[P2P-F] Fwd: Call for Papers - "From Economic Science Fictions to Labour as Commons"

Mon Dec 24 07:23:04 CET 2018

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Danny Spitzberg <danny at peakagency.co>
Date: Mon, Dec 24, 2018 at 5:55 AM
Subject: Fwd: Call for Papers - "From Economic Science Fictions to Labour
as Commons"
To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>

This call for papers... sounds fantastic. The whole thing, really.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Dan Ozarow <d.ozarow at mdx.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, Dec 14, 2018 at 12:39 PM
Subject: Call for Papers - "From Economic Science Fictions to Labour as
Commons"
To: <ALTERNATIVES-TO-CAPITALISM at jiscmail.ac.uk>

Call for Papers - "From Economic Science Fictions to Labour as Commons"

Alternative Organisations and Transformative Practices (AOTP) Research
Cluster Conference

Keynote Speaker: Dr Dario Azzellini (ILR School at Cornell University)

Conference Date: Friday 21st June 2019
CfP deadline: Monday 18th February 2019

Organised by: AOTP, Middlesex University, London
https://alternativeorganisations.wordpress.com/

Alternative Organisations and Transformative Practices (AOTP) at Middlesex
University, London is accepting submissions for our 1-day symposium in the
summer at Hendon Town Hall (Committee Room 1) next to the campus. Paper
abstracts of 250 words max are accepted, with a deadline by Monday 18th
February 2019. We encourage submissions from academics of all stages in
their career, including PhD students and overseas colleagues, although
please be aware that we are unable to fund costs.

Kindly email abstracts to the AOTP Coordinators, Dr Daniel Ozarow
d.ozarow at mdx.ac.uk and Dr Nico Pizzolato n.pizzolato at mdx.ac.uk

Background:

The global crisis has elicited an acceleration of neoliberal capitalism
that has been disastrous for labour. Austerity programmes, market
flexibilisation, privatisation, venture capital takeovers of failing firms,
casualization, the “gig” economy, and zero hour contracts have intensified
the exploitative relationship between labour and capital and exacerbated
worker alienation and precariousness. Both as an ideology and a set of
practices, neoliberalism has recast capitalism as a pervasive narrative to
be internalised and reproduced.

In effect, as suggested by William Davies et al. in the edited anthology
Economic Science Fictions (2018), capitalism might be reconceptualised as
an eminently fictional form of how social life should be organised that
bears little relations to the actual societal needs. For instance,
economist Ha-Joon Chang explains how we come to believe that the existing
economic reality is scientifically-grounded and ‘natural’, although in fact
it is the product of ideologically-driven political decisions,
technological change, or influence from institutions or external forces. If
is economics is a form of fiction, how can labour emancipate itself from
this fiction, return to its essence, and reclaim a non-fictional economy?

Currently, around the globe we have seen the emergence of alternative,
non-capitalist production models based on principles of worker democracy,
self-management, horizontal decision-making that are emancipatory and
solidaristic in nature. Sometimes the consequence of anti-neoliberal
uprisings, they may be autonomous of, in direct conflict with, or co-opted
by the state. The utopian visions they bring often inspire hope among
broader populations or workers, as an alternative to the dystopian path
that is often predicted. Diluted versions of such visions are even
penetrating the mainstream, with the publication of the British Labour
Party’s Alternative Models of Ownership (2017).

Authors such as De Peuter and Dyer-Witheford (2010), Bollier and Helfrich
(2012) and Azzellini (2016) propose a solution to this problem through the
understanding of ‘labour as a commons’, located in the discussion of how
commons can advance the transformation of social relations and society.
This is only possible if labour power is no longer perceived of as the
object of capital’s value practices, but as a collectively and sustainably
managed resource for the benefit of society, obtained via social struggle
and the cultivation of examples of forms of ‘labour as a commons’ that
already exist in society (or those that have not yet formed).

Call for Papers:

This conference seeks to bring the two parallel literatures of ‘economic
science fictions’ and ‘labour as commons’ into dialogue by inviting
contributors to submit papers that investigate and analyse how can society
move away from this dystopian economic science fiction via the practice of
the labour commons.

Papers should contribute to one of the three conference streams:

1) Alternative ways of organizing work, including organizations in the
social or solidarity economy
This stream includes research on workers-recovered companies, forms of
democratic worker governance of enterprises, employee-ownership,
cooperatives and other instances of self-management and self-activity.

2) Critiques of economic science fictions and conceptualisation of
alternative theoretical frameworks for modes of work and property
relationships, guided by the idea of commons.

3) Responses to emerging forms and control of work, including integration
of new technologies and digitalisation
This stream includes research on responses to how technology and
digitalisation has reconfigured workplace organisation and the body social
through intensified monitoring, surveillance and control . It includes also
the impact of automation, cloud computing, big data and the Internet of
Things on work systems and relations of production.

Contributions are especially welcome if international, comparative or
interdisciplinary in nature.

See/Like the Facebook Group:
https://www.facebook.com/Alternative-Organisations-and-Transformative-Practice-Conference-2019-376742496223219/

--
Dr. Daniel Ozarow
Senior Lecturer (Research & Teaching) in HRM

Department of Management, Leadership & Organisations.
Deputy Head - Latin American Studies Research Group
Middlesex University Business School, The Burroughs, London, NW4 4BT, UK
T: +44 (0) 208 411 3535
W: http://www.mdx.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-directory/ozarow-daniel
Convenor - Argentina Research Network UK
http://argentinaresearchnetwork.wordpress.com/
Chair - Jubilee Debt Campaign, Academic Advisory Network
http://jubileedebt.org.uk/about/academic-advisory-network

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