The Politics of Workers’ Inquiry Conference
May 2-3, 2013 @ University of Essex

Workers’ inquiry is an approach to and practice of knowledge production that seeks to understand the changing composition of labor and its potential for revolutionary social transformation. It is the practice of turning the tools of the social sciences into weapons of class struggle. Workers’ inquiry seeks to map the continuing imposition of the class relation, not as a disinterested investigation, but rather to deepen and intensify social and political antagonisms.

This conference brings together various aspects of workers’ inquiry, from its historical origins and development to contemporary mutations and adaptations of it within contemporary struggles. It will expand the terrain and form of workers’ inquiry, focusing on topics including inquiries into cultural labor and the service economy, geographies of class conflict, transformation in value production, and the limits to workers’ inquiry as a political/research method.

Presentations from:
Anna Curcio (University of Messina)
f Messina)
Bianca Elzebaumer & Caterina Giuliani (Cantiere per pratiche non-affermative)
Heidi Hasbrouck (Goldsmiths)
Tolga Hepdincler (Bahcesehir University)
Funda Kaya (Bahcesehir University)
Asli Kayhan (Kocaeli University)
Michał Kozłowski, Janek Sowa, Kuba Szreder (Free/Slow University of Warsaw)
Alan W. Moore (ABC No Rio / Squatting Europe)
Frederick H. Pitts (University of Bath)
Kasparas Pocius (Lithuanian Culture Research Institute)
Gigi Roggero (University of Bologna)
M. Nedim Süalp (Marmara University)
Zeynep Tul Akbal Sualp (Bahcesehir University)
Jamie Woodcock (Goldsmiths)

Schedule available here: Politics of Workers’ Inquiry Conference Schedule.

For more information and to register send a message to conference [AT] ephemeraweb [DOT] org.

Sponsored by ephemera, the Essex Centre for Work, Organization, and Society, and the Anarchist Studies Network.