Mike Jay writes

The Institute of Ideas and the British Library present:

Trading Thoughts

The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB

Date: 14 September, 2002 Time: 1.30pm - 5.00pm

Tickets: £15.00 (concessions including IoI Associates, £12.00) - includes
afternoon tea or coffee

Booking: Telephone 020 7412 7332 or email
boxoffice@bl.uk

An afternoon conference on the legacy and future of global trade. With the
Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development drawing to a close
Trading Thoughts, on Saturday 14th September, will be an opportunity to
examine and debate changing attitudes towards development.

Burden, Benefit, Trace?

The Legacies of Benevolence

University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

11-14 December 2003

Long before Rudyard Kipling urged his readers to take up the white man's
burden, benevolence was integral to cultural domination, whether through
the formal structures of empire, or through associated charitable activities
such as the provision of medical aid, education, or missions. As the rise of
the middle classes and the emphasis on Puritan conscience increasingly
replaced the notion of aristocratic patronage and noblesse oblige,
benevolence functioned as an umbrella term under which imperial and
neo-imperial domination, particularly cultural domination, were rationalised
and promoted within government and among the subjects of empire. For the
British, the burden of benevolence and the work of civilising were seen
as differentiating their own from other European imperial enterprises. To a
certain extent, a similar self-perception is evident now in the policies and
practices of the contemporary worlds dominant imperial power, the United
States. This conference will consider benevolence, and representations of
benevolence, in a wide variety of forms. Papers on the following topics will
be welcomed:

-> Anthropology and academic study

-> Culture

-> Ecology and Environment

-> Education and training

-> Governance and administration

-> History

-> Literary representation

-> Medicine and welfare

-> Migration and resettlement

-> Military and police activity

-> Religion and missionary activity

-> Trade and commerce

For updates and further information, see the conference website:
benevolence

Abstracts should be sent electronically by 30 April 2003 to

Gilbert

Dale

Franco Barchiesi writes:

"Unmask the W$$D in Johannesburg and around the world!

(A Call To Action from the Social Movements Indaba in
South Africa -- please forward wide and far)

On the 31st of August, tens of thousands of South Africans will swarm the World $ummit on $ustainable Development (W$$D) in Johannesburg. We call on all people concerned about our planet and its people to join us in saying "Enough!" -- enough empty promises and lies, enough neoliberal destruction of the commons, enough impoverishment of people for profit!

Manifesto of the Crossover Summer Camp Project

What we want:
Our starting point is the conviction that all the different relations of
power and domination are inseparably bound up with one another, permeating
and often stabilizing each other. We want to develop a practice that
reflects this.

Our aim is to contribute to the construction of a new constellation of
political tendencies.