125 years after the Berlin Conference inaugurated the Scramble for Africa, Black Berliners and their allies marched through the streets of the Kreuzberg neighborhood.
Postcard from Berlin
Tavia Nyong'o
Category:
Sustainability as Disavowal
leerom medovoi
Over the last decade, the word “sustainability” has become a compulsively used word to get at some unspecified but ubiquitous notion of an environmentally ethical and conscious way of life. Businesses, cities, neighborhoods, buildings, and lifestyles can all be praised … Continue reading “Sustainability as Disavowal”
Minority report from Copenhagen
tadzio mueller
Scene: The dark, vaguely panoptic courtyard of Vestre Faengsel, one of the ‘correction facilities’ that has been turned into an aptly named ‘climate prison’ for the duration of the ‘COP15’ United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen. The ‘climate … Continue reading “Minority report from Copenhagen”
Logos of our Lives
Biella ColemanTwo of the more influential books that have taken swipe at our contemporary intellectual property landscape concerned themselves with trademark, logos, and capitalism. Here I am thinking of Rosemary Coombe’s seminal The Cultural Life of Intellectual Property and Naomi Klein’s more activist take on the subject, No Logo. What would happen if you condensed the arguments in these two books into a 15 minute video?
Survival
Ashley DawsonEver since the effective collapse of the Copenhagen Climate Summit, I’ve been thinking about how we represent survival and futurity in a conjuncture in which hegemonic ideology is so clearly bankrupt and the ruling classes in the world’s most powerful nations are so transparently unwilling to take the steps necessary to save civilization.
Considering Polyvalent Counter-Hegemonic Climate Justice Resistance Movements
michael k. dorsey
What happened after Copenhagen? Claims of success and blame for who collapsed the talks fly from many sides of many aisles. In his 18 December 2010 plenary speech to the heads of state attending the 15th Conference of the Parties … Continue reading “Considering Polyvalent Counter-Hegemonic Climate Justice Resistance Movements”
New Social Text Book on Alter-Globalization
Social Text CollectiveProtest and Organization in the Alternative Globalization Era, by Heather Gautney, details the history of the alter-globalization protests over the last decade and the attempts by various groups on the global left to build alternatives to neoliberal development through the mechanism of the World Social Forum.
"Louder Than Bombs": Art, Action, and Activism
Social Text CollectiveThose in the London area over the next two months may want to check out this seven-week long series of artist residencies on the theme of art, action and activism at the Stanley Picker Gallery in Kingston.
Hacker and Troller as Trickster
Biella ColemanIf you read the literature on tricksters, you will confront a string of words that capture the moral quality and sensibilities of these figures, figures scattered across time and place and largely enshrined in myths and stories: Cunning, deceit, … Continue reading “Hacker and Troller as Trickster”
Treading Contradictions and Ambiguities
fabienne doucet
The epicenter of the earthquake that brought Haiti to her knees on January 12, 2010 is located about seven or eight miles from my childhood neighborhood of Fontamara, just outside of Port-au-Prince proper. I was leaving my office at NYU, … Continue reading “Treading Contradictions and Ambiguities”
State Bricolage
chelsey kivland
On the second seamlessly dark night after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake leveled Port-au-Prince on January 12, 2010, I was lying against the unusually cold earth, and for the first time since that initial tremble, sleeping. Once packed into precarious dwellings … Continue reading “State Bricolage”
Water No Get Enemy
Tavia Nyong'oI’m no native informant. But I gather that the song featured prominently in the Broadway show Fela! means something like “nobody hates something as useful as water.” Make yourself as indispensable as this, goes the implied wisdom, and any detractors you gain will just look silly. An appropriate motto for a musician like Fela Anikulapo-Kuti …
Sea Shepherd in New Zealand
Biella Coleman
Last fall, after watching At the Edge of the World I became obsessed with the eco-radical conservation group Sea Shepherd who have been around since the 1970s trying to put an end to commercial whaling. So when I learned that I was going to New Zealand for the month of January, I was keen to find out whether Sea Shepherd was more present in the public than in the US.
Thinking with Haiti
laurent dubois
In 2004, I published a history of the Haitian Revolution called Avengers of the New World. It told the story of how, in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, enslaved people organized to overthrow the slave regime, and in the process … Continue reading “Thinking with Haiti”
Run From the Earthquake, Fall Into The Abyss: A Léogane Paradox
karen richman
Along with so many emigrant members of Koridò (Corridor), a rural community in Léogane at the epicenter of the earthquake, I anxiously endured the prolonged silence between the Outside and Inside of the transnational community. Until January 13, we had … Continue reading “Run From the Earthquake, Fall Into The Abyss: A Léogane Paradox”