Urban space: What Difference does it make for Organizing?
Submitted by Natan Dotan on Sat, 02/05/2011 - 7:16pm
Panel Abstract:
A key theme in this panel is the notion that cities enable the disadvantaged and the powerless to organize and confront power in ways that are far more difficult, and perhaps impossible, in rural areas. The focus is not on armed revolts and confrontations, but on peaceful confrontation. The city can transform the disadvantaged and powerless into a multitude, and thereby make powerlessness complex—whereas on a plantation powerlessness tends to be elementary. Organizing workers in the city is a different project from organizing workers in rural villages. The uprising in Egypt shows that the unarmed through their sheer numbers and courage can confront superior military power. Finally, organizing “solidarity economies” also is a more viable project in cities. All of this raises a question about what other initiatives we might be able to launch successfully in cities especially in the current period of massive unemployment, extreme inequality, and political classes that seem not to care.
Go Back to Search for Panels by Topic
- Political and Social Movements
- D. Panel Session 1—Saturday 10:00 a.m. – 11:50 a.m.
- Saskia Sassen—Columbia University
- Approved
- Ai-jen Poo—National Domestic Workers Alliance; Domestic Workers United
- David Harvey —CUNY Graduate Center
- Emily Kawano—U.S. Solidarity Economy Network, Center for Popular Economics
- Rami Nashashibi—founder of Iman (Chicago)
- Saskia Sassen—Columbia University
- 480
- schimmel
Panel Abstract:
A key theme in this panel is the notion that cities enable the disadvantaged and the powerless to organize and confront power in ways that are far more difficult, and perhaps impossible, in rural areas. The focus is not on armed revolts and confrontations, but on peaceful confrontation. The city can transform the disadvantaged and powerless into a multitude, and thereby make powerlessness complex—whereas on a plantation powerlessness tends to be elementary. Organizing workers in the city is a different project from organizing workers in rural villages. The uprising in Egypt shows that the unarmed through their sheer numbers and courage can confront superior military power. Finally, organizing “solidarity economies” also is a more viable project in cities. All of this raises a question about what other initiatives we might be able to launch successfully in cities especially in the current period of massive unemployment, extreme inequality, and political classes that seem not to care.
Go Back to Search for Panels by Topic
