SOCIETY FOR SOCIALIST STUDIES/SOCIÉTÉ D’ÉTUDES
SOCIALISTES
172
Allwright Close, Red Deer AB T4R 3P1
Telephone/Fax:
(403) 342-7989
Email:
kcollier@shaw.ca
Website:
http://www.socialiststudies.ca
CONGRESS 2007
Public
Knowledge and Privatization:
Academics
in and out of the Academy
University
of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan, Canada
Thursday
May 31 – Sunday June 3
PROGRAM
Sessions, Speakers and Abstracts
Program Committee
Bill
Carroll, Ken Collier, Murray Cooke, Debbie Dergousoff
Roni
Gechtman, Ian Hussey (Co-Chair), June Madeley,
Alicja
Muszynski (Chair), Claire Polster, Jacqueline Preyde
See
summary list of sessions on back cover!
Also,
check out the information on Socialist
Studies: Journal of the
Society for Socialist Studies
at www.socialiststudies.ca
Due
to possible scheduling conflicts, session room numbers and times may be subject
to last-minute changes. If you identify
any scheduling conflicts or errors, please notify the Program Committee as soon
as possible in the SSS Registration Information Table in St. Thomas More
College near East Entrance
Merci
CRSHC et FCSHS!
Thank
you SSHRC and CFHSS!
La Société d’études
socialistes remercie le Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada et
la Féderation canadienne des sciences humaines et sociales pour l’aide
génénereuse accordée pour les frais de voyage.
The
Society for Socialist Studies extends its thanks to the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Humanities and Social Sciences
Federation of Canada for their generous assistance toward travel costs.
The
Society for Socialist Studies information desk is in St. Thomas More College
near East entrance door. Travel
subsidies previously promised are available at this desk. Memberships can be started and renewed
here. A good place to mingle.
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Reports, Discussions,
Elections
Friday June 1, 2:45 to 5
PM, STM 344 B
Congress
2008 will be held at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. The dates of Socialist Studies sessions are
yet to be determined.
SPECIAL SOCIALIST STUDIES EVENTS AT
THE 2007 CONGRESS
(Sunday May 27, prior
to our days at Congress, the Society for Socialist Studies is proud to
co-sponsor the Saskatchewan Labour History Work shop with the Canadian History
on Labour History, Albert
Community Centre, 610 Clarence Avenue South, Saskatoon. See info in following
pages.)
Wednesday May 30, 10:45 to 3:45 (max)
Saskatchewan Political Economy
Thursday May 31 2:45 to 5:00 Keynote Address by Dorothy E. Smith
Friday June 1 Epistemologies/Pedagogies of Struggle: Knowledge(s) Outside the Academy
Fair Trade
Symposium begins - continues to Sunday June 3
Saturday
Jun 2 Global Capitalism: The changing
reality of class
Counter-culture
and Epistemology of Global Social Resistance
Sunday
June 3 Fair Trade Symposium
Sunday May 27, 2007 (Prior to SSS
days at Congress)
Saskatchewan Labour History Workshop
The Canadian Committee on
Labour History is pleased to announce plans for the annual labour history
workshop. The organizing committee is led by Lorne Brown and Don Kossick, and
the event is co-sponsored with the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour and the
Society for Socialist Studies.
27 May 2007
Albert Community Centre
610 Clarence Avenue South
Saskatoon
10 a.m. to Noon - Women,
Workers and the Left
Chair and moderator: Barb Byers, executive vice-president, Canadian Labour
Congress, former president Saskatchewan Federation of Labour. Participants
include Cara Banks (SFL), Beth Smillie (CUPE), Marianne Hladun (PSAC, SFL),
Christine Smillie (former Saskatchewan Working Women activist).
Noon to 1 p.m. - Lunch, sold
on site by a community group
1 to 2 p.m. - New Writing on Saskatchewan
Labour History
Participants include Faith Johnston, A Great Restlessness: The Life and
Politics of Dorise Nielsen; Jim Warren, co-author with Kathleen Carlisle, On
the Side of the People: A History of Labour in Saskatchewan; Bill Waiser, All
Hell Can't Stop Us: The On-to-Ottawa Trek and Regina Riot.
2 to 4 p.m. - Labour and
Municipal Politics in Saskatchewan Cities
Chair, Brenda Baergen, PSAC, Vice-President SFL
Participants include Bill Brennan (University of Regina); Charlie Clark
(Saskatoon Alderman); Don Mitchell (Former Alderman and Mayor of Moose Jaw);
Carole Cizecki (Candidate for Saskatoon City Council, 2006); Jim Holmes (Regina
Mayoral Candidate, 2006).
4 to 5 p.m. - Theresa Healey,
Folk Singer (CLC)
5 to 7 p.m. - Bus tour with
Don Kerr and Don Kossick
Tuesday May 29, 2007, 1:00
to 2:30, Thorvaldson 124 (Cross-listed
with CSA)
(Prior to SSS days at Congress)
Identity and Collective
Action
Session Organizer:Patrice LeClerc, Sociology, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY, USA pleclerc@stlawu.edu
Explores the intersection of identity and collective action. The papers comment on activist identity as a constructed form, identity and nationalism, and the salience of gender, class, ethnicity and sexuality in the activist identity. Consistent with the Congress theme, papers comment on identity and concern for public knowledge.
Sartre’s Sociological
Study of Social Movements
Greg Bird (gregb@yorku.ca) PhD IV, Sociology, York University, Canada
I use phenomenological social theory to explore the relationship between identity and group action, examining Sartre’s surprisingly sociological study of revolutionary movements in the Critique of Dialectical Reason. This work permits us to work outside the traditional dichotomy between individual mind and group mind, or individual versus community. Sartre demonstrates that these reproduce the subject on the level of the group. He develops a model for analyzing “grouping” praxis outside of the idea of a collective identity, which he argues, ends up treating all participants as objects. Sartre’s work is strikingly contemporary because his theory of the “group-in-fusion” operates outside of identity politics.
Baroque Nationalism: Self and Other Among
the Harbingers of the Yugoslav Idea
Slobodan Drakulic (drakulic@ryerson.ca) Sociology, Ryerson University
Most
observers argue that nationalism arose with modernity, with disagreement about
when precisely, and the same goes for Yugoslavism. Most authors place its
emergence in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, and its demise in the late
twentieth. I argue that Yugoslavism emerged no later than the seventeenth
century, straightaway fraught with contradictions. I show this on the lives and
ideas of four political thinkers and actors - two Croats and two Serbs - who
heralded Yugo-Slav unity and disunity. I thus shed additional light on the
strength and weakness of the Yugoslav idea near the time of its conception.
Habitus and cognitive
praxis among environmentalists
Randolph Haluza-DeLay, (randy.haluza-delay@kingsu.ca) The King's University College (in Edmonton)
This paper examines how environmentally active persons operate in contemporary society where a routinized environmental attentiveness is generally contrary to the dominant or mainstream logic of practice. Bourdieu's concept of a "pre-logical" habitus would appear to be in contradiction with Eyerman and Jamison’s approach to social movements as “cognitive praxis.” An ethnographic study showed that among the characteristics of an environmentally-attentive habitus was increasing awareness of the mis-fit of their environmental intentions and their social milieu. Thus, an environmental habitus could be said to include reflexivity, which provides a way of linking logic of practice and cognitive praxis.
Contested Social
Amplifications and the Risk Posed by the Earth Liberation Front
Paul Joosse (jjoosse@ualberta.ca) Alberta
Since 1996, clandestine radical environmentalist cells, calling themselves the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), have carried out arson attacks in North America as part of an effort to punish corporations for environmentally deleterious practices. I analyze the social amplification of what, since the late 1990s, has been widely viewed as the ‘ecoterrorist’ threat. Kasperson et al.’s social amplification of risk framework, through its opposite concepts of amplification and attenuation, creates valuable theoretical space for analyzing conflicts between those who would ‘downplay’ risks, and those who have an interest in ‘touting’ them. The case of ‘ecoterrorism’ is more interesting, however, in that here, both contesting parties—business interests and radical environmentalists—seek to amplify risk perceptions surrounding the threat of the ELF—but with diametrically opposed aims. Business interests seek amplification in order to elicit public sympathy and to motivate governments to allocate resources to investigations of ELF actions, while ELF actors and sympathizers seek to amplify the risk in the hopes of increasing the potency of their warnings to environmentally irresponsible corporations and to promulgate the perception that a widespread anti-capitalist revolution is underway. Ultimately, the ELF’s countermovement has been more successful in making its frame plausible in wider society.
Wednesday May 30, 2007, 9:00
to 10:30 – STM 120
SSS Journal Editorial Board Members Meeting
Wednesday May 30, 2007, 10:45 to12:25 – STM 344 B
Political
Economy and Politics: Class Divisions and Class Alliances, Saskatchewan and
Abroad
Session Organizers: Lorne Brown (Lorne.Brown@uregina.ca)
and Bob Stirling Bob.Stirling@uregina.ca, Professors Emeritus, Regina
At each period in its history, and today, capitalism shows an array of inter- and intra- class divisions, class alliances, and class solidarity. These have had, and can have, important consequences for the trajectory of history. This session will explore examples of these forces, in the Canadian Prairies and in other world venues.
Session Chair: Alicja Muszynski (alicja@uwaterloo.ca) Sociology, Waterloo
The
Saskatchewan Farmer Labour Teacher Institute
Bob Ivanochko (Bob.Ivanochko@uregina.ca), Sask. Provincial Library, Regina
The Farmer Labour Teacher Institute was organized by the Saskatchewan Occupational Group Council assisted by the Adult Education Division of the Provincial government. The FLTI ran annually from 1947 to 1981. It brought together members of the Farmers Union, Saskatchewan Teachers Federation and the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour to discuss current social, political and economic issues, to foster an understanding of varying points of view, and to reach resolution on future action.
Saskatchewan
Craft Union Victories During the Settlement Boom (1890 - 1913): The Influence
of Early Prairie Class Structure and a Booming Economy on Labour Success
Jim Warren (jimwarren@sasktel.net; saskbison@sasktel.net)
Independent Scholar, Regina
Organized labour arrived in Saskatchewan before a well organized indigenous bourgeois class developed. Basic labour goals were satisfied with relative ease compared to what had occurred in other Canadian jurisdictions. Business class resistance to labour demands did occur but in most instances failed to reverse the general trend of worker advancement. The paper will identify the aspects of class structure on the Saskatchewan plains during the settlement period which influenced organized labour's two-decade honeymoon. Consolidation and organization of the business class and the bust of the settlement boom brought the romance to an end.
Indian
and Métis Labour In Saskatchewan: Late 1800s to World War II
Ron Bourgeault (ron.bourgeault@uregina.ca) Sociology and Social Studies, Regina
Contrary to many popular misconceptions today, there is nothing in the cultures or biology of Indians and Métis which either prevented or determined their participation as a labour force in the early capitalist economy of Saskatchewan. Many Indians and Métis in southern Saskatchewan came to constitute a reserve army of support labour in agricultural capitalism. In northern Saskatchewan, the still lingering backward mercantile capitalism constituted Indians and Métis as a downtrodden, indentured, and super-exploited labour force producing fur and fish as luxury goods mainly for the industrial centres.
Wednesday May 30, 2007, 1:00
to 2:30 (to 3:45 if needed) – STM 344 B
Saskatchewan Political Economy and Politics,
Historically and Today
Session Organizers: Lorne Brown (Lorne.Brown@uregina.ca) and Bob
Stirling (Bob.Stirling@uregina.ca)
Professors Emeritus, Regina
Saskatchewan
people have a well deserved reputation for their progressive contributions, to
name a few, to agrarian socialism and populism; farm commodities handling,
transportation and orderly marketing; co-operatives; health care; education;
crown corporations; occupational health and labour legislation; public
administration; and political parties such as the farmer-labour party and the
CCF/NDP. Today, that legacy has become blurred as Saskatchewan is relentlessly
colonised by global capital and the liberal virus. This session invited papers
on any aspect of Saskatchewan's political economy including historical lessons,
the current conjuncture, avenues for resistance and rejuvenation, and others.
Session
Chair: Lorne Brown or Bob Stirling
Federalism, Regionalism and the Political
Economy of Saskatchewan
Dave
McGrane (dmcgrane@connect.carleton.ca),
Carleton University
Using
Janine Brodie’s regional political economy approach, this paper will attempt to situate Saskatchewan’s political
economy within the context of Canadian federalism and regionalism. It will be
argued that understanding the federal form of state organization and the
Saskatchewan economy’s position within the larger Canadian political economy is
a necessary prerequisite to assessing the situation of the province’s political
economy in the both past and present. The paper will end by sketching the
implications of federalism and regionalism for progressive and state-led
intervention within Saskatchewan’s provincial economy in era of neo-liberal
globalization.
Writing itself out of the picture:
Context and consequences of the Canadian state’s changes to the Canadian Wheat
Board, Canadian Grain Commission, and Seeds Act
Darrell
McLaughlin (darrell.mlaughlin@stmcollege.ca),
Sociology, St. Thomas More College, Saskatchewan and Terry
Boehm, Vice-President, National Farmers Union
This
paper offers a brief account of the historical and global context of grain
production and distribution. It then
discusses the Canadian government’s position on trade liberalization and its
efforts to change the institutional structure of grain production. It argues that the direction of change is
consistent with the neo-liberal globalization of the food system. These institutional changes will
dramatically reduce levels of social justice within the food system. Changes to the CWB, CGC, and the Canada
Seeds Act will impact on grain producers and their communities on the Prairies,
and the food security and sustainability of all Canadians.
Agency
and Declining Economic Linkage: The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool Share Conversion
Story
Murray Fulton (murray.fulton@usask.ca) and Kathy Lang
(kathy.lang@usask.ca)
Building
on agency theory, this paper develops an explanation for the financial troubles
that SWP found itself in by the late 1990s. The Pool’s 1996 share conversion
was part of a larger process that altered the vision of the co-op and
management’s adherence to member interests. Personal interviews conducted with
former SWP board members and management and grain industry affiliates show that
an agency problem was at play at the Pool in the 1990s. Senior management
pursued a vision that did not align with members’ or shareholders’ interests,
resulting in market share loss, share price decline and an eventual debt
restructuring.
Discussion/analysis on localism and sustainable agriculture and food systems
Don
Mitchell (donmitchell@sasktel.net),
Regina
The
paper reviews the consequences of current trends and options considered and
debated for a more sustainable agriculture and food system for the 21st
century. With reference to issues of
trade liberalization versus structured fair trade models and global
interdependency versus localism and regional self sufficiency, the literature
surrounding this debate and choices is reviewed. The impact of oil depletion in the next decade and its
implications for policy and choices in agriculture on the Canadian prairies is
also discussed, as are the impacts of global warming and climate change on
Canadian agriculture.
The Greens: “Neither Left Nor Right”?
Dr.
John W. Warnock (warnockj@uregina.ca), Sociology and Social Studies,
Regina, retired.
Green Parties were founded all across the industrialized world during the
1980s. But after twenty-five years of running in elections, and participating
in several coalition governments, the electoral support for almost all of them
has stagnated at between 5% and 10%. Why is this the case? Green parties grew
out of the New Left movements of the 1960s and 1970s but have always had
major internal ideological divisions. Most originally called for a radical
transformation of capitalism and a rejection of Soviet socialism. Today they
exist as either left social democratic Red-Green parties or neoliberal Green
parties. The development of the Green Party of Canada and the New Green
Alliance/Green Party of Saskatchewan follows this evolution.
Wednesday May 30, 2007, 1:00
to 5:00 – STM 200
From Reality to
Fiction. Manifestations of National Identity in The Nasty Girl
Film – Nasty
Girl
Director: Michael
Verhoeven
Miramax, German with English Subtitles, 1990, 95 minutes.
Session
organizer: June M. Madeley (jmadeley@unbsj.ca)
Information and Communication Studies, Dept. of Social Sciences, New
Brunswick, Saint John
Many people know the baroque Eden on the banks of three rivers, an ancient
bishop's seat that borders on three countries. They come as tourists and love
it for its beauty. Survivors and DPs traveling to Passau remember different
aspects. The presentation highlights ties to right-wing extremists and the
cover-ups. Nominated for an Oscar as best foreign entry, millions of people saw
The Nasty Girl. It demonstrates an emerging, new German identity.
Applause came in many languages and forms, also because many saw reflections of
themselves. The movie The Nasty Girl will be screened (94 minutes) and
after a break the real life heroine of this fictional film will be speaking (approximately
3:15 PM)
Anna Rosmus is the real-life heroine of the film The
Nasty Girl. For 27 years she has
dedicated her life to uncovering the Nazi past of her hometown and to combating
the neo-Nazis in Germany. As a free lance writer, she has contributed numerous
essays to magazines and newspapers, such as La Pensée et les Hommes, Holocaust
and Genocide Studies, The New York Times, The European and Aufbau. Twice, Anna
Rosmus was featured in a 60 minutes profile. To many, she represents the legacy
of the Holocaust in memory, education and action in the continuing struggle against
bigotry and anti-Semitism.
(Approximately 3:45 to 5:00)
Session Organizer – Ian Hussey, (ihussey@uvic.ca),
Victoria
Film – Black
Gold
Directors: Marc and Nick Francis
Black Gold, UK, 2006, 78 min plus discussion
Discussant: Olfania Mena is a Director of the National
Federation of
Agricultural and Agroindustrial Cooperatives of Nicaragua (FENACOOP),
and has more than fifteen years of experience with Nicaraguan
cooperatives and agriculture. Beginning as a small-scale producer of
basic grains, she quickly rose through the leadership of regional and
eventually national cooperatives. Her experience as president of the
cooperative "Women of the Field" in the state of Masaya, her role as
a
Director of the National Union of Farmers and Ranchers (UNAG)
responsible for the Section on Women, and her position as representative for
both the Cooperative of Masayan Women in the National Network of Women Against
Violence, provided her the necessary background support an extensive
"gender audit" of FENACOOP, which is meant to identify the extent to
which the cooperative is responsive to the interests of its female members.
In the panel organized for the Canadian Women's Studies Association (CWSA)
conference she will discuss the role of bilateral trade agreements and the WTO,
and how women are disproportionately impacted in these agreements. She will
discuss the work that has been done by the National Federation of Agricultural
and Agroindustrial Cooperatives of Nicaragua (FENACOOP), to insure women's
voices and needs are integrated into the work of the organization. Increasing
participation of women in mixed farm workers organizations is a pressing issue
in both the North and South as women work to increase their level of
representation in the formal structures that have been created to represent
small scale agricultural producers on national and global levels.
Wednesday May 30, 2007, 3:45
to 5:00 – STM 344B
Managing
Misogyny in the Corporate University
Robert Sweeny (rsweeny@mun.ca) History, Memorial
This paper critically examines how Memorial University of Newfoundland is responding to an official finding that it is dominated by masculine culture. The administration’s response illustrates how corporate management strategies have displaced both collegial and associational models of university governance. The logic of this profoundly anti-democratic process lies in the emerging political economy of federally funded and corporately ‘partnered’ higher education. When set against the larger social crisis that is contemporary Newfoundland, managing misogyny can be seen as part of a process of privatizing MUN from within, which aims at ensuring that crises do not lead to progressive change.
Wednesday May 30, 2007, 6:00
to 7:30 – STM 120
SSS Exec meeting
Thursday May 31, 2007, 9:00
to 10:30 – STM 120
Economic Security for Vulnerable Populations
Stephen McBride (mcbridea@sfu.ca) Political Science, Simon
Fraser
Exclusion
of Unionized Workers from Core Provisions of the BC Employment Standards Act
David Fairey (david@tradeunionresearch.com) Labour Economist, Trade Union Research Bureau, Victoria
The October 2006 Federal
Labour Standards Review report touches on the issue of collective agreement
exclusion from employment standards law. The history of unionized worker
exclusion from employment standards protections in British Columbia is reviewed
in light of the reintroduction of broad collective agreement exclusions in the
new BC Employment Standards Act of 2002. The potential negative
consequences of such exclusion are discussed in relation to employer-friendly
or dominated unions entering into sub-standard agreements, and the results
reported of an examination of a sample of collective agreements negotiated by
one such union.
Living on
Welfare: Assessing the Impacts of the New Welfare Regime
Jane Pulkingham
(elizabeth_pulkingham@sfu.ca) Sociology, Simon Fraser
In April 2002, the BC government
implemented sweeping changes to the welfare system, introducing for the first
time, welfare time limits. an import from the United States, where a five-year
lifetime limit was implemented federally in 1996. This represents a fundamental
shift in Canadian social policy - a denial of welfare when in need as a basic
human right. This study examines the implementation of the policy and the
experiences, over two years of longer-term "employable" (expected to
work) welfare recipients.
Community Health Restructuring:
the Implication for Vulnerable populations for systems sustainability
Marina Morrow (mmorrow@sfu.ca), Institute for Critical Studies in Gender and Health, Health Sciences, Simon Fraser
This presentation synthesizes findings from studies on community health
restructuring in residential care, home support and community mental health in
B.C. since 2001. It focuses on restructuring’s impact on those who use these
services – low-income seniors and people with disabilities – and on the
sustainability of public health services. Evidence shows that the restructuring
of community health services results in increased and avoidable use of
in-patient hospital and emergency services. The focus is on alternative forms of health restructuring to reduce the
pressure on acute care. Structural and political factors that facilitate and
constrain the development of alternatives are examined.
Thursday May 31, 2007, 9:00
to 12:00 – STM 200
Institutional Ethnography
Session organizer: Ian
Hussey (ihussey@uvic.ca), Victoria
Session
Chair: Dorothy E. Smith, Sociology, Victoria (desmith@uvic.ca)
Institutional Ethnography (IE) is a method of inquiry for doing critical social analysis. IE research is done for people, not of people. It does not objectify people’s actualities as a lot of social research does. This session includes four examples of IE. It also includes a presentation that explores the potential for using IE in conjunction with ethnobotany.
Exploring the textualization of the everyday world – the
development of governing texts in a mental health and addiction setting
Michael K. Corman M.A. candidate (mcorman@uvic.ca)
Victoria
My experience as a student working at the Ministry of Health in British Columbia forms the basis of this presentation. As an institutional ethnographer, I am often drawn to examine how texts coordinate and organize people’s doings, as “constituents of social relations” (Campbell, 2001:323). I discuss the process of developing a governing text in the mental health and addiction setting in BC. This text would eventually be employed, and entered into the ruling apparatus of health reform practices, to govern policy and practice, and through proxy, peoples’ doings in BC. Potential implications are discussed.
Institutional
Ethnography, Ethnobotany and the Knowledge of Ruling
Relations
Debbie Dergousoff (ddergous@sfu.ca) Simon Fraser
Important debates have arisen regarding
commodification of knowledge
as intellectual property, and collective knowledge as public knowledge. New
international trade rules have resulted in the exploitation of centuries-old
traditional indigenous knowledges for the benefit of corporate profit.
Responsible ethnographic research must be accountable for the kinds of
knowledge it produces or reproduces. Dorothy Smith’s institutional ethnography
(IE) and Nancy Turner’s ethnobotany (EB) are starting points for my inquiry
into the social organization of knowledge. Institutional ethnography and
ethnobotany considered in parallel lead to some interesting possibilities for
ways we can understand the human condition as both natural and historical.
Women’s
Work, Family & Neighbourhood Conditions in a Cuban Community
Tania Halber Suarez (taniahalber@shaw.ca ) Victoria
Writing against a background of my Cuban heritage, I explore in this paper the problematic experience of women and their support networks in a Cuban neighbourhood in the context of severe economic conditions and the emerging themes and impact of the lack of transportation and adequate housing on their lives. Using Dorothy Smith's Institutional Ethnography to examine the everyday experiences of participants this paper argues that although not readily evident, it is the conscious strategic planning of government that provides women in Casino Deportivo with the necessary social, educational and medical support that plays a critical role in their continued physical and psychological wellness.
Exploring
the Ruling Relations of Ethical Trade
Ian S. Hussey (ihussey@uvic.ca) Sociology, Victoria,
My institutional ethnography takes its standpoint in the experience of a Fair Trade activist whose advocacy work contributed to the success of the City of Vancouver (COV) adopting, on February 17, 2005, an Ethical Purchasing Policy (EPP) and Supplier Code of Conduct (SCC). It was the first Canadian municipality to do so. The policy texts are written in relation to the International Labour Organization (ILO) and its “core” Conventions, and the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO) and its Fair Trade certification standards. The ILO and FLO will be analyzed as institutions of ethical trade whose standards act as governing texts with the power to regulate other texts such as the COV's EPP and SCC, the local doings of ethical trade activists, and the COV’s Council, bureaucrats, and potential suppliers.
Institutional
ethnography: re-considering the place of theory and actualities in social
research aimed at social action
Marie Campbell, Professor Emerita, Victoria
This paper reflects on the design of a newly proposed inquiry into the operation of internationally funded “empowerment” projects for women in Kyrgyzstan - to interrogate how institutional ethnography might be a paradigm shift in sociology. The assumption that people put their worlds together “daily in the local places of their everyday lives and in doing so, somehow construct a dynamic complex of relations that coordinate their doings” (Smith, 2005) means that those “doings” are analyzed directly, not as theoretical constructs. Discussed is a shift from the theorized and universalized subject of research to the embodied subject of institutional ethnography.
Thursday May 31, 2007, 10:45 to 12:15 – STM 344 B
Canada's
'Pro-Israel' Lobby & Jewish Dissent?
Panel chair: Cy Gonick (gonick@cc.UManitoba.ca) Canadian Dimension magazine
The relationship between Canadian Jews and the state of Israel and how that
gets expressed in the Canadian polity for both the Jewish mainstream and
Jewish Dissidents
Jewish
Dissent and Jewish Identities
Yakov M Rabkin (yakov.rabkin@umontreal.ca) History, Montreal
Secularization and Zionism have strongly influenced Jewish identities in the last hundred years. Initially a minority radical movement, Zionism has become the pillar of identity for many Jews nowadays. The Nazi genocide strengthened Zionist tendencies so that support for Israel and identification with it have become central to many Jewish identities. At the same time, Zionism provoked the consolidation of the moral (some call it prophetic) tradition among the Jews, some of whom have become vocal opponents of acts committed by Israel that they consider immoral and contrary to the Jewish tradition. The question of Israel and Zionism may divide Jews as irremediably as did the advent of Christianity two millennia ago. It remains to be seen whether the fracture between those who hold fast to Jewish moral tradition and the devotees of Jewish nationalism may one day be mended.
Mobilizing
an anti-Occupation Canadian Movement
Diana Ralph, Social Work, Carleton (on disability leave)
Based on a survey of Canadian anti-Occupation Jewish groups and campaigns such as mobilizing Canadian Jews to support the United Church's 2006 divestment motion, this paper assesses the current strengths and vulnerabilities of the Canadian Jewish anti-Occupation movement vis-a-vis the Israel Lobby, and proposes strategies for the future.
Jewish
dissidents and the Canadian pro-Israel lobby
Daniel Freeman-Maloy (dfm@riseup.net) graduate student, York
From the 1970s on, the organizations which historically represented the Canadian Jewish community's urban corporate establishment gained effective control over mainstream Canadian Jewish organizations. In connection with powerful U.S. and Israeli institutions, and with the support of strong sectors of corporate Canada, these institutions have established mechanisms for opposing Palestine solidarity activism and for trying to influence Canadian foreign policy. This process has intensified since 2002. My talk will trace this history and explore how Jewish dissidents can address these issues in effective coordination with other anti-imperialist currents in this society.
Jewish
Identity and the State
Abraham Weizfeld (saalaha@fokus.name) Administrative Secretary of the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians.
The civil rights of a national minority such as the various Jewish communities of Canada or any other country have long been the subject of commentaries by classical European political culture and by the Jewish political culture since the formation of the Jewish Bund in 1897. With the establishment of a Nation-State in 1948 by the Zionist movement, the matter of minority rights has presented itself within the Jewish political culture. With the exclusivist conception of the State firmly in place and upheld to by the Israeli political culture, there is a contradiction between the demand by the Palestinian minority within Israel for civil rights while the same demands are maintained by the Jewish community elsewhere. The question thus presents itself, how does one reconcile the minority rights of a People within the context of the Nation-State?
Thursday May 31, 2007, 1:00 to 2:30 – STM 344 B
Film - Maquilaoplis (City of Factories)
Directors: Vicky Funari and Sergio De La Torre
US, 2006 68 minutes www.maquilopolis.com
Discussion follows.
Thursday May 31, 2007, 2:45
to 5:00 – STM 140
Society for Socialist Studies Plenary Session
Keynote Address by Dorothy E. Smith
Professor of Sociology, University of Victoria
(desmith@uvic.ca)
Making change from below: what can sociology offer?
Friday June 1, 2007, 9:00 to 12:00 – STM 120
Session Organizers: Murray Cooke (cooke@connect.carleton.ca) Political Science, Carleton, and Paul Kellogg (paul.kellogg@utoronto.ca), Independent Researcher
Canada’s major military commitment to the war in Afghanistan is providing graphic illustration of a fact, hidden from many theorists – that Canada’s role in the world is not different in kind from that of other advanced capitalist countries. The word that fits this role is imperialist. This panel intends to explore “Imperial Canada” from the standpoint of foreign policy, internal class dynamics, and links between nationalism and racism. The framework developed will suggest an alternative to the left-nationalism political economy which has shaped much of the theorization of Canada’s place in the world economy.
(Cross-listed
with the political economy section of the Canadian Political Science
Association)
Chair – Murray Cooke (cooke@connect.carleton.ca) Political Science, Carleton
Introduction: The political economy of “Imperial Canada
Paul Kellogg (paul.kellogg@utoronto.ca) Independent Researcher
Slavery and Racialization in the Making of the
Canadian State
Abigail Bakan (bakana@post.queensu.ca) Political Science, Queen’s University
This paper explores the racialized ideology and imperialistic project that defined early Canadian state formation. The Canadian state was founded in the context of 19th century imperialism. Identification with this system was embraced from the outset. The role of pre-Confederation British North American colonial elites is explored in the context of their racialized class interests. This class-in-the-making comprised the dynamic and expansionist nucleus of a rising Canadian bourgeoisie. Essential to this process was their relationship to slavery and the anti-slavery movement in the United States. The myths and realities associated with the underground railroad will be considered from this perspective.
In early 1969 supporters of immigrating American war resisters deluged Immigration Minister Alan MacEachen and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau with correspondence to stop discriminating against deserters at Canadian border points. The letters reflected existing aspects of left nationalism, and developed these ideas for use in their campaign. Similar ideas were reflected in both departmental discussions and public appearances by government officials. This paper will consider the use of, subscription to, and interaction with these ideas by both activists and government, and what role they played in the May 1969 decision to open the border.
This paper looks at the growing conflicts between Canadian mining companies and the Latin American communities in which these companies are investing. Canada is typically viewed as a “soft” power whose international role is defined by, among other things, respect for human rights and a genuine desire to promote sustainable development in poorer countries. Growing tensions between Canadian mining companies and communities in Latin America puts this perspective into question, raising further questions about the impact of investment in the natural resources sector and the possibilities it can contribute to the improvement of living standards in Latin America.
Friday June 1, 2007, 9:00 to
12:00 – STM 140
Fair
Trade Symposium – see FT program following SSS listings
Friday June 1, 2007, 9:00 to
12:00 – STM 200
Session Chair – Ken Collier
(kcollier@shaw.ca)
Film –
Workingman’s Death
Director: Michael Glawogger
Austria/Germany, 2005, 122 minutes
Film will end at 11 AM
Discussion follows
Friday June 1, 2007, 9:00 to
12:00 – STM 344 B
Epistemologies/Pedagogies of Struggle:
Knowledge(s) Outside the Academy
Session Organizer: Chris Borst (chris.borst@utoronto.ca), Toronto
Knowledge has always
been located outside the Academy, in the ordinary business of life and in
various parties' strategies for bettering their lots. Recently, knowledge
outside the Academy has attracted increased attention, from corporate
"knowledge management" and "intellectual property" to the
epistemologies of "the closet" and "the street", from think
tanks and policy networks to indigenous knowledges, public opinion formation
and "praxis". Sometimes this is ridiculed as "folk [name of
science]", sometimes it is praised as "common sense" and a
"learning culture".
Panel
1
Understanding the Social Change Potential of Everyday Learning
C. Paul Olson & Peter H. Sawchuk (psawchuk@oise.utoronto.ca) Sociology & Equity Studies in Education, OISE, Toronto
Knowledge production, storage and transmission within and beyond the academy have always been a phenomenon of everyday life. In this regard, ideological/discursive barriers are perhaps most directly upset when we see on how academic science is produced as everyday practice. In this paper, however, we focus on how everyday knowledge production outside the academy is linked with political economy and the cultural, symbolic and material barriers to its full realization as a force for social change. Drawing on previous and forthcoming research by the authors, the discussion looks at people’s learning to cope, adapt and occasional transform their surroundings.
Collective
Rationality and the Nature of Struggle
Chris Borst (chris.borst@utoronto.ca) Toronto
One of the more surprising features of Left discourse is the number of authors who attribute “irrationality” and “apathy” to the oppressed classes. Much like the intellectual apologists for oligarchy, many Left activists and intellectuals display a commitment to what one might call a heroic conception of strategic deliberation and practical struggle. I offer an account of what one might call an anonymous conception of collective rationality and struggle – deliberation and conflict most visible statistically, in shifting patterns of behaviour. For examples I investigate some key struggles today – struggles that largely avoid the politics of electoral and street spectacle.
Panel
II
Space-Time,
Story, and History: Marxist Responses to Narrative
James Lawson (lawsonj@uvic.ca) Political Science, Victoria
This
paper studies space-time in relationship to narrative, in the case of both
explanatory or “scientific” narratives, and didactic, mythic, or parabolic
narratives. Historical dialectical materialism makes dissenting claims to
Western scientific knowledge, and to an analysis of space-time. The paper
considers potential bases of engagement with non-Marxist conceptions of
space-time and the narrative form (such as Bakhtin’s chronotope), and also with
non-Western, non-scientific claims to knowledgeable narratives.
Indigenous
Knowledge(s) and the Academy: Facilitating Decolonization or Disguising
Aboriginal Marginalization?
Frances Widdowson (franceswiddow@trentu.ca), Trent
and
Albert Howard (franceswiddowson@yahoo.ca) Independent Researcher
In her work on indigenous knowledge(s), Marie Battiste argues that the academic recognition of indigenous “ways of knowing” has the capacity to emancipate the aboriginal population from colonialism. This assertion does not clearly distinguish between indigenous knowledge(s) and the knowledge that is currently being produced in the academy. Using a historical and materialist analysis, this paper shows how “indigenous knowledge(s)” differ from what has been labelled “Eurocentric ways of knowing”. In making this distinction, the question is raised as to whether the promotion of “indigenous knowledge(s)” within the academy will aid the emancipation of aboriginal peoples or merely disguise their marginalization.
Panel
III:
Guerrilla
Texts: Toward an Anti-Authoritarian Cultural Logic
Dr. Sandra Jeppesen (sandraj@yorku.ca), English, York
Collectively produced activist texts, or guerrilla texts such as DIY
zines and videos, are sites of knowledge production outside the academy that
use what post-structuralists call ‘intersecting axes of oppression/privilege.’
Among activists, this approach is known as ‘working with an anti-oppression
framework.’ Both anti-authoritarian activists and post-structuralist cultural
theorists thus destabilize centers of authority. In examining their intensities
together we can develop an anti-authoritarian theoretical framework to analyze
a multiplicity of oppressions/privileges simultaneously. Although perhaps
appearing chaotic from the outside, these complex cultural practices reveal a
fairly consistent anti-authoritarian cultural logic.
Outside
the Academy: Dunayevskaya’s Marxist
Humanism projected through News and Letters
Dr. Sandra Rein (srein@ualberta.ca) Alberta
My paper introduces Dunayevskaya’s considerable body of work and engages Dunayevskaya’s commitment to a non-party, non-vanguardist form of organization. Dunayevskaya broke with much of the philosophical and organizational commitments of Trotskyism, first to work with CLR James and the Correspondence Committees and subsequently to form her own organization, News and Letters (1955). Remarkably, News and Letters continues to exist in the United States and maintains a regular newspaper publication by the same name. The more than 50 years of activism, writing, and practical work of News and Letters stands as a unique example of an alternative, revolutionary form of organization.
Friday June 1, 2007, 1:00 to
5:00 – STM 120, 122, 140, 200
Fair
Trade Symposium – see FT program following SSS listings
Friday June 1, 2007, 1:00 to
2:30 – STM 200
Apologists for Capital: Exploring Corporate Social Responsibility As a “New” Mode of Governance
Session Organizer – Murray Cooke
This panel critically examines the emergence of “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) as set of ideological and material practices intimately linked to the rise of neoliberalism as a dominant economic paradigm. Given the state’s diminishing role in the regulation of capital - and social and labour protections for workers - it is crucial to probe the changing role of the corporation as an institution driving and legitimizing social change. Using a variety of lenses, including Gramscian, governmentality, Marxian and feminist political economy, this panel will clarify the origins and meanings associated with CSR, with specific attention to actual corporate practices and their implications for democratic participation and meaningful resistance at local and global scales.
Panelists:
Dead Peasants: Wal-Mart, Corporate
Social Responsibility, and the Working Poor in the United States
Ryan Foster (4rjf@qlink.queensu.ca) Queen’s
As it has faced an avalanche of criticism from community groups, grass roots activists, unions, environmentalists, academics, journalists, and politicians, Wal-Mart has responded with the largest corporate philanthropy program in the world, donating $188 million to various charities in 2005 alone. This paper exposes the highly contradictory nature of Wal-Mart's "Good Works" community giving program, by placing its support of charities which serve the working poor at the historical intersection of the neoliberal assault on social welfare in the United States, and the crisis of legitimacy for American corporations embodied by the emerging theory and practice of “corporate social responsibility”.
Is Leisure Working? The State, the
Promotion of Healthy Lifestyle and the Gendered Construction of Work-Life
Balance in Canada
Sandra Ignagni, (sandraignagni@mac.com) PhD Candidate, York
This paper takes the recent popularity of yoga practices and yoga culture as a point of departure in exploring how and why a growing leisure industry is emerging to help Canadians cope with the stresses, tensions and uncertainties arising from the changing nature of work. Through an examination of key policies and studies advocating work-life balance, my paper demonstrates how individualized and market-based approaches to social reproduction (Picchio 1992; Luxton 2006) increasingly inform state policies and practices. These approaches are situated within a larger set of historical and gendered trends related to working time and leisure regulation in Canada.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left,
Right, B, A, B, A, Select, Start: Nintendo and Hegemony in ‘Gen X’ America
Tyler Shipley (tyshipley@hotmail.com) Ph.D. candidate, Political Science, York
The 1980s marked a unique moment in the development of U.S. Empire and Hegemony. Out of the crises of the 1970s emerged the Reagan-Thatcher neoliberal shift, the abandonment of the Bretton Woods financial system and the final realization of global dominance for American capital after nearly a century of expansion. This new arrangement between state and capital meant that cultural production was increasingly left in the hands of private enterprise. The result was that American pop culture in the 1980s was saturated with overt celebrations of capitalist culture in its U.S. imperialist variant, and this paper will discuss this phenomena with specific reference to the mass emergence of video games like “Contra” – from which the code above, well known to children of the 1980s, is drawn – which celebrated the murderous U.S.-led counter-insurgency in Nicaragua.
Still Taking the Risk Out of Democracy?:
CSR as the New PR
Simon Enoch (senoch@ryerson.ca) PhD Candidate, Communication & Culture
Ryerson
The revolution in
corporate practice that CSR purports to be should be viewed as the contemporary
manifestation of a long, continuous struggle by corporations to shape and
manage the terms of public debate in order to stave off the potential for
popular democracy to constrain their power and influence. The current
proliferation of CSR discourse should be situated within the history of
corporate public relations and its adversarial relation to popular expressions
of democracy. This paper seeks to illustrate how CSR is both a continuation of
the historic relationship between corporate power and public relations, and a
peculiarly contemporary manifestation in that it has certain qualities that are
unique to the maintenance of neoliberalism and the power of the multi-national
corporation.
Friday June 1, 2007, 1:00 to
5:00 – STM 344 B
Labour
Unions and the Human Services
Dave Broad (dave.broad@uregina.ca) Social Work, Regina
Because human service workers serve working class and poor clientele, and are workers themselves, there should be an affinity between the two groups. Despite a history of close relations with the labour movement in areas like social work, professionalization in the latter half of the 20th century led to a loss of the sense of human service workers as workers. But the post-1980 neoliberal assault on social welfare has eroded working class conditions and conditions of human service workers themselves. Is there now a basis for reviving and expanding the link between human service workers and the labour movement to counter neoliberalism?
An uneasy
alliance: social work and the labour movement in Canada, 1930-1959
Colleen Lundy (colleen_lundy@carleton.ca) and Therese Jennissen
therese_jennissen@carleton.ca Social Work, Carleton
Shortly after it emerged at the beginning of the last century in Canada, social work moved towards acquiring professional status. Since political action was not considered a legitimate function of a profession, this inhibited social work’s alliance with working class and political movements. It was almost mid-century before social workers began to consider the importance of collective action and their own job security. We revisit the debates over unionization that ensued between left-leaning social workers and those with rigid notions of professionalism and reflect on the current context of restructuring and privatization and the role of unions in supporting the working conditions of social workers.
Social Workers
and Strike Action
Garson Hunter (garson.hunter@uregina.ca) Social
Work, Regina
This paper examines the case of government social workers in Alberta during their illegal job actions of 1989 and 1990. The one-day illegal job action of 1989 is seen as a test to gauge the government’s reaction to an illegal job action by social workers in their employ. An examination of 1990 allows a detailed look at the actions of social workers who dared to challenge the government by going out on a 17-day illegal strike. The reaction by the Alberta government and the media coverage of the event are also presented.
Using Enterprise Bargaining to de-intensify labour: a case study in
public sector nursing in Australia
Eileen Willis (Eileen.willis@flinders.edu.au) Health Sciences, Flinders University, Australia
Drawing on Neo Marxist theory of abstract time this paper explores labour negotiations in the public health sector in Australia between 1996 and 2005. During this period industrial negotiations moved from centralized to enterprise level agreements through the Workplace Relations Act 1996. In the case of nursing this led to the Australian Nursing Federation negotiating agreements that included highly specified workload algorithms in an attempt to de-intensify nurse’s labour. The irony of this strategy is that these tools operate as both a human resource mechanism for maximizing productivity as well as industrial relations tool for reducing work intensification.
Friday June 1, 2007, 2:45 to
5:00 PM – STM 344 B
***Socialist
Studies AGM***
Friday June 1, 2007, 5:30 to
7:00 – Education Students’ Lounge, Education Bldg
President’s
Reception
Peter McKinnon, President, University of
Saskatchewan.
Saturday June 2, 2007, 9:00
to 12:00 – STM 120, 122, 140
Fair
Trade Symposium – see FT program following SSS listings
Saturday June 2, 2007, 9:00
to 10:30 – STM 200
Global capitalism: the changing reality of class, part 1
Session Organizer: Bill Carroll (wcarroll@uvic.ca)
Sociology, Victoria
Session Chair: Paul Kellogg, Independent Researcher,
Toronto
This session welcomes theoretical papers or empirical studies of the changing reality of class in contemporary capitalism, focusing on (a) the implications of increasingly globalized forms of accumulation for class structure and class struggle and/or (b) the transnational organization of class relations themselves. The contributions of states and transnational state apparatuses, mass media, transnational corporations, the international financial system, and social movements in constituting the changing reality of class are all relevant thematics.
Cultural
Commodification and the Intelligentsia: A New Transnational Class?
Jerrold Kachur (jerry.kachur@ualberta.ca), Social and Political Theory, International Sociology of Education, Educational Policy Studies, Alberta
The “internationalization of the state” in neo-Gramscian writings can only be understood through a focus on the social basis of the state and an analysis of the nebuleuse as an emerging complex of mutually reinforcing sets of relationships between the “Washington consensus,” the policies and practices of national state agencies, and their regional orchestrating institutions. Based on my previous analyses of intellectual property rights, international relations, and cultural commodities, this paper theorizes “class” by considering the utility of nebuleuse in Kees Van Der Pijl’s (1998) work on transnational intellectual classes and by following C.B. Macpherson’s (1978) suggestion to think of property as something more than “the individual right to exclude others.”
Primitive
Accumulation, Abstract Labour and State Planning
Chris Hurl (churl@connect.carleton.ca) Sociology
and Anthropology, Institute of Political Economy, Carleton
Drawing on Marx's theory of 'abstract labour,'
I hope to build on recent discussions of ‘primitive accumulation’ by shifting
focus from capital’s conquest of space to the constitution of distinct rhythms
of production and reproduction through the process of state
planning. By examining the relationship between ‘primitive
accumulation’ and ‘abstract labour’ through state planning I
hope to outline how capital is constituting its own commons.
Tracking
the transnational capitalist class: the view from on high
William K. Carroll (wcarroll@uvic.ca; http://web.uvic.ca/%7Ewcarroll/index.html)
Sociology, Victoria
This paper presents preliminary findings from a study of transitions in the global corporate elite between 1996 and 2006. It explores the extent to which and ways in which the network of interlocking directorates among the world's largest corporations has been recomposed in recent years, as a function of structural developments such as the rise of new centres of accumulation on the semi-periphery and the continuing economic integration of Europe. On the basis of this view from on high, the paper discusses recent tendencies in transnational capitalist class formation and their implications for global political economy.
Saturday June 2, 2007,10:45
to 12:00 – STM 200
Global capitalism:
the changing reality of class, part 2
session organizer and chair: Bill Carroll (wcarroll@uvic.ca)
Sociology, Victoria
Discussant: Paul Kellogg, Independent
Researcher, Toronto
Changing
Reality of the Working Class in the Globalizing Chinese Economy
Lanyan Chen (lanyanc@hotmail.com) Institute of Gender
and Development Studies at the Tianjin Normal University in Tianjin, China
This paper discusses the changing reality of the working class in socialist
China during the recent industrialization beginning in the early 1980s. It is
now propelled by international capital drawn in by the government and also
fuelled by the growth of the working class which incorporates rural laborers
but only as migrant workers, who therefore do not have job security and enjoy
the Labor Insurance that was extended to all workers including those who came
from the countryside in the 1950s. These migrant workers, many of whom are
women employed by international capital producing goods for international
markets, work under harsh conditions and have no more rights than forced,
bonded laborers in a capitalist-dominated society.
Simulacrum
and Global Consumption: A sign (form) of the times
Adam Belton (adamb@uvic.ca) MA
Candidate, Sociology, Victoria.
This paper discusses the implication of the “sign-form” of commodities on class identification and coalescence. Baudrillard’s sign-form allows for the transfiguration of use and exchange values into sign-value – consequently allowing the severing of connections to the real/material object-form – and therefore infinite reproducibility and global transferability, in the sign-form, as “simulacrum”. The increasing number of signs allows increasing “class discriminants” – these instances of differentiation further thwarting proletarian coalescence – and concurrently shifting sites of bourgeois economic/political power enactment from control over production to control over consumption and sign manipulation. However, this shift may provide an opportunity for political resistance as the bourgeoisie becomes increasingly reliant on the global consumption of simulacrum by the international proletariats.
Saturday June 2, 2007, 9:00
to 12:00 – STM 344 B
Fair
Trade Symposium – see FT program following SSS listings
Saturday June 2, 2007, 1:00
to 2:30 STM 200
Counter-culture and
the Epistemology of Global Social Resistance
Session organizer: P. Stuart Robinson, PhD,
(stuartr@sv.uit.no Tromsø, Norway
A robust counterculture has recently catalysed some novel strategies of resistance, directed primarily against the materialism and destructive social and ecological effects of capitalism. The reverberations of such strategies as anarchist squatted ‘social centres’, and ‘reclaim the streets’ anti-car protests, have been felt almost world wide. Their epistemological novelty is twofold. First, they express or resonate with marginal currents of social, political and religious thought, from anarchism, through New Age and Druid mysticism, to ecological spiritualism. Second, they employ practical-knowledge-based institutional innovations designed to facilitate collective action in a loose and radically democratic organisational structure. Papers might examine this broad cultural frame and/or relevant case-studies of social resistance.
Otto René Castillo and the Construction of a Relevant
Past in Guatemala during the 1960s
Michael Kirkpatrick (kirpak@hotmail.com) Doctoral candidate, Saskatchewan
With the outbreak of guerrilla insurrection in Guatemala in the early 1960s, leftwing intellectuals and cultural activists turned to the discipline of history to both understand and comprehend their struggle against the Guatemalan state and US imperialism. Echoing Marxist teleology and contemporary modes of historical analysis—particularly Tricontinental theory emanating from Cuba and beyond—the Guatemalan left initiated a cultural project to appropriate and reinterpret Guatemala’s past. By using conventional means such as historical literature and poetry, innovative strategies including jungle theatre and emerging film technologies, the Guatemalan left portrayed armed struggle as the logical manifestation of national history.
Constructing Uniqueness in a Global World: Young
People in a Northern Setting
Dr. Gry Paulgaard (gryp@sv.uit.no) Education, Tromsø, Norway
Young people’s constructions of uniqueness in the North are strongly related to place, in situations where both people and places seem to lose their local, regional or even national uniqueness. Perhaps that is why the construction of uniqueness is currently so important? Might this be one of the new forms of collectivity in “our global situation”? Bauman (1991:4) calls this “the task of order”, describing “one of the impossible tasks that modernity set itself,” – or, “more precisely and most importantly”, “of order as a task”. Reflecting on new forms of collective identity, with reference to intensive practice, I focus on the struggle for order – or “order as a task” – in identity construction. What is new is the task of forming, and the intensity of forming, collective identities of this kind.
Temporary Autonomous Zones and the Collective
Re-invention of Social Being
Dr. P. Stuart Robinson (stuartr@sv.uit.no) Political Science, Tromsø, Norway
The paper’s point of departure is a study (based on both primary and secondary
sources) of the “reclaim-the-streets” protest strategy of new social movements or
counterculture in Britain. This forms the basis of a conceptualisation and analysis
of the phenomenon as an important genus of social and political innovation, as it
seems liable to emerge under distinctive contemporary conditions. Such conditions,
associated with processes of globalisation, facilitate novel forms of radically
democratic and loosely networked “epistemic communities”. The paper argues that
this case is a typical if precocious example of such new epistemic and political forms.
Sunday June 3, 2007, 9:00 to
12:00 and 1:00 to 5:00 – STM 120, 122, 140, 200, and 344 B
Fair Trade Symposium – see FT program immediately
below
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
Fair Trade:
Bridging Communities, Building Understanding
Second Annual
International Fair Trade Symposium
Friday –
Sunday, June 1 – 3, 2007
Organized by
the Canadian Student Fair Trade Network
The
Canadian Student Fair Trade Network’s vision is to shift the purchasing
decisions of individuals,
organizations, businesses, and governments across
Canada
to choices that encompass a respect for human rights and dignity, and
environmental
sustainability as understood over decades by the Fair Trade
movement.
Symposium
Co-ordinators:
Ian Hussey Isobel O’Connell
Executive
Director Sponsorship
and Outreach
1-250-514-6801
csftn-recce@care2.com icon_2@shaw.ca
This
exciting, weekend long, multi-faceted event will
further the CSFTN’s mission of facilitating the growth of local, regional, national and international Fair Trade
education and advocacy initiatives through supporting collective communication
and resource sharing. The 2007 Symposium
will bring together activists, businesses, co-operatives, producers,
non-governmental organizations, faith groups, unions, academics, and community
members to attend and participate in multimedia presentations, research paper
sessions, roundtables, and semi-structured, open discussion periods.
Friday, June 1, St.
Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan
9:00-9:30am,
Room 140
Fair
Trade in Canada: Where we’re at, where we’re going
Presenter: Ian Hussey csftn-recce@care2.com,
Executive Director, Canadian Student
Fair Trade Network www.csftn-recce.org
To open the symposium, Ian will reflect on the
advocacy, education, and business efforts and achievements of Canadian fair
traders over the past few years. He will then overview the weekend’s agenda.
Participants will then have an opportunity to discuss what they would like to
see accomplished during the symposium.
9:30-11:30am, Room 140
Anti-oppression in our
Organizing
Facilitator:
Joe Curnow joe.curnow@gmail.com,
National Coordinator, United Students
for Fair Trade www.usft.org
Sure,
you recognize oppression in the global economy, otherwise you wouldn't be here,
but how does this internalized, systemic oppression affect the work that we're
doing for trade justice? The same systems we fight in our global
justice organizing are often replicated in our grassroots work, so we must work
intentionally to combat them and work proactively to build a
non-complicit, anti-oppressive movement. Together we'll explore oppressive
systems and seek to develop strategies and awareness around anti-oppressive
organizing in our work.
1:00-2:45pm, Room 140
Financing
Fair Trade: Challenges and Recent Innovations
Presenter: Vincent Lagacé vlagace@did.qc.ca, Fair
Trade Advisor, Développement International Desjardins www.did.qc.ca
Since the movement’s outset, fair traders have
promised artisans and farmers pre-financing and better access to credit.
However, today many Fair Trade producers still struggle to obtain the credit
they need to export their products or increase their capacity. What is the
reality on the ground? What are the options for producers? Who is providing
credit and how is this done? And most importantly, how can microfinance and
local credit providers support producers in their aims?
Growing Justice: The role
of Micro-credit in the Bolivian Fair Trade Movement
Presenters: Kevin McCarty kevinmccarty@care2.com,
Canadian Crossroads International (CCI) www.cciorg.ca; Jaime Andrade, PEAP/FONCRESOL
and ANED (CCI’s Bolivian partner organizations)
Tens
of thousands of Bolivian families produce coffee and quinoa, yet a very small
portion is able to enter fair, sustainable markets. Most depend on unfair
markets that lack principles which honour the producer. To address these
issues, the presenters will discuss the findings of an innovative study on the
commercialization of Bolivian coffee and quinoa through the Fair Trade system,
identifying stages where microfinance can provide support to producer groups.
The presenters will also discuss plans to implement a pilot project between
Bolivian producers and Canadian importers, with the goal of ensuring a market
based in equality and respect.
1:00-1:45pm, Room 120
Security and Advocacy in
Fair Trade Community Relations
Presenter: Ira Zbarsky ira@saped.org, Shuswap Association for the Promotion of
Eco-Development (SAPED), www.saped.org
SAPED is developing a model Fair Trade agreement with its
many partners in various countries. We wish to explore the concepts within this
model, and focus on the final points respecting security and advocacy. We are
finding enormous political and military obstructions in our attempts to develop
community-to-community networks. We think mutual agreements need to be
developed that require all parties to take responsibility in the protection of
the communities under threat and their furtherance of Fair Trade. Examples will
be cited.
2:00-2:45pm, Room 120
Hot Brew: The Search
for Fair Trade Tea in North-eastern India. A
visual journey to Assam, birthplace of India’s tea industry, and home to people
from the Singpho tribe who are struggling to find a way into the international
market for Fair Trade tea.
Presenter: Peggy Carswell fertile_ground2003@yahoo.com,
Coordinator, Fertile Ground
Since
1998, volunteers from Canada’s west coast worked with growers, self-help
groups, and educators in Assam, India to encourage a return to traditional,
more sustainable agricultural practices. Fertile Ground’s coordinator, Peggy
Carswell, helped establish a Fair Trade tea project providing educational and
technical support for growers, and is now working on a program in Assam to
raise awareness of risks associated with pesticide use. This presentation
identifies barriers facing small-scale producers like the Singpho, and looks at
why Fair Trade and Organic certification initiatives don’t always work for the
people we’d like to support.
3:00-4:30pm,
Room 140
Fair
Trade and the International Women’s Movement
Olfania
Mena is
currently a Director of the National Federation of Agricultural and
Agroindustrial Cooperatives of Nicaragua (FENACOOP), and has more than
fifteen years of experience with Nicaraguan cooperatives and agriculture. Beginning
as a small-scale producer of basic grains, she quickly rose through the
leadership of regional and eventually national cooperatives. Her experience as
president of the cooperative "Women of the
Field" in the state of Masaya, her role as a Director of the National
Union of Farmers and Ranchers (UNAG) responsible for the Section on Women, and
her position as representative for both the Cooperative of Masayan Women in the
National Network of Women Against Violence, provided her the necessary
background to support an extensive "gender audit" of FENACOOP, which
is meant to identify the extent to which the cooperative is
responsive to the interests of its female members.
Olfania will
discuss the role bilateral trade agreements and the WTO, and how women are
disproportionately impacted in these agreements. She will also discuss the work
that has been done by FENACOOP to ensure women's voices and needs are
integrated into the work of the organization. Increasing participation of women
in mixed farm workers’ organizations is a pressing issue in both the North and
South as women work to increase their level of representation in the formal
structures that have been created to represent small scale agricultural
producers on national and global levels.
Fatima
Shabodien has been the
executive director of the Women on Farms Project (WFP) since 2004. WFP
is a South African NGO working towards the empowerment of women who live and
work on commercial farms by building women's capacity as agents of change in
their own lives. Through her work, Fatima has developed experience working on
issues of rural development, land reform and conflict resolution. She has a BA
in Anthropology from the University of the Western Cape, an MA
in International Peace Studies from the University of Notre Dame, and on a
Nelson Mandela Scholarship she completed a MPhil in Development Studies at the
Institute for Development Studies at Sussex University. Fatima serves as a
trustee on the South African Wine Industry Trust, FairTrade South Africa, and
Women in Leadership. Her work and academic endeavours have included projects in
South Africa, the UK, Indonesia, Ethiopia, and the USA. The WFP builds
community among women working in agriculture by creating sustainable supports
for growing their capacity as agents of change and leaders. The organization
promotes self-reliance, accountability, advocacy and local organization so that
women speak for themselves in efforts to counteract abuses that impact women in
the home, in farm work, and the wider community. Since women continue to play a
vital role in food security, they must be central to any discussion of the
impact of trade and other international agreements. Access to affordable basic
services and restoration of the social fabric that transits metropolitan and
rural spaces are central to the work of the WFP.
4:45-6:00pm,
Room 140
Fair Trade Coffee in
Ecuador: The Situation of FAPECAFES
Presenter:
Patrick Clark patrickclark@trentu.ca, International Development Studies, Trent
University;
Fair Trade Trent; Work Placement, Federación Regional de Asociaciones
de Pequeños Cafetaleros del Sur (FAPECAFES) Loja,
Ecuador, January-April, 2007
FAPECAFES,
in Spanish the Federación Regional de Asociaciones de Pequeños
Cafetaleros del Sur, in English, the Federation of Regional Associations of
Small Coffee Farmers- south, is comprised of 1500 small coffee farming
families, in five base associations spread over four provinces of Ecuador who
export Fair Trade Certified and Organic coffee collectively through the
Federation. My presentation will overview FAPECAFES and then discuss a study I
conducted in January-April, 2007. The study was based on a questionnaire
which was sent to the FAPECAFES from the Fair Trade Network of Latin America
and the Caribbean (acronym CLAC in Spanish) called, “Consultation of Small Fair
Trade Producers: Present State and Future of Fair Trade”. The themes of the
questionnaire included Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO)
certification, national certification initiatives, the CLAC, and the future of
Fair Trade. Through conducting on-farm interviews and meetings with producers,
I gathered feedback on these subjects as well as general sentiments and
suggestions for changes within FAPECAFES, FLO and organic production methods.
My presentation will end with an analysis of FAPECAFES work within the current
context.
Saturday, June 2, St. Thomas
More College, University of Saskatchewan
9:00am-12:00pm, Room 140
Facilitator: Canadian
Student Fair Trade Network www.csftn-recce.org
The Future of the Canadian Student
Fair Trade Network
Over the past few months there has been discussion
of the future of the Canadian Student Fair Trade Network (CSFTN). The current
operations of the CSFTN will be delineated. An open discussion about the future
of the organization will then occur.
National
Campus Policy Campaign
Over the past year, the Canadian Student Fair Trade
Network has been working with several of our NGO and business partners to
develop a national campaign to advocate for Fair Trade policies in schools
across the country. The campaign will officially begin in September. An
overview of the campaign will be given, then the group will discuss how we can
work together to successfully coordinate it.
October: Students’ Fair Trade
Month
Students play a key role in the development of Fair
Trade and are among its most dynamic advocates. By dedicating an entire month
to promoting student-led initiatives, we hope to increase the visibility and
impact of Fair Trade. The CSFTN has had preliminary discussions with several of
our NGO and business partners about organizing a students’ Fair Trade month
each October. This session is an opportunity to further that discussion and
move toward more concrete plans for this October.
9:00-9:50am, Room 120
Reflecting on the Ethical
Purchasing Forum: Co-operating for Locally-Based Regional Alternatives, Victoria,
BC, February 23-24/2007 www.ethicalpurchasing.bcics.org
Presenter: Debbie Dergousoff ddergous@sfu.ca, British Columbia
Institute for Co-operative Studies http://web.uvic.ca/bcics/index.html;
Simon Fraser University
The Ethical Purchasing Forum was an innovative event designed to bring together
a diverse array of actors to explore issues of ethical trade and to devise
actions for enhancing ethical trade in the Victoria region. Debbie, who helped
organize the event, will report on the proceedings, and the concrete actions
conceived at the Forum.
Fair Trade and the Larger
Social Economy
Presenter:
Annie
McKitrick secoord@uvic.ca, Project
Officer, Canadian Social Economy Hub
www.socialeconomyhub.ca
/ www.centreeconomiesociale.ca. Set aside October 22-25,
2007 for the First International Research
Conference
on the Social Economy to be held in Victoria, BC.
The
Canadian Social Economy Hub (CSEHub) promotes collaboration among researchers
and practitioners associated with six regional research centres across Canada,
and several national partners in the Social Economy. This presentation will
provide an overview of the Social Economy and describe some of the work that is
being done by the CSEHub and its regional nodes. Particular attention will be
paid to the linkages between the Social Economy and the Fair Trade and Ethical
Purchasing Movements. Participants will leave with a better understanding of
the Social Economy and how the Fair Trade movement fits within the Social
Economy.
10:00-10:50am, Room 120
Combining Advocacy and
Research: Manitoba’s One Month Challenge (OMC)
Presenter:
Patrick Falconer progroup@shaw.ca, Chair, Fair Trade
Manitoba
www.fairtrademanitoba.ca
Fair
Trade Manitoba organized a One Month Fair Trade Challenge in March. Patrick
will discuss the process of organizing and overseeing this innovative event. He
will share the results of the OMC. The group will then discuss how we might
organize the next OMC on a national level.
11:10am-12:00pm, Room 120
Make Your Town the Next Canadian Fair Trade Town
Presenter:
TransFair
Canada www.transfair.ca
The
Fair Trade Towns (FTT) movement started in Canada this past year. TransFair
Canada is coordinating this initiative. They will present an overview of the
FTT efforts in the United Kingdom, and then discuss the Canadian efforts,
including the development of a Canadian FTT action kit.
1:00-4:00pm, Room 120
Fair Trade and No Sweat:
Bridging the Gap
Facilitator:
Amanda Wilson amanda@usasnet.org,
Co-National Coordinator, United Students
Against Sweatshops Canada www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org
For
several years students across Canada have been organizing around the issues of
Fair Trade and No Sweat. This session seeks to determine what differentiates
these two trade justice movements and what binds them together. Participants
will explore how these two movements might better work together in Canada and
beyond.
1:00-1:50pm, Room 140
Linking Local and Global
Building a Solidarity
Food System, Locally and Globally: The case of Domestic Fair Trade
Presenters: Dr Darrell McLaughlin darrell.mclaughlin@stmcollege.ca,
St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan; Laurie Schimpf, University
of Saskatchewan
Background:
The National Farmers Union (NFU) passed a resolution at its annual meeting in
December which directed the executive to explore the possibility of
establishing a domestic Fair Trade label for Canadian farm products and to
examine the feasibility of the NFU becoming the bargaining organization for
negotiations between Canadian farmers and Fair Trade organizations. The NFU
discussed how it might act to fulfill the resolution at its March meeting.
The
growing corporate concentration of power in the global food system is making it
difficult for producers to know the needs of consumers. Meanwhile it is
becoming equally challenging for consumers to know the real cost and conditions
of food production. The Fair Trade movement has emerged as a mechanism through
which farmers and consumers can overcome some of the barriers caused by
distancing in today's food system. The Fair Trade label contains information
about social and ecological impact of alternative production and marketing
practices. Some farmers and consumers in Canada have indicated an interest in
establishing a Domestic Fair Trade label which would provide similar
information about Canadian farm products. This session is a space for discussing
issues of Domestic Fair Trade.
Linking Global and Local:
Fair Trade and Community Development
Presenters:
Nancy Allan nancy.allan@usask.ca, University
of Saskatchewan (U of S); Dr Michael Gertler michael.gertler@usask.ca, Centre for the
Study of Co-operatives, U of S
This
paper summarizes research undertaken for the Saskatchewan Council for
International Cooperation on the contributions of fair trade and localized food
systems to regional and international development. Based on a literature review
and interviews with producers and marketers, it argues that such practices are
viable alternatives to conventional, globally sourced production. Fair, organic,
and local trade regimes promote positive changes in farming and eating as well
as new producer-consumer links and sustainable (rural) livelihoods. We consider
barriers to the expansion of such alternatives along with organizational
practices and government policies supporting the fuller development of local
and sustainable provisioning.
2:00-2:50pm, Room 140
Ethical, Sustainable, and
Viable Business Practices
Presenter: Brad Clute bclute@mec.ca,
Calgary Sustainability and Community Involvement Coordinator, Mountain
Equipment Co-op (MEC) www.mec.ca
MEC is committed to local communities,
sustainability, Fair Trade, ethical sourcing, and outdoor activities. It is
also a highly successful co-op. Part of Brad’s job is spreading the word. At
one time only 10% of his presentations were about ethical business and social
responsibility, most of them were about outdoor activities. But in 2005, 50% of
his presentations concerned ethics and business. He will discuss how any
business can be grown and thrive on an ethical foundation. MEC is a prime
example.
3:10-4:00pm, Room 140
Co-operating
for Fair Trade
Presenter: Martin Van Den Borre martin@lasiembra.com,
Co-Executive Director, La Siembra
Co-operative www.lasiembra.com
Martin is a worker-owner of La Siembra
Co-operative. After years of work in tropical agroforestry and within Québec’s
co-operative movement, he now oversees La Siembra’s Operations, Finance and
Human Resources, leading on La Siembra’s relationships within the co-operative
sector and investor relations. He will present a vision for how the Fair Trade
and co-operative movements can work closer together before facilitating a group
discussion on the topic.
4:15-6:00pm, Room 140
Certification
and Accreditation at the Southern Fair Trade Organization (FTO) Level
Presenters: Eileen
Davenport eileen.davenport@mac.com,
Chair, Standards and Monitoring Committee, International Fair Trade
Association (IFAT) www.ifat.org;
Jeff de Jong jeff@lasiembra.com, Co-Executive Director, La
Siembra Co-operative www.lasiembra.com; Stacey Toews
stacey@levelground.com, Co-Founder, Level
Ground Trading Ltd www.levelground.com; Rob Clarke rob.clarke@transfair.ca,
Executive Director, TransFair Canada
www.transfair.ca
Building on the weekend’s
discussions, this panel will address issues of Fair Trade certification and
accreditation of Southern FTOs. The panel will discuss revisions to FLO’s and
IFAT’s monitoring systems that are presently being considered, and will explore
how FLO and IFAT can be more user-friendly, inclusive, and able to build
capacity.
Sunday,
June 3, St. Thomas More College, University
of Saskatchewan
9:00am-12:00pm,
Room 140
Building the Fair Trade
Association of Canada (FTAC)
Facilitator: Ian Hussey csftn-recce@care2.com,
Executive Director, Canadian Student
Fair Trade Network www.csftn-recce.org
This session will start an organic process of
building the Fair Trade Association of Canada (FTAC). Over the last year, the Canadian
Student Fair Trade Network’s Executive has discussed the idea of the FTAC with
fair traders from various facets of the movement. The initial response has been
very positive. The idea is to create a guiding body for the national
movement to facilitate communication, resource sharing, and collaboration. If
the FTAC is to be the guiding body of the national movement, it will need to be
open and democratic in nature, and to not lose sight of the local and regional
pictures. The idea is to create a regrouping of actors from the national
movement who can speak for the various facets of the movement. Hence,
membership in the FTAC will need to be truly open and representative in order
to maintain an overall commitment to
consensus-building. A diverse representation of TransFair Canada licensees and
International Fair Trade Association members will be required in order to
actually represent Canadian Fair Traders. Canadian Fair Traders face the
challenge of strengthening the linkages and the collaborations between one
another, often across great distance, and frequently while speaking to the
specific products or commodities that they are each passionate about. They do
not often sit at a table together and figure out where the common ground
between all of their education and advocacy efforts lies, where the synergies
are, and what kind of collaborations they could undertake. The FTAC would be a
venue in which such meetings and discussions, amongst others, could occur.
1:00-2:00pm, Room 140
Fair Trade Promotion and
Consumer Activism, a Sample Talk
Presenter:
Stacey Toews stacey@fairtradeconcepts.com, Fair Trade Concepts Society www.fairtradeconcepts.com
Throughout
the last seven school years Stacey Toews has spoken with 700 groups comprising
25,000 people (approximately 80% students and 20% adults). He will give a
sample talk about Fair Trade promotion and consumer activism, for two reasons: (1) a lot of people are passionate but
not articulate. Stacey will provide information and perspectives to advocates
who often feel under-resourced. He will provide tools, examples of success, and
rationale for Fair Trade to further equip Fair Trade advocates; and (2) Stacey
wishes to get input / feedback from others who can help him improve and gain
new perspectives. This session will be the basis for a future resource
kit.
2:00-3:00pm, Room 140
Wrap-up and next steps
Society
for Socialist Studies Session Summary
SUNDAY
May 27, 2007 (Prior to SSS
days at Congress)
9:00 to 7:00 PM Albert Community Center, Saskatoon
Saskatchewan Labour History Workshop
………………………….
TUESDAY
May 29, 2007, (Prior to SSS
days at Congress)
1:00 to 2:30, Thorvaldson 124 (Cross-listed
with CSA)
Identity and Collective
Action
…………………………
WEDNESDAY
May 30, 2007
9:00 to 10:30 – STM 120
SSS Journal
Editorial Board Members Meeting
10:45 to12:25 – STM 344 B
Political
Economy and Politics: Class Divisions and Class Alliances, Saskatchewan and
Abroad
1:00 to 5:00 – STM 120
From Reality to
Fiction. Manifestations of National Identity in The Film Nasty Girl
1:00 to 2:30 – STM 344 B
(May extend to 3:45 if
needed)
Saskatchewan Political Economy and Politics,
Historically and Today
3:45 to 5:00 – STM 344B
Managing
Misogyny in the Corporate University
6:00 to 7:30 – STM 120
SSS Exec meeting
……………………….
THURSDAY
May 31, 2007
9:00 to 10:30 – STM 120
Economic Security for Vulnerable Populations
9:00 to 12:00 – STM 200
Institutional Ethnography
10:45 to 12:15 – STM 344 B
Canada's 'Pro-Israel' Lobby & Jewish Dissent?
1:00 to 2:30 – STM 344 B
Film - Maquilaoplis (City of Factories)
2:45 to 5:00 – STM 140
Keynote Address by Dorothy E. Smith
Making change from below: what can sociology offer?
………………..
FRIDAY June 1, 2007
9:00 to 12:00 – STM 120
9:00 to 12:00 – STM 140
Fair
Trade Symposium – see FT program following SSS listings.
9:00 to 12:00 – STM 200
Film –
Workingman’s Death
9:00 to 12:00 – STM 344 B
Epistemologies/Pedagogies of Struggle:
Knowledge(s) Outside the Academy
1:00 to 5:00 – STM 120, 122,
140
Fair
Trade Symposium – see FT program following SSS listings.
1:00 to 2:30 – STM 200
Apologists for Capital: Exploring Corporate Social Responsibility As a “New” Mode of Governance
1:00 to 2:30 – STM 344 B
Labour
Unions and the Human Services
2:45 to 5:00 – STM 200
Fair
Trade Symposium – see FT program following SSS listings.
2:45 to 5:00 – STM 344 B
Socialist
Studies AGM
……………………………..
SATURDAY
June 2, 2007
9:00 to 12:00 – STM 120,
122, 140, 344 B
Fair
Trade Symposium – see FT program following SSS listings.
9:00 to 10:30 – STM 200
Global capitalism:
the changing reality of class, part 1
10:45 to 12:00 – STM 200
Global capitalism:
the changing reality of class, part 2
2:45 to 5:00 – STM 200
Counter-culture and the
Epistemology of Global Social Resistance
………………………………………..
SUNDAY June 3, 2007
9:00 to 12:00 – STM 120,
122, 140, 200, 344 B
Fair
Trade Symposium – see FT program following SSS listings.
1:00 to 5:00 – STM 120, 122,
140, 200, 344 B
Fair
Trade Symposium – see FT program following SSS listings.
Legend
STM = St. Thomas More
Thorvaldson – separate building on University
of Sask. Campus
Layout – Ken Collier, SSS National Office
……………………
NOTES:
NOTES: