler Lewis Henry Morgan. Those who were the objects of fascination for Morgan – and through Morgan, Marx and Engels – offer lessons for those influenced by Engels’ Origins text. These lessons are the focus of this paper, considering indigenous gendered experiences and the encounter with colonial violence.
Bell, Lindsay, University of Toronto
Presenter: Labour and Indigenous Politics in Canada, 10:45-12:15, June 7
Bhandar, Davina, Trent University
Presenter: “Too Asian” – Race and Racism in the Academy, 13:00-14:30, June 7
Bleakney, Dave, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Presenter: Labour and Indigenous Politics in Canada, 10:45-12:15, June 7
Bonin, Hugo, York University,
Presenter: Pan-Canadian Campus Struggles After the Quebec Student Strike, 10:45-12:15 and 13:00-14:30, June 5
Abstract: From a student strike to a social struggle against austerity, the 2012 Quebec student strike also brought up crucial questions around the clash between contemporary liberal democracy and direct democracy practices. By looking at the importance of the democratic traditions in the Quebec student movement, one is able to grasp both the 2012 strike and future mobilizations in post-secondary institutions across Canada. Furthermore, focusing of the aspect of democratic practices raises the issue of short and long-term effects of mass mobilizations on participants and organizations.
Boveri, Kaveh, University of Montreal, kaveh.boveiri@umontreal.ca
Presenter: Radical Politics, 10:45-12:15, June 7
Abstract: In 2011 we witnessed the Occupy Movement in almost all different parts of the world, the movement of % 99 against %1. This, I argue, is to be considered as the result of a new orientation towards the fact that there are some rights that cannot be achieved within the framework of capitalism. This is the orientation towards a struggle for what is not attainable through extension of the existing borders of capitalism. It will also be shown that although this movement initiated as the demand for basic rights, it transcends them only through integrating radical change.
Brabazon, Honor, University of Oxford, honorbrabazon@
Presenter: Pan-Canadian Campus Struggles After the Quebec Student Strike, 10:45-12:15 and 13:00-14:30, June 5
Abstract: This paper examines how the Quebec student movement engaged the law creatively and selectively as a strategic response to the state’s continuous police repression and draconian emergency legislation. Using interviews with organizers within the movement, the paper surveys the students’ careful navigation of university regulations and state laws, ranging from traditional defiance through to the opposite tactic of what can be called the ‘ironic self-enforcement’ of laws (e.g., the ‘Someone arrest me’ campaign or the mass phone-in to police to register the route of a march). The paper analyses the impact of this varied engagement with law on the strength and growth of the movement and suggests lessons this might provide for continued campus mobilization against the austerity agenda.
Brenner, Johanna, Portland State College, brennerj@pdx.edu
Presenter: Socialist Register – The Question of Strategy, 10:45-12:15, June 5
Keynote Speaker: Twenty-First Century Socialist Feminism, 14:00-16:00, June 6
Burfoot, Annette, Queen’s University, burfoota@queensu.ca,
Presenter: Marxisms and Feminisms on the Edge, 9:00-10:30 and 10:45-12:45, June 6
Abstract: This paper examines the development of feminist theory from socialist feminism through the post-structural turn to materialism, contextualized within concepts such as positionality, standpoint and intersectionality. The paper asks, have we lost sight of the strength of feminist structuralism - particularly the effects of capital - in order to accommodate multiple and complex subjectifications running along the lines of gender? O'Brien’s reproductive consciousness is compared to contemporary theoretical feminist positionings, including queer studies, post-colonialism, and transnational feminism. This is not designed as romantic longings, but an exploration of the potential for reproductive consciousness today.
Carroll, William K., University of Victoria wcarroll@uvic.ca
Presenter: Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire, 13:00-14:30, June 5
Presenter: The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of the American Empire, 10:45-12:15, June 6
Presenter: Capitalist Crisis and Ideological Struggle, 14:45-16:15, June 7
Abstract: This paper is part of a larger, transnational, participatory project on how alternative political and policy knowledge is produced and mobilized in varying contexts worldwide. The paper is based on in-depth interviews with staff at the Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives, a major site for contesting neoliberal hegemony and advocating political alternatives. We chart the Centre’s development, within the crises of globalizing capitalism, as a networked configuration of research, communications, education and organizing – a collective intellectual on the left. We outline its efforts to produce and mobilize alternative knowledge that builds capacity for a social democratic community of practice in Canada. We also highlight a number of challenges and paradoxes involved in these efforts, as the CCPA addresses both mainstream publics and radical counter-publics.
Changfoot, Nadine, Trent University, nadinechangfoot@trentu.ca
Presenter: Marxisms and Feminisms on the Edge, 9:00-10:30 and 10:45-12:45, June 6
Abstract: During the fall of 2012, I facilitated workshops where women living with disabilities and differences each made their own digital story (3-4 minute self-reflexive films) on what it means to them to be “disabled” and labelled different (and it turns out “non-citizens”). I argue that in creating a micro-socialist-feminist space where individuals are invited and supported to artfully and creatively explore their identity, class and gender concerns emerge at the outset for the women as motivation for the art-making. As well, identity formation in the art-making itself constituted political agency that also led to collective social and political action post-workshop. The implications include that micro-socialist-feminist spaces as interstices within and among established social movement organizations remain germinal for agency, empowerment, and social change for very marginalized groups.
Cheney, Tom, York University, tcheney@yorku.ca
Presenter: Urban Crisis and the Environment, 9:00-10:30, June 7
Abstract: While investigations of capitalist estrangement have historically focussed on productive labour, this analysis describes the consumption of industrially-produced food as a form of alienation. Just as Marx portrays capitalist labour as degrading the worker, this paper argues that so too does industrial food. Drawing on Marx and the Frankfurt School, particularly the concepts of division of labour, abstraction, and one-dimensionality, it is argued that food is an important way to understand the human-nature dialectic. As such, it is a tool in the continued oppression of the subordinate classes, but also a possible site of resistance to capitalism.
Chernomas, Robert, University of Manitoba
Presenter: Social Murder - Social, economic and environmental determinants of health, 9:00-10:30, June 8.
Choudry, Aziz, McGill University, aziz.choudry@mcgill.ca
Presenter: Labour and Extra-Parliamentary in Canada, 10:45-12:15, June 5
Claver, Chandu, Migrante BC, chandu_claver@
Presenter: Migrant Workers – Exploitation and Solidarity, 14:45-16:15, June 7
Clow, Michael, St. Thomas University, mclow@stu.ca
Presenter: Environmental Movements and the Left, 10:45-12:15, June 5
Abstract: While 35 years ago Left scholars often dismissed environmental problems, this is long passed. But we have been talking largely to ourselves. Environmentalists remain focused on the symptoms of ecological degradation, and on environmental education, moral appeals and lobbying. Their political failure has not motivated a rethinking of their blandly liberal assumptions – environmentalists know who their major opponents are, but not what mandates climate denial and efforts to eliminate environmental obstacles to investment and growth. What is needed is not only more Left environmental activism, but sustained efforts of “public sociology” to widen the “common sense” discourse to left-sociological ideas.
Coburn, Elaine, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and American University of Paris, ecoburn@aup.edu
Presenter & Session Organizer: Marxisms and Feminisms on the Edge, 9:00-10:30 and 10:45-12:45, June 6
Abstract: In today’s world of grotesque inequalities, Marxism is critical. Historical materialism offers analytical insights into the existing world capitalist system, informed by a moral commitment to a better world organized around human needs of all and not merely the wants of the rich. Yet, if Marxism is necessary, it is at the same time radically inadequate. This paper argues for ongoing, critical dialogue between Marxism and black and Indigenous feminisms, as well as with queer theory and theories of disability, among others. As Eileen Morteon-Robinson argues, challenging dominance – and I would add, bringing about social(ist) justice – requires us to ‘speak unspeakable things’. This means abandoning ‘class-only’ forms of Marxism for a wide-ranging dialogue on patriarchy, colonialism, white dominance and more.
Presenter & session organizer: ‘Idle No More’ and Indigenous Resurgence, 16:00-19:00, June 7
Abstract: I suggest that the Idle No More movement is best understood within the context of a five hundred year old world colonial-capitalist system. Recent developments within this world system have stimulated worldwide resistance – in part as a matter of survival -- not least among Indigenous women. I thus understand the Idle No More movement as a response both to the broad political-economic context of world colonial-capitalism, as well as to the specific dynamics of this system within the contemporary Canadian context. Although not without precedents, Idle No More has given new impetus to wide-ranging efforts to sustaining vital connections to Indigenous lands and water, languages and cultures, so enacting Indigenous survival and sovereignty in the context of the credible threat of genocide through assimilation.
Cohen, Marjorie, Simon Fraser University, mcohen@sfu.ca
Presenter: The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of the American Empire, 10:45-12:15, June 6
Presenter: Crisis, Austerity, Alternatives, 10:45-12:15, June 8
Conway, Aidan D., York University
Presenter: American Empire and Neoliberalism, 13:00-14:30, June 7
Abstract: Canada’s capitalist political economy can be characterized as having passed through several epochs, from the initial “nation-building” period after Confederation to the recent neoliberal era that emerged out of the turmoil of the 1970s and 1980s. Rather than be seen in terms of an abrupt about-face brought on by the sudden “free-market” ideological conversion of elite groups, or the inevitable complement to an irresistible “globalization,” the triumph of neoliberalism must be explained in the context of longstanding patterns of class formation and class struggle in a regionally diverse and divided capitalist political economy buttressed and bruised by global forces throughout its history.
Conway, John F., University of Regina, John.Conway@uregina.ca
Presenter: American Empire and Neoliberalism, 13:00-14:30, June 7
Abstract: Canada’s capitalist political economy can be characterized as having passed through several epochs, from the initial “nation-building” period after Confederation to the recent neoliberal era that emerged out of the turmoil of the 1970s and 1980s. Rather than be seen in terms of an abrupt about-face brought on by the sudden “free-market” ideological conversion of elite groups, or the inevitable complement to an irresistible “globalization,” the triumph of neoliberalism must be explained in the context of longstanding patterns of class formation and class struggle in a regionally diverse and divided capitalist political economy buttressed and bruised by global forces throughout its history.
Cooke, Murray, York University, mcooke@yorku.ca
Presenter & Session Organizer: Breaking out of our Shell: Socialist Strategy and Mass Politics, 10:45-12:15 and 13:00-14:30, June 8
Abstract: The world around us looks more and more like an anti-capitalist fable, with an increased polarization of wealth and relentless attacks on the working and living conditions of working class people. Yet the anti-capitalist left is a tiny counter-current in the political flow of the times, leaving a tremendous gap between the aspiration for mass insurgency and the actual weight of the anti-capitalist left. This paper looks at the challenge of orienting towards the mainstream at a time when social democratic parties are thoroughly committed to neo-liberalism and when the trade unions are generally in a concessionary mode. The theme of democracy has run through the key movements of our time, from the Arab revolutions to Occupy, and from the Quebec student strike to Idle No More. Anti-capitalist democracy means the left must attempt to build radical action and analysis in counter-flow while orienting towards winning the mainstream.
Corntassel, Jeff, Indigenous Governance Program
Presenter: ‘Idle No More’ and Indigenous Resurgence, 10:45-12:15 and 13:00-14:30, June 8
Cristall, Gary, Capilano University, garycristall@
Presenter: Arts, Culture & Campuses, 13:00-14:30, June 5
Abstract: Across Canada in union halls in pre World War I New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in the Ukrainian Labour Temples established in the twenties, in the Theatre of Action productions of the thirties and across the country through the various groups inspired by the United Jewish People’s Organization (UJPO) Folk Singers tours of the fifties, “folk” music, mainly its contemporary variant, was a cultural project of the political left. The who, how, what, where and when of this explains the Canadian left’s most successful cultural venture.
Dergousoff, Debbie, Simon Fraser University, ddergous@sfu.ca
Presenter: Marxisms and Feminisms on the Edge, 9:00-10:30 and 10:45-12:45, June 6
Abstract: The intersection of capitalism, neoliberalism and socialism in post-Soviet transition economies holds much potential for Marxist feminist critiques of empire. This paper shares important insights into the workings of empire (largely writ) in my study of training programs for women entrepreneurs in rural villages of Kyrgyzstan. In this work I apply Dorothy Smith’s institutional ethnography to investigate disjunctures between the intent of development initiatives rooted in textually mediated ‘ruling relations’ and their potential to accomplish meaningful gains in ‘economic development’ at the local level. Rather than discussing capitalism as an abstract concept, the way it creeps into village life is brought into view through the actual activity of agents who simultaneously resist and are drawn into its relations.
Desai, Radhika, University of Manitoba, Radhika.Desai@ad.umanitoba.ca
Presenter: Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire, 13:00-14:30, June 5
Doerr, Karin, Concordia University, kdoerr@alcor.concordia.ca
Presenter: Counter or Parallel Narratives to Twenty-First-Century Commemoration of Genocide and Atrocity, 10:45-12:15, June 6
Abstract: After an initial silence at the end of World War II and the Holocaust, Germany now displays complex notions of remembering. There are government-instituted ceremonies, memorials, and museums, as well as community initiatives and projects. Concerned individuals in the public eye demonstrate the heavy burden of their country’s history and their self-imposed responsibility to keep its memory alive. They express this belief in their artistic oeuvres and thus contribute to a varied memorial landscape. Contrary voices oppose this ongoing engagement with the Holocaust. In this paper, I shall provide examples of German memory work and then focus on the resentment expressed by some Germans, among them the young generation. They see the presence of Holocaust remembrance as a hindrance to a positive German world image. I shall explain the German identity problem that lies behind their resistance to the subject of World War II and the Holocaust.
Speaker: Margarethe von Trotta’s Movies: A Discussion of ‘Hannah Arendt’ and Screening of ‘Rosa Luxemburg’, 9:00-10:30 and 10:45-12:15, June 7
Evans, Bryan, Ryerson University, b1evans@politics.ryerson.ca
Presenter: Labour and Electoral Politics in Canada, 9:00-10:30, June 5
Fenton, Anthony, York University, fentona@yorku.ca
Presenter: Empire’s Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan, 9:00-10:30, June 5
Ferguson, Susan, Wilfrid Laurier University, sferguson@wlu.ca
Presenter: Social Reproduction, Commodification and Sexualities, 13:00-14:30, June 7
Abstract: Any survey of popular culture today confirms that the personal – the intimately personal that is – has never been so public. Yet, it remains stubbornly non-political. It's not just sex and sexuality that sells, but a regressive, narrowly defined, (hetero)sexist sexuality in particular. As feminists struggle to make sense of this, they run up against accusations of moralism and “sex-negativity” (often lobbied by “sex-positive” feminists). In this paper, I explore how an analytical approach that pays attention to the embodied nature of capitalist social reproduction provides certain theoretical and political insights into our hyper-(hetero)sexist sexualized popular culture. While social reproduction feminism has paid insufficient attention to bodies and sexuality to date, its premises in fact invite such attention because the work of reproducing ourselves for capitalism is precisely all about caring for our bodies and, optimally, meeting their physical and psycho-social needs.
Fodor, Matt, York University, mattnfodor@
Presenter: Canadian Politics, 9:00-10:30, June 5
Abstract: This paper will examine social democratic thinking in Canada since 1990 in terms of responding to declining electoral fortunes and the challenges of neoliberalism and globalization. It will explore debates between Third Wayers, social movement activists and traditional social democrats, the relations with Left intellectuals, the role of think tanks and strategic moves towards greater cooperation with the Liberals. The main argument is that in the last decade in particular, the Third Way has come to implicitly if not explicitly come to dominate party thinking.
Forrest, Anne, University of Windsor, forrest@uwindsor.ca
Presenter: Pan-Canadian Campus Struggles After the Quebec Student Strike, 10:45-12:15 and 13:00-14:30, June 5
Abstract: This presentation raises questions about faculty unionism and the collective agreements of full-time faculty in the context of austerity frameworks. In these times, traditional resistance along the lines of no-concessions bargaining may prove to be neither socially just nor strategically wise when practised by high wage, economically secure workers like full-time faculty. We may see ourselves as defending post-secondary education; however, the result will be to induce (even facilitate) changes that deeply undermine teaching quality and access. Support for university faculty will fall away quickly if the public believes that we are willing to maintain our standard of living at the expense of other who are less well off – university support staff, part-time instructors, and students – or stand by as “innovations” such as on-line courses further disrupt the person-to-person learning environment we know students value.
Garrod, J. Z., Carleton University, jzgarrod@
Presenter: American Empire and Neoliberalism, 13:00-14:30, June 7
Abstract: The publication of The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire, marks the most recent attempt by Panitch and Gindin to further their argument that American imperialism was reconstituted after the economic crisis of the 1970s through the rise of financial capital. Outside of the empirical evidence they use to make their claims, I question whether this form of imperialism can truly be characterized as 'American,' and whether or not imperialism is the most appropriate concept to describe the nature of our contemporary reality. Through an analysis of the development of global corporate property relations, I argue that Panitch and Gindin's conceptual schema neglects to draw out the analytical, theoretical, methodological, and epistemological implications of the contemporary nature of capitalist expansion. The article concludes by asking to what extent, and in what ways are we edging towards new state forms and institutional configurations, and how might we theorize them?
Golubev, Alexey, University of British Columbia, golubevalexei@
Presenter & Roundtable Organizer: Socialist Community, 9:00-10:30, June 6
Gordon, Todd, Laurier Brantford, tsgordon@wlu.ca
Presenter & Roundtable Organizer: Empire’s Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan, 9:00-10:30, June 5
Gorsuch, Anne, University of British Columbia
Chair: Socialist Community, 9:00-10:30, June 6
Graefe, Peter, McMaster University, graefep@mcmaster.ca
Presenter: Labour and Electoral Politics in Canada, 9:00-10:30, June 5
Gürcan, Efe Can, Simon Fraser University, egurcan@sfu.ca
Presenter: Public Policy and the Building of a Popular-Democratic Historical Bloc in Latin America, 9:00-10:30, June 6
Abstract I: The 1990s witnessed the loss of legitimacy of neoliberalism and exhaustion of traditional forms of liberal democracy in Latin America. By the 2000s, a surge of social movements and left-wing governments was the counterpart. We aim to understand the empowerment potential of counter-hegemonic processes in Latin America, which may lead to a post-neoliberal, popular-democratic alternative. Proposing an empowerment theory which focuses on the political-cultural formation of subordinate classes, we compare and contrast communal councils in Venezuela with recuperated workplaces in Argentina. Our question is: How do popular-democratic movements organize to struggle for their interests so as to achieve an alternative to bourgeois hegemony, or at least state interventions that are favorable to their social reproduction, while not becoming co-opted by the state? We argue that empowerment outcomes (successful or not) are determined by three mediating factors between class structural processes and politics: culture, state intervention and leadership types. In Argentina, forms of naïve consciousness and bureaucratic-managerial models of leadership have been consolidated with the predominance of bourgeois-hegemonic state intervention, which led to co-optation. In Venezuela, emancipatory leadership and forms of critical consciousness have coexisted with popular-democratic state intervention, but the question is whether this depends on Hugo Chavez’s personalistic leadership.
Abstract II: We critique the traditional split between class-focused and identity-politics perspectives in the theory and practice of social movements. We argue that, especially for indigenous movements, emphasizing class or identity at the expense of the alternative leads to a reductionist and incomplete explanation and likely political failure in the struggle for empowerment. Our synthetic approach focuses on three mediating determinations between class structural processes (“class-in-itself”) and political-cultural formation (“class-for-itself”): regional cultures, state intervention, and leadership types. We then compare and contrast Bolivia’s Katarista movement of the 1970s and 1980s with the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), which became the country's governing party in 2005. Katarismo’s cultural-identity focus neglected broader class grievances, limiting its political appeal to the indigenous peasantry. Furthermore, its leadership was unable to unify the movement, experiencing recurrent splits and cooptation by the state. In contrast, the MAS was capable of organizing around both class and identity, enabling it to broaden its constituency and eventually gain mass electoral support. Initially-repressive state policies and an eventual political opening were capably used by the MAS leadership to broaden strategic alliances. This combination of determinants enabled the movement’s empowerment and ultimate electoral political ascent.
Hancock, Trevor, University of Victoria
Presenter: Social Murder - Social, economic and environmental determinants of health, 9:00-10:30, June 8.
Helali, Christopher, MassBay Community College, Chelali@
Presenter: Marxisms and Feminisms on the Edge, 9:00-10:30 and 10:45-12:45, June 6
Abstract: The increasingly “pornified” society poses renewed challenges for the Marxist-Feminist tradition. Human alienation and commodification culminates in abstraction, the panoply of images, clips and severed bodies objectified within the spectacle of hetero-patriarchal capitalism. Thus, pornography becomes an instrument of propaganda, the embodiment of the hegemonic ideology. The Marxist-Feminist tradition can provide a systematic refutation of the so-called “liberatory” nature of pornography, emphasizing the commodification of the human body within the hetero-patriarchal system of capitalism. This paper provides new perspectives, increasing our understanding of the true ideological motivations behind pornography which ultimately will provide us with new opportunities for critical resistance.
Henry, Aaron James
Presenter: Capitalist Crisis and Ideological Struggle, 14:45-16:15, June 7
Abstract: Slavoj Žižek has claimed that our fascination with the ‘end times’ is the product of the relative strength of capitalist ideology. This paper argues that contemporary society does not just have a preoccupation with the ‘future’, but that the future has been partitioned into two social forms, that of a private object, subject to the mastery of the individual’s rational calculation and that of a ‘public’ or collective ‘dystopia’ that is beyond ‘political action’. Thus, we are perpetually confronted by climate change, resource shortages, population growth, failing state-structures as inevitable, hopeless events that beset our collective social existence. However, the future confronts private life as a set of contiguous economic decisions: financial planning, life and disability insurance and life narratives. This has affected ideology in capitalist society in two ways. First, as I will demonstrate through an analysis of the Occupy-Movement, social movements increasingly eschew long-term transformative aims; second, our experience of the future is increasingly steeped in corporate and financial narratives that have reified the future as a technical object rather than a product of collective social power.
Holt, Justin P., New York University, jh129@nyu.edu
Presenter: Radical Theory, 9:00-10:30, June 7
Abstract: I will argue that the normative goals discussed in the work of John Rawls and Amartya Sen can only be fully realized if socialist institutions exist. The most important goals of Rawls and Sen are: freedom of conscience, economic security, equal opportunity, the fulfillment of self-esteem, social union, and the satisfaction of functionings. These goals can only be realized through the existence of the socialist institutions of public ownership, workplace democracy, democratic national planning, the minimization of skill differentials, and socialist friendship. In short, the achievement of just society requires the existence of socialist institutions.
Hu, Xinying, Simon Fraser University, xyhu1223@
Presenter: Labour and Capital in Contemporary China, 13:00-14:30, June 8
Abstract: From once the masters of a worker’s state to current cheap labour in a “world factory”, China’s working class has experienced tremendous transformation and development under the impact of rapid economic globalization over the last three decades. The aim of this study is to not only trace the evolution of China’s working class, including both traditional working class and newly emerging proletariats, but also to analyze the nature of their struggles and explore the future organization of China’s working class.
Hudis, Peter, Oakton Community College, phudis@oakton.edu
Presenter, Marx’s Concept of an Alternative to Capital, 9:00-10:30, June 7
Presenter: Rethinking Rosa Luxemburg, 13:00-14:30 and 14:45-16:15, June 7
Abstract: Although Rosa Luxemburg's detailed analyses of the process of capitalist reproduction in such works as The Accumulation of Capital is well known, less familiar is her work as a teacher and lecturer at the German Social-Democratic Party school in Berlin from 1907 to 1914. It was during her lectures and discussions at the school that she developed some of her most important contributions to Marxian economics, which directly led to writing The Accumulation of Capital and the Introduction to Political Economy. This paper will focus on eight recently discovered manuscripts composed by Luxemburg as part of her work at the SPD school, which reveal the depth of her explorations of important issues in anthropology, ethnology, and economic history.
Hudson, Ian, University of Manitoba
Presenter: Social Murder - Social, economic and environmental determinants of health, 9:00-10:30, June 8.
Hudson, Mark, University of Manitoba, Mark.hudson@ad.umanitoba.ca
Presenter: Environmental Movements and the Left, 10:45-12:15, June 5
Abstract: Environmental movements have focused much of their energies in the past decade on calling for serious action on climate change. Market-based mechanisms have become a key plank in national, sub-national, and transnational efforts to respond. What stance does this suggest for movements with social democratic or socialist visions? This paper critically evaluates both the environmental and economic consequences of carbon markets and carbon finance, characterizes the responses of left environmentalists and labour groups to the rise of carbon trading, and discusses whether carbon markets are antithetical to a socialist environmental vision.
Huxtable, David, University of Victoria, huxtable@uvic.ca
Presenter: Capitalist Crisis and Ideological Struggle, 14:45-16:15, June 7
Abstract: This paper is part of a larger, transnational, participatory project on how alternative political and policy knowledge is produced and mobilized in varying contexts worldwide. The paper is based on in-depth interviews with staff at the Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives, a major site for contesting neoliberal hegemony and advocating political alternatives. We chart the Centre’s development, within the crises of globalizing capitalism, as a networked configuration of research, communications, education and organizing – a collective intellectual on the left. We outline its efforts to produce and mobilize alternative knowledge that builds capacity for a social democratic community of practice in Canada. We also highlight a number of challenges and paradoxes involved in these efforts, as the CCPA addresses both mainstream publics and radical counter-publics.
Jaramillo, Fernanda Sanchez, BCGEU, HEU, fernandasanchezjaramillo@
Presenter: Migrant Workers – Exploitation and Solidarity, 14:45-16:15, June 7
Abstract: This presentation is about why countries use foreign temporary migrant workers and the link between this practice and privilege, racism and classism and the impact on these peoples lives. It also compares Canadian and Latin-American practices and looks at the work done by the Labour Movement to address these issues.
Kashefi, Sirus, Osgoode Hall Law School, s.kashefi@
Presenter: Radical Theory, 9:00-10:30, June 7
Abstract: This paper aims at critically analyzing some psychological features in the anarchists that constitute what we can call “anarchist personality”. As an “archetype”, this personality is made up of the feeling of or the need for freedom, revolt, criticism, individuality, love, sensibility, pride, justice, and dream. An anarchist is indeed a passionate person in whom reason and passion overlap each other. Besides, the place of violence and illegalism, two questionable topics in anarchism, in such personality requires to be analyzed. However, it would keep in mind that, on the one hand, those characteristics, which seem to be so general and vague, would be also found among other revolutionaries or revolted people, except revolt against authority in its all potent or latent aspects (i.e. paternal, economic, religious, political, and social authorities) that the anarchists reject. Such an uncompromising attitude toward authority stems from the cult of freedom among the libertarians. On the other hand, anarchist personality may change because of the age, social, economic, or political position of an individual.
Kellogg, Paul, Athabasca University, pkellogg@athabascau.ca
Presenter: Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire, 13:00-14:30, June 5
Presenter: Empire’s Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan, 9:00-10:30, June 5
Presenter, Marx’s Concept of an Alternative to Capital, 9:00-10:30, June 7
Konyalian Grenier, Arpine, Poet/Writer/Scientist/Independent Scholar, Tucson, Arizona, arpine@
Presenter: Counter or Parallel Narratives to Twenty-First-Century Commemoration of Genocide and Atrocity, 10:45-12:15, June 6
Whereas one cannot name the deaf and oblique most think comes from evil, whereas therein lies unfinished business as in G that stands for grief, greed, gratitude, golem and gul/rose (Turkish), also girk/passion/book (Armenian), goodwill, gold, guilt, gravity, and genocide, and whereas it is silent, here’s an ode to tears, an investment return to investment returns of denial, of clinging to the river, Euphrates, Araxes, other. Through an aesthetic based on science, history and language, my presentation will explore derivatives of the past whereby the new occurs, because of what escapes or survives experience, and because there is will.
Presenter: Willed Capital: Where the Word Meets Itself, 14:45-16:15, June 7
Krause, Maria G., Queen’s University, 12mgk1@queensu.ca
Presenter: Genocide and the Politics of Reconciliation, 9:00-10:30, June 5
Abstract: Implemented as a culturally relevant response to reunite post-genocide Rwanda under a single national identity, President Paul Kagame’s government has been accused of using the Gacaca Court system as part of a “Tutsifying” campaign to consolidate its power at the expense of Rwandan citizens. In this paper, I will explore the government’s motivations for implementing these traditional Gacaca tribunals to address this accusation. While not conclusive, this analysis indicates linkages between the use of Gacaca and government motivations to consolidate its political power, which given the historical cycles of violence in Rwanda, has serious implications for its future stability.
Ku, Jane, University of Windsor
Presenter: “Too Asian” – Race and Racism in the Academy, 13:00-14:30, June 7
Lafrance, Xavier, York University, xlafrance@
Presenter: Pan-Canadian Campus Struggles After the Quebec Student Strike, 10:45-12:15 and 13:00-14:30, June 5
Abstract: This presentation will offer an overview of the main characteristics of the democratic activist student unionism that has been deployed by the Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante (ASSÉ) in order to organize the student strikes of 2005 and 2012 in Québec. It will also analyze how ASSÉ’s strategies evolved from the first strike to the second as its membership, experience and organizational capacities developed. This will allow us to understand how an anti-neoliberal discourse on post-secondary education that was anchored in episodes of democratic mass mobilization organized from below could be crafted and disseminated with impressive success.
Laliberte, Shari, University of British Columbia
Presenter: Social Murder - Social, economic and environmental determinants of health, 9:00-10:30, June 8.
Lange, Lynda, University of Toronto
Presenter: ‘Idle No More’ and Indigenous Resurgence, 16:00-19:00, June 7
Abstract: The “Root Cause Theory” of (In)(Re)Surgence and a Canadian Discourse of Fear. Indigenous leaders of current mobilization, including Idle No More, emphasize in their public statements that “no violence” is being threatened. This paper looks at the history and the present political context of indigenous activism that leaders undoubtedly know shadows everything they say on behalf of current indigenous movement. The history of Indigenous-Canadian contact shows a conceptual opposition between, on the one hand, “protest/politics/action against oppression” and, on the other hand, “law breaking/war/treason/terrorism”. This paper shows how the ambiguity of these labels has never really gone away for Indigenous peoples in Canada, and could be re-activated in the present political climate.
Langford, Tom, University of Calgary, langford@ucalgary.ca
Presenter: Labour Studies, 13:00-14:30, June 5
Abstract: This paper argues that union democracy (in the sense of active direct democracy at local levels in combination with highly accountable representative systems at more general levels) has the potential to serve as a foundation for a participatory society. The argument is developed in four parts. First, I review the stream of scholarship that began with Union Democracy (1956) in order to establish its relevance to the question of unions as a beachhead for a participatory society. Second, I rethink the concept of participatory democracy in light of recent democratic theory, particularly works on radical, plural democracy and deliberative democracy. Third, I address the question of why labour unions, rather than some other institution, should be a focal point for efforts to democratize democracy. And fourth, I sketch an historical example of how the combination of direct democracy and representative democratic accountability in the five United Mine Workers of America locals in the Crowsnest Pass, Canada, in the mid-20th century, served not only as a crucial source of working class power in struggles again coal companies, the provincial and federal states and an autocratic international union, but also as the foundation for the spread of democracy in this regional coalfield society.
Lawson, James, University of Victoria, lawsonj@uvic.ca,
Presenter: Environmental Movements and the Left, 10:45-12:15, June 5
Abstract: Commodity-chain analysis draws attention to the structural and institutional channelling of material, monetary, and communication flows within capitalism. These chains coordinate linked production processes across jurisdictions, from raw material extraction to the marketing of final commodities. This paper, part of a larger project, critically synthesizes contributions from these literatures, and re-animates their roots in theories of class struggle and anti-imperialism. Summarizing and extending project conclusions to date, the paper then applies them to the current western Canadian struggles surrounding pipeline construction, a complex study of contending state jurisdictions, commodity chain governance, and social struggles surrounding democracy, de-colonization, and ecology.
LeBaron, Genevieve, University of British Columbia, genevieve.lebaron@ubc.ca
Presenter: Social Reproduction, Commodification and Sexualities, 13:00-14:30, June 7
Abstract: The decline of non-market forms of provisioning have opened the door to accelerating commodification in households that can afford it. A wide range of feminist scholars have documented the ways in which reproductive labor has been transformed alongside the neoliberal erosion of adequate and affordable social services like child-care, health care, and care for the elderly. These studies have sometimes portrayed labor in disembodied ways: devoid of the affective and intimate relations imbricated in household relationships. Indeed, much less scholarly attention has been focused on the broader transformations in the 'warm', intimate and familial relationships within these households than the increased burdens in reproductive labor. Drawing on a social reproduction feminist method, this paper assesses the ways in which heightened household commodification is impacting these broader relationships and prompted fundamental shifts in ‘structures of feelings,’ to use Raymond Williams’ term, as human relationships have become more deeply embedded in capitalist social relations. It is particularly interested in how social and intimate relations are being transformed by the deepening of household commodification, risk, and insecurity as labor market restructuring and state and financial crises have brought social life under regulation by market imperative.
Lebrun, Pascal, lebrun.pascal@courrier.uqam.ca
Presenter: Radical Politics, 10:45-12:15, June 7
Abstract: The Parecon formal model, developed by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel twenty years ago, has been gaining visibility and popularity in anti-capitalist left movements during the last decade. Yet no serious structural analyses have been conducted over its capacity to yield a viable economic result. In fact, debates on this subject have generally revolved around essentialist arguments about the feasibility of a planned economy, rather than around Parecon’s structural characteristics. To begin this necessary assessment of Parecon’s ability to produce a viable economy, this paper compares its structural characteristics to those of the Soviet Centrally Planned Economy in order to identify recurring problems and potential improvements.
Leech, Garry, Cape Breton University, garry_leech@cbu.ca
Presenter: Genocide and the Politics of Reconciliation, , 9:00-10:30, June 5
Abstract: This paper will first define “structural genocide” by arguing that structural violence is an inherent component of the capitalist system and that it causes the deaths of more than ten million people annually. Therefore, capitalism constitutes a class-based structural genocide that targets the poor, particularly in the Global South. This paper will then explore Canada’s role in the this genocide through an examination of the structural violence being perpetrated against the rural population of Colombia by Canadian mining companies and the energy consumption of Canadians.
Green, Robyn, Carleton University, robyn_green@carleton.ca
Presenter: Genocide and the Politics of Reconciliation, 9:00-10:30, June 5
Abstract: The Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement stipulates that health supports must be provided to Survivors and remain accessible until the completion of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s mandate. While the continuation of health supports is legally protected, these services are increasingly compromised by the current government’s policy framework and attempts at labour re-structuring. This paper situates health support provision designated as a reconciliatory initiative alongside deep cuts to the health sector (which occurred in 2012) as a means to analyze the settler state’s re-articulation of the determinants of health and to interrogate the efficacy of health support initiatives for First Nations, Inuit and Métis Survivors. Firstly, this paper documents public censure directed at Health Canada programs and secondly, draws on an Access to Information request that is used to explore the ramifications of the upcoming closure of Aboriginal Healing Foundation programs.
Levy, Benjamin, Simon Fraser University, blevy@sfu.ca
Presenter: Breaking out of our Shell: Socialist Strategy and Mass Politics, 10:45-12:15 and 13:00-14:30, June 8
Abstract: Sociologist Richard Day recently proclaimed: "Gramsci is Dead." While Gramsci is perhaps in need of some caffeine or a stiff drink, he is far from dead; indeed, contemporary social movements are reinventing Gramsci's thinking for an era marked by electronic communication technologies, by popular resistance to neoliberalism and finance capital, and by decentralized, non-hierarchical forms of social movement organization. This paper explores the continuing relevance of Gramsci's ideas by applying them to a participant ethnography of two social movements: that of Occupy Vancouver, and that of the recent strike staged by Simon Fraser University's teaching support staff union.
Luban, Ottokar, International Rosa Luxemburg Society, oluban@gmx.de
Presenter: Rethinking Rosa Luxemburg, 13:00-14:30 and 14:45-16:15, June 7
Luxton, Meg, York University, mluxton@yorku.ca
Presenter: Socialist Register – The Question of Strategy, 10:45-12:15, June 5
Presenter: Radical Politics, 10:45-12:15, June 7
Abstract: In Canada, socialist politics have disappeared from the public agenda. However, socialism remains a political commitment and an inspiration for some. In a climate hostile to their values, their political views and actions typically remain invisible. Based on interviews with people who identified themselves as socialists and who made efforts to live their lives in ways that were compatible with their socialist ideals, I examine what they meant when they identified themselves as socialist, why they supported socialist politics and how they attempted to implement their politics in their daily lives.
Ma, Michael, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, mikeckma@
Chair & roundtable organizer: “Too Asian” – Race and Racism in the Academy, 13:00-14:30, June 7
Machum, Susan, St. Thomas University, smachum@stu.ca,
Presenter: Environmental Movements and the Left, 10:45-12:15, June 5
Abstract: While 35 years ago Left scholars often dismissed environmental problems, this is long passed. But we have been talking largely to ourselves. Environmentalists remain focused on the symptoms of ecological degradation, and on environmental education, moral appeals and lobbying. Their political failure has not motivated a rethinking of their blandly liberal assumptions – environmentalists know who their major opponents are, but not what mandates climate denial and efforts to eliminate environmental obstacles to investment and growth. What is needed is not only more Left environmental activism, but sustained efforts of “public sociology” to widen the “common sense” discourse to left-sociological ideas.
McAllister, Kirsten, Simon Fraser University
Presenter: “Too Asian” – Race and Racism in the Academy, 13:00-14:30, June 7
McBeth, Renée, University of Victoria, renee_mcbeth@
Presenter: Breaking out of our Shell: Socialist Strategy and Mass Politics, 10:45-12:15 and 13:00-14:30, June 8
Abstract: While solidarity among different kinds of political struggles is critical to building mass movements, the idea of solidarity remains a fraught and contested one. Recently, Idle No More, the Quebec student movement, and environmental movements have all struggled to both build alliances across differences and acknowledge the specificity of each other’s concerns. The challenge is to find ways of working together without perpetuating a colonial dynamic that collapses the distinctions between movements and the people involved. This paper considers the ongoing relevance of solidarity with historical reference to lingering questions raised by past movements, such as “Operation Solidarity” in British Columbia.
McBride, Stephen, McMaster University, mcbride@mcmaster.ca
Presenter: Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire, 13:00-14:30, June 5
McGray, Robert, Concordia University, rmcgray@education.concordia.ca
Presenter: Pan-Canadian Campus Struggles After the Quebec Student Strike, 10:45-12:15 and 13:00-14:30, June 5
Abstract: This paper reports on the findings of a study that focused on English newspaper media’s coverage of le printemps érable, or, The Maple Spring. The study comprised seven months of coverage from The Globe and Mail and the National Post – two hundred and seventy-one stories. I argue that the discursive practices in the papers police an ideology aimed at the legitimation of certain forms of debt that dovetails extensively with neo-austerity agendas. As such, I query the pedagogical project of the media and the state in the restructuring of education.
McQuaide, Shiling, Athabasca University, shilingm@athabascau.ca
Presenter: Labour Studies, 13:00-14:30, June 5
Abstract: This paper discusses in detail the educational programs implemented by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the isolated areas they had conquered and occupied. After an analytic narration of the main components of the CCP educational drive—army and cadre education, mass literacy movement and mandatory schooling for children under 15, it approaches the topic from the perspective of adult education, with a focus on educational pedagogy and teaching methods employed in these programs. This paper concludes that with the explicitly defined purpose of education as a weapon for class enlightenment and political mobilization, CCP education was instrumental to the Soviet base area building and consolidation. The innovative teaching tactics practiced by these early communists are certainly inspiring for today’s adult educators as well. But, the intimate connection between education and revolutionary politics forged in the intense class warfare of this period also sowed the despotic seeds which sprouted during the Yan’an era (1937-1945) and grew rampantly after Mao Zedong coming to power.
Mullen, Shannon
Presenter: Capitalist Crisis and Ideological Struggle, 14:45-16:15, June 7
Abstract: Idealists have embraced human rights because they present a moral vision for a better world, yet it is questionable as to whether they can acquire the political leverage to create meaningful social change. This paper begins to tease out the factors that need to be considered for human rights to function as emancipatory tools for challenging neoliberalism. First is the difficulty of transferring a moral vision into a political program: since human rights were born out of an apolitical morality, their mystique may be lost when they enter the political terrain. Second, there are several challenges for enforcing a cosmopolitan vision for human rights in a way that does not perpetuate existing inequalities. Thirdly, human rights must not simply be perceived as tools that are enforced by universal policies and top-down bureaucracies. This being said, human rights are creating a better world through grassroots activism, but perhaps not in a way that transcends hegemonic global power structures.
O’Keefe, Derrick, Rabble, editor@rabble.ca
Presenter: Empire’s Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan, 9:00-10:30, June 5
Otero, Gerardo, Simon Fraser University, otero@sfu.ca
Presenter: Public Policy and the Building of a Popular-Democratic Historical Bloc in Latin America, 9:00-10:30, June 6
Abstract I: The 1990s witnessed the loss of legitimacy of neoliberalism and exhaustion of traditional forms of liberal democracy in Latin America. By the 2000s, a surge of social movements and left-wing governments was the counterpart. We aim to understand the empowerment potential of counter-hegemonic processes in Latin America, which may lead to a post-neoliberal, popular-democratic alternative. Proposing an empowerment theory which focuses on the political-cultural formation of subordinate classes, we compare and contrast communal councils in Venezuela with recuperated workplaces in Argentina. Our question is: How do popular-democratic movements organize to struggle for their interests so as to achieve an alternative to bourgeois hegemony, or at least state interventions that are favorable to their social reproduction, while not becoming co-opted by the state? We argue that empowerment outcomes (successful or not) are determined by three mediating factors between class structural processes and politics: culture, state intervention and leadership types. In Argentina, forms of naïve consciousness and bureaucratic-managerial models of leadership have been consolidated with the predominance of bourgeois-hegemonic state intervention, which led to co-optation. In Venezuela, emancipatory leadership and forms of critical consciousness have coexisted with popular-democratic state intervention, but the question is whether this depends on Hugo Chavez’s personalistic leadership.
Abstract II: We critique the traditional split between class-focused and identity-politics perspectives in the theory and practice of social movements. We argue that, especially for indigenous movements, emphasizing class or identity at the expense of the alternative leads to a reductionist and incomplete explanation and likely political failure in the struggle for empowerment. Our synthetic approach focuses on three mediating determinations between class structural processes (“class-in-itself”) and political-cultural formation (“class-for-itself”): regional cultures, state intervention, and leadership types. We then compare and contrast Bolivia’s Katarista movement of the 1970s and 1980s with the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), which became the country's governing party in 2005. Katarismo’s cultural-identity focus neglected broader class grievances, limiting its political appeal to the indigenous peasantry. Furthermore, its leadership was unable to unify the movement, experiencing recurrent splits and cooptation by the state. In contrast, the MAS was capable of organizing around both class and identity, enabling it to broaden its constituency and eventually gain mass electoral support. Initially-repressive state policies and an eventual political opening were capably used by the MAS leadership to broaden strategic alliances. This combination of determinants enabled the movement’s empowerment and ultimate electoral political ascent.
Oushakine, Serguei, Princeton University
Presenter: Socialist Community, 9:00-10:30, June 6
Palmer, Bryan, Trent University, bpalmer@trentu.ca
Presenter: Eric Hobsbawm Memorial Lecture, 14:45-16:15, June 5
Panitch, Leo, York University, lpanitch@yorku.ca
Chair: Socialist Register – The Question of Strategy, 10:45-12:15, June 5
Presenter: The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of the American Empire, 10:45-12:15, June 6
Parker, Stuart, Simon Fraser University, stuart@
Presenter: Canadian Politics, 9:00-10:30, June 5
Abstract: Between 1995 and 2000, the BC Green Party abandoned its “not left or right but in front” slogan and presented itself to British Columbians as an explicitly leftist party. During the same period, nearly identical developments took place in the federal, Manitoba and Saskatchewan parties. But, a decade later, Canada contains no explicitly left-identified Green parties. This paper examines the 1990s Left-Green project and the structural reasons for its ephemerality as well as considering the possibilities for Left-Green political organizing in the future.
Participants and Abstracts
Patrick, Donna, Carleton University, donna_patrick@carleton.ca
Chair: Labour and Indigenous Politics in Canada, 10:45-12:15, June 7
Paulson, Justin, Carleton University, justin_paulson@carleton.ca
Presenter: The Left After Politics – A Studies in Political Economy Roundtable, 9:00-10:30, June 6
Pelz, William A., Institute for Working Class History, iwch@
Presenter: Rethinking Rosa Luxemburg, 13:00-14:30 and 14:45-16:15, June 7
Abstract: Luxemburg’s analysis is essential to fully grasp the significance of, not only the movement in Russia, all the would-be revolutionary movements that swept Europe by the end of the First World War. However, the world has changed dramatically in the century that has passed since those days. The question therefore is: are the basic concepts put forth by Luxemburg still useful in the Twenty-First century? To delve into this question, this paper will examine a number of topics. Among these will be: (i) What pre-conditions are necessary for a mass strike movement to develop? (ii) How does political consciousness both precede yet develop during the mass strike process? (iii) Explore the contradictory nature of the trade unions as defensive institutions that often inhibit radical initiative. (iv) Attempt to understand how political parties can be both promoters and retarders of mass strike activity. (v) Dealing with the fluid nature and inherent contradictions of class consciousness as it mutates before, during and after the mass strike movement. (vi) Examine the extent to which historical examples can both be relevant yet be misleading in changed circumstances.
Perry Adele, University of Manitoba
Presenter: “Too Asian” – Race and Racism in the Academy, 13:00-14:30, June 7
Pilon, Dennis, York University, dpilon@yorku.ca
Presenter: Labour and Electoral Politics in Canada, 9:00-10:30, June 5
Potter, Garry, Wilrid Laurier University, Garrypotter34@
Organizer: Movie Screening: Whispers of Revolution, 10:45-12:15, June 6
Prahst, Indira, Langara College, indira_prahst@
Presenter: Counter or Parallel Narratives to Twenty-First-Century Commemoration of Genocide and Atrocity, 10:45-12:15, June 6
Abstract: Following the dark chapter of the Sikh genocide in India in 1984, there was much effort by the state to silence this historical atrocity in the context of the amalgam of neo-liberalism, geopolitics, and nation-building. With intense pain, anger and humiliation at the lack of justice achieved for Sikhs for this atrocity, a Sikh global movement has emerged to commemorate this period. In this paper, I argue that the mode of commemoration of 1984 constitutes a counter resistance to the monopoly of commemoration by the state in how it silences and distorts history and sustains national identities. Incorporating ethnographic work, I illuminate modes of silent resistance that escapes the eye regarding the widows of 1984 who survived the atrocities. Using critical race and feminist theory and a post-colonial lens, I further interrogate how symbolic violence, discourses in media, and geopolitical climates intersect and reproduce racism, sexism and anti-Sikh behaviours.
Rahimov, Ruslan, American University of Central Asia, ruslanlyon@.
Presenter: Arts, Culture & Campuses, 13:00-14:30, June 5
Abstract: Different theoretical approaches can be applied to understand the case of foreign universities in Central Asia. In this paper I will reflect on a clash of ideologies that can be revealed through various institutional practices, such as curriculum development and educational strategies. I will begin by critiquing the view of national academia in regards to such foreign entities, posing the question as to whether their view is rooted in ideological connotations or ordinary competition. My main objective is to apply a post-colonial and geopolitical framework to analyze and explain the role and presence of foreign universities in post-Soviet Central Asia.
Rein, Sandra, University of Alberta, srein@ualberta.ca.
Presenter, Marx’s Concept of an Alternative to Capital, 9:00-10:30, June 7
Presenter: Rethinking Rosa Luxemburg, 13:00-14:30 and 14:45-16:15, June 7
Rethmann, Petra, McMaster University
Presenter: Socialist Community, 9:00-10:30, June 6
Rodrigues Dias, Wladimir, New University of Lisbon, wladimir.dias@.br
Presenter: Public Policy and the Building of a Popular-Democratic Historical Bloc in Latin America, 9:00-10:30, June 6
Abstract: The paper approaches the role of the state, of law, and of public policies in the recent transformations experienced in Latin America. It specifically focuses on the cases of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, and Venezuela. The premise is that relevant social changes have occurred in these countries, with different nuances, allowing the sedimentation of a historic bloc of democratic-popular character and the possibility of effective hegemonic dispute. In this sense, it discusses the impact produced by the transition from a merely symbolic legal system to one that enables effective incorporation of rights by the subaltern classes, by building public policy through the direct intervention of social movements, and by the presence of a state apparatus that overcomes a tradition of elitism and closed bureaucracy and is open to disputes and the participation of different social actors.
Salt, Sandra, Simon Fraser University
Presenter: Public Policy and the Building of a Popular-Democratic Historical Bloc in Latin America, 9:00-10:30, June 6
Abstract: The 1990s witnessed the loss of legitimacy of neoliberalism and exhaustion of traditional forms of liberal democracy in Latin America. By the 2000s, a surge of social movements and left-wing governments was the counterpart. We aim to understand the empowerment potential of counter-hegemonic processes in Latin America, which may lead to a post-neoliberal, popular-democratic alternative. Proposing an empowerment theory which focuses on the political-cultural formation of subordinate classes, we compare and contrast communal councils in Venezuela with recuperated workplaces in Argentina. Our question is: How do popular-democratic movements organize to struggle for their interests so as to achieve an alternative to bourgeois hegemony, or at least state interventions that are favorable to their social reproduction, while not becoming co-opted by the state? We argue that empowerment outcomes (successful or not) are determined by three mediating factors between class structural processes and politics: culture, state intervention and leadership types. In Argentina, forms of naïve consciousness and bureaucratic-managerial models of leadership have been consolidated with the predominance of bourgeois-hegemonic state intervention, which led to co-optation. In Venezuela, emancipatory leadership and forms of critical consciousness have coexisted with popular-democratic state intervention, but the question is whether this depends on Hugo Chavez’s personalistic leadership
Sarker, Kanchan, University of British Columbia-Okanagan, kanchan.sarker@ubc.ca
Presenter & Session Organizer: Environmental Movements and the Left, 10:45-12:15, June 5
Abstract: Among the three types of environmental movements: Conservationist, Managerial, and Subsistence (if I can name accordingly), the last one is more visible in India, where the conflicts are centered around the preservation of the environment as well as around the traditional rights of the people and the nature of subsistence. Started with the Chipco Movement in 1974 in Independent India, there are many such environment movements in India, where livelihood of the participants is one of the primary issues besides their identity. Surprisingly, the mainstream Left in India failed to recognize these movements; in most cases, they have kept a safe distance from these movements. This paper will try to find out the reasons behind this distance.
Savage, Larry, Brock University, lsavage@brocku.ca
Presenter & Convenor: Labour and Electoral Politics in Canada, 9:00-10:30, June 5
Schein, Rebecca, Carleton University
Presenter: The Left After Politics – A Studies in Political Economy Roundtable, 9:00-10:30, June 6
Schmidt, Ingo, Athabasca University, ingos@athabascau.ca
Chair: Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire, 13:00-14:30, June 5
Chair: The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of the American Empire, 10:45-12:15, June 6
Speaker: Margarethe von Trotta’s Movies: A Discussion of ‘Hannah Arendt’ and Screening of ‘Rosa Luxemburg’, 9:00-10:30 and 10:45-12:15, June 7
Presenter & session organizer: Rethinking Rosa Luxemburg, 13:00-14:30 and 14:45-16:15, June 7,
Abstract: Left critics of the statist policies pursued by social democrats and Soviet communists often drew inspiration from Rosa Luxemburg’s critique of union and party bureaucracies and her uncompromised commitment to the self-emancipation of the working class. But usually they neglected, or even rejected, her economic theory. Contrary to such a separation between Luxemburg’s political and economic ideas, this paper argues that the latter are an indispensable part of any strategy that aims at a democratic alternative to the statist socialisms represented by social democrats and Soviet communists. In ‘Accumulation of Capital’, Luxemburg shows that accumulation relies on the capitalist penetration, or colonization, of non-capitalist economies. Politically, this points at the necessity of building strategic rather than just tactical coalitions between workers struggles and anti-colonial struggles, whereby the latter also include significant parts of the women’s and environmental movements. Luxemburg also explains that the limits to capital accumulation lead to prolonged periods of struggles. These periods also include the moments of decision that can ultimately lead to socialism or barbarism. The paper concludes that the War on Terror and the Great Recession opened such a period similar to that beginning with the outbreak of WWI in 1914, a year after the publication of ‘Accumulation of Capital’.
Presenter & session organizer: Crisis, Austerity, Alternatives, 10:45-12:15, June 8
Session organizer: Labour and Capital in Contemporary China, 13:00-14:30, June 8
Sears, Alan, Ryerson University, asears@ryerson.ca
Session Organizer: Pan-Canadian Campus Struggles After the Quebec Student Strike, 10:45-12:15 and 13:00-14:30, June 5
Presenter & Session Organizer: Social Reproduction, Commodification and Sexualities, 13:00-14:30, June 7
Abstract: There tends to be a division of labour within marxist-feminist work between those investigating social reproduction and those studying sexuality. These are dealt with as separate spheres, each with their own dynamics, so that questions of paid and unpaid work are severed from those of sexuality and desire. This paper focuses on the social reproduction of queerness, understanding the ways cycles of production and reproduction sustain or undercut specific relations of gender and sexuality. Capitalist restructuring significantly reorganizes intimate life and patterns of household subsistence, shifting the character of the social reproduction of queerness.
Presenter & Session Organizer: Breaking out of our Shell: Socialist Strategy and Mass Politics, 10:45-12:15 and 13:00-14:30, June 8
Abstract: The world around us looks more and more like an anti-capitalist fable, with an increased polarization of wealth and relentless attacks on the working and living conditions of working class people. Yet the anti-capitalist left is a tiny counter-current in the political flow of the times, leaving a tremendous gap between the aspiration for mass insurgency and the actual weight of the anti-capitalist left. This paper looks at the challenge of orienting towards the mainstream at a time when social democratic parties are thoroughly committed to neo-liberalism and when the trade unions are generally in a concessionary mode. The theme of democracy has run through the key movements of our time, from the Arab revolutions to Occupy, and from the Quebec student strike to Idle No More. Anti-capitalist democracy means the left must attempt to build radical action and analysis in counter-flow while orienting towards winning the mainstream.
Shoikhedrod, Igor, University of Toronto, igor.shoikhedbrod@utoronto.ca
Presenter: Radical Theory, 9:00-10:30, June 7
Abstract: The eminent philosopher and socialist G.A Cohen remarked that Marxists have been hostile to the ideal of equality and have neglected its value for socialist transformation. Cohen concluded that the theoretical presuppositions that underpinned Marx's theory of revolution are no longer tenable, thus driving many former Marxists into normative political philosophy with the broader goal of 'socialist egalitarian advocacy'. This paper aims to critically evaluate G.A Cohen's critique of Marx on the subject of equality and to offer Marx's counter-critique of G.A Cohen on the ideal of equality and the limits of normative political theorizing for socialist transformation.
Skinner, Mike, York University, m.skinner@sympatico.ca
Presenter: Empire’s Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan, 9:00-10:30, June 5
Slowey, Gabrielle, York University
Presenter: Labour and Indigenous Politics in Canada, 10:45-12:15, June 7
Smith, Charles, STM College, csmith@stmcollege.ca
Presenter: Labour and Extra-Parliamentary in Canada, 10:45-12:15, June 5
Soron, Dennis, Brock University, dsoron@brocku.ca
Presenter: Labour and Extra-Parliamentary in Canada, 10:45-12:15June 5
Spronk, Susan, University of Ottawa, susan.spronk@uottawa.ca
Presenter: Socialist Register – The Question of Strategy, 10:45-12:15, June 5
Suvorova, Anna, Perm State Academy of Art and Culture, suvorova_anna@mail.ru
Presenter: Arts, Culture & Campuses, 13:00-14:30, June 5
Abstract: Attempting to analyse amateur art in the USSR, one can see it is a “difficult question” of Soviet culture. The idea of proletarian hegemony, including cultural hegemony that was being generated on the island of Capri in the early 20th century, later was developed in various institutions and phenomena of the new state. The development of power discourse in the USSR, which was undergoing changes throughout the whole Soviet period, provided a wide scope of interpretations in the “people’s consciousness”. Amateur works of art convey the polyphony of people’s voices telling about their life, their country and themselves.
Taiaiake, Alfred, Indigenous Governance Program
Presenter: ‘Idle No More’ and Indigenous Resurgence, 16:00-19:00, June 7
Tan, Sid, Chinese Canadian National Council – National Chapter
Presenter: “Too Asian” – Race and Racism in the Academy, 13:00-14:30, June 7
Teeple, Gary, Simon Fraser University, teeple@sfu.ca
Presenter: Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire, 13:00-14:30, June 5
Thobani, Sunera, University of British Columbia, sunera.thobani@ubc.ca
Presenter: Marxisms and Feminisms on the Edge, 9:00-10:30 and 10:45-12:45, June 6
Abstract: Critical race, postcolonial and Marxist feminist scholars have demonstrated that colonial-capitalist relations are predicated upon violence and exploitation; yet settler societies were also founded upon, and reproduced through, complex hierarchies of rights and entitlements. This paper examines the role of citizenship within settler colonial societies, arguing that rather than enabling a liberal transcendence of violence in the organization of social relations, citizenship (and its regime of rights and entitlements) remains central to the waging of colonial exploitation and violence. Focusing on the Canadian context, this paper examines the contemporary relation between violence and citizenship, highlighting the racial and gendered logic of power invested in both.
Tutte, Rachel, BC Health Coalition, rtutte@vcn.bc.ca
Chair: Social Murder - Social, economic and environmental determinants of health, 9:00-10:30, June 8.
Presenter: Crisis, Austerity, Alternatives, 10:45-12:15, June 8
Vance, Chris, York University, red@tao.ca
Presenter: Breaking out of our Shell: Socialist Strategy and Mass Politics, 10:45-12:15 and 13:00-14:30, June 8
Abstract: Precarious working and living conditions in everyday working-class life in Toronto and San Salvador (Central America) have been analyzed in depth by various unions, workers’ centres, networks of organizers, and academics. What strategies and actions are able to involve the very people whose lives and labours are devalued by precaritization? What forms of organizing could unite workers in precarity with other sections of the working class? Answers provided emphasize the importance of self-organizing and equity struggles, including those by transnational labour, based on interviews by the author since 2010 with 75 workers and advocates in the two cities.
Vasilyeva, Zinaida, University of Neuchâtel
Presenter: Socialist Community, 9:00-10:30, June 6
Walker, Cathy, retired, Canadian Auto Workers Union, cathywalker856@
Presenter: Labour and Capital in Contemporary China, 13:00-14:30, June 8
Abstract: What does international working class solidarity mean for Canadian and Chinese workers and unions? How do socialists respond to the claim that “Chinese workers are taking Canadian workers’ jobs?” In the context of globalization and the neoliberal corporate agenda, contact between Chinese and Canadian unions and workers is more important than ever to confront capital’s divide and conquer agenda.
Warskett, Rosemary, Carleton University, rosemary_warskett@carleton.ca
Presenter: Labour and Extra-Parliamentary Politics in Canada, 10:45-12:15, June 5
Whiteside, Heather, Simon Fraser University, heather.whiteside@sfu.ca
Presenter: American Empire and Neoliberalism, 13:00-14:30, June 7
Abstract: Public-private partnerships (P3s) are often referred to as a form of ‘privatization by stealth’, capturing the depoliticized and covert nature of this policy of dispossession. Attempts to resist P3s have therefore, intentionally or not, been aimed at the (re)politicization of public infrastructure and service procurement. Public sector unions and public service advocacy organizations have led the charge, and while some efforts have been successful ultimately P3s are proliferating now more than ever. This paper will discuss examples of resistance to P3s in Canada over the past decade and will analyze the effectiveness of various types of strategies. Suggestions will be provided for how to further politicize dispossession, which includes focusing not only on the outcomes of P3 development but also on the policies and frameworks that enable P3 use.
Workman, Thom, University of New Brunswick, wworkman@unb.ca
Presenter: The Left After Politics – A Studies in Political Economy Roundtable, 9:00-10:30, June 6
Xing, Guoxin, Simon Fraser University, guoxinx@sfu.ca
Presenter: Labour and Capital in Contemporary China, 13:00-14:30, June 8
Abstract: This presentation looks at the changing official ideology, media/culture and political economy in China and the ways in which how the Party state revitalizes its legitimacy and how the grassroots and progressive social groups counter the process of post-Maoist neo-liberal legitimation.
Yocom, Grant, Brock University, gy00aa@brocku.ca
Presenter: Urban Crisis and the Environment, 9:00-10:30, June 7
December of 2012, the Detroit unveiled its Future City Framework which is "...a comprehensive and action-oriented blueprint for near- and long-range decision making." In the wake of this plan, which makes plain the severity of the city's financial crisis, Detroit received a proposal to purchase Belle Isle for $1 Billion to establish an independent commonwealth with its own laws, tax structure, and currency (the Rand). This study will present a critical overview of the Future City Framework from the perspective of the many active community organizations and artist collectives in light of the real danger of corporate colonization of Detroit.
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Society for Socialist Studies
Annual General Meeting
Thursday, June 5, 16:00-17:00
Room: Hickman 105
SSS Executive and Congress Organizing Committee 2012-13
President:
Kanchan Sarker, Sociology, University of British Columbia, Okanagan, kanchan.sarker@ubc.ca
Vice-President:
Murray Cooke, Political Science, York University, mcooke@yorku.ca
Secretary and Email List Moderator:
Matthew Brett, Concordia University, admin@socialiststudies.ca
Congress Programme Chair:
Ingo Schmidt, Labour Studies, Athabasca University, ingos@athabascau.ca
Treasurer:
David Huxtable, Sociology, University of Victoria, huxtable@uvic.ca
Representative to Canadian Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences:
Colleen Lundy, Social Work, Carleton University. colleen_lundy@carleton.ca
Journal Editor:
Elaine Coburn, Sociology, American University of Paris and CADIS-Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, ecoburn@aup.edu
Journal Book Review Editor:
Adrian Smith, Law and Legal Studies, Carleton University. adrian_smith@carleton.ca
socialiststudies.ca
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