ephemera

volume 6, number 1 (february 2006)

The new issue (6.1) of ephemera: theory & politics in organization,
entitled 'In Times, in and as Global Conflict', has just been published at
http://www.ephemeraweb.org. The issue includes a special section with papers
originally published in the Italian journal Conflitti Globali, a new
translation of an interview with Antonio Negri as well as a 'note' and three
'reviews'.

HUMANITY AND THE EARTH/L’HOMME ET LA TERRE: THE LEGACY OF ELISEE RECLUS
October 27-29, 2006

Loyola University

New Orleans, LA USA

Last year marked the 175th anniversary of the birth of Elisée Reclus and the
100th anniversary of his death. A conference in New Orleans scheduled on the
occasion of this double anniversary was postponed because of the destruction
caused by Hurricane Katrina, but it has been rescheduled for this Fall. At
that time we will gather to discuss the life and work of Reclus and to
investigate the ways in which his legacy is relevant to our world today.

Reclus is considered by many to be the greatest geographer of his age and is
generally recognized as a pioneering figure in the development of social
geography. His eighteen-thousand page Nouvelle Géographie Universelle was a
monumental intellectual achievement which, as geographer Gary Dunbar
observes, “for a generation was to serve as the ultimate geographical
authority” and constituted “probably the greatest individual writing feat in
the history of geography.” His work culminated in the
thirty-five-hundred-page L’Homme et la Terre, a grand synthesis of his ideas
concerning geography, history, philosophy, politics, sociology, religion,
anthropology, and many other fields.

Reclus, perhaps more than any other 19th century social thinker, contributed
to the development of a comprehensive ecological world view. His focus on
our place in nature is expressed in the opening words of L’Homme et la
Terre: “Humanity is Nature becoming self-conscious.” Reclus can be seen as a
founder of both social ecology and political ecology, inasmuch as he
carefully traced the interconnections between the social, the political and
the ecological, and he saw the solution to ecological problems as
necessitating a wide-ranging, and indeed revolutionary political and
economic transformation of society.

In addition, Reclus was a major social philosopher and one of the foremost
theorists of anarchism. His analysis of the state, capitalism, technology,
racism, patriarchy, authoritarian culture and the domination of nature
constitutes perhaps the most far-ranging critique of domination in the
history of anarchist thought. He was also an important figure in the
development of urbanism, was one of the most original theorists of
libertarian education, and made important contributions to ethical
vegetarianism and the consideration of our treatment of other species.

Finally, Reclus lived an extraordinary life as a scientist, scholar,
revolutionary and human being. He saw all his diverse activities as integral
expressions of his commitment to the struggle for human freedom and of his
concern for the good of humanity and other living beings. Biographers have
described his life as an inspiring example of compassion, solidarity,
egalitarianism, dedication, humility, intellectual curiosity, joy in living,
and a deep love of humanity and nature.

Conference presentations, which should be in English, may address any area
of the legacy of Reclus, the person, the revolutionary, the geographer, and
the social and ecological philosopher. Requests for further information and
proposals for presentations (which are due by May 31), should be sent,
preferably by email, to:

John P. Clark

Department of Humanities

City College

Box 79

Loyola University

New Orleans, LA 70118

clark@loyno.edu

The Anomalist journal.
Issue 2 – ‘The politics of autonomy’.

When the Zapatistas burst onto the world stage on New Years day 1994 they breathed some autonomous fresh air into a stagnant global political stage. Despite being initially dismissed as a throwback to earlier times they sparked a whole new wave of autonomous politics from Seattle to Argentina. And yet some 12 years on, this inspiring movement and the alternatives it encouraged are being increasingly brought into question. On the one hand the coming to power of leftwing governments in South America brings the possibility of viable non-autonomous relationships between the state and social movements. From a different direction, the political leverage of the War on Terror threatens to cast all alternative political spaces as becoming dangerous on the basis of 'what if?'

It seems timely that the second issue of the Anomalist journal has the theme of ‘the politics of autonomy’.

Available for download now from: http://theanomalist.com

Introduction:
'Autonomous Voices' - Keir Milburn & Brad Evans

Lecture:
'Can we Change the World Without Taking Power?' by John Holloway

Interview:
'In Conversation' - John Ross & John Holloway

Papers:
'Indigenous Autonomy as a Strategy for Social Inclusion' by John Gledhill -

'The Shock of Violence' by Steffen Boehm

'War of Colours' by Brad Evans

'Taking Back Control' by Natasha Gordon & Paul Chatterton

'Moments of Excess' by the Free Association

'The Story of Colours' by Subcommandante Marcos

'The Word and the Silence' (Audio: MP3) by Subcommandante Marcos

Exhibition:
'The Road from la Garrucha'"

Leopoldina Fortunati

Discussing The Meaning of the Mobile Phone

April 10th, 2006. 3:00-5:00pm

Department of Information Systems in Studio Ciborra, 5th floor, Tower One


Information Systems Department, LSE


ICTs in the Contemporary World: information, management and culture

This decade of research on the mobile phone has been very important in explaining its social co-construction and its subversive and regressive potential at the level of interpersonal, social and business relations. Its identity as an information and communication technology has been widely explored and it has turned out to be particularly ambivalent (attractive/unattractive), but also highly changeable (with rapid shifts from mobile to personal technology, from oral technology to written) and, in part, dissimulative. In fact, the mobile is a device that is only in part communicative, as owing to its costs it allows only rapid exchanges or otherwise written messages, these also very short. Looking at the mobile phone as a technological artefact, its body results largely the fruit of unexpected and innovative behaviour on the part of users.


The limit to this decade of research is that the research has remained so far at the descriptive level. Despite the greater part of empirical studies of this device being focused on its diffusion, use, and consumption in the domestic sphere, they have generally not been connected with any of the theoretical analysis of the domestic sphere which has been carried out in the last decades.


I wish to connect the analysis of the role of the mobile phone to this theoretical analysis, which will enable us to better understand that the mobile phone is a work tool for reproduction, that is, a machine used within the social process governing everyday life. People have certainly used the mobile phone to connect the world of work better with that of the family, by rationalizing organization here and there to their advantage, which means saving time, money and fatigue. But if we see it as a work tool, we will discover that its widespread use has taken on other dimensions. In fact it has had at the same time the effect of making people both in offices and factories and in the domestic sphere more productive, penetrating through the very pores of the working day of men, women, youth and children, sweeping away much rigidity and inertia, and eliminating many of those shadow areas in which people disappeared to “take a breather” as it were, thus avoiding the continuity of command and control by the organization of work or family and, in general, social networks. The widespread use of the mobile phone has had the unexpected effect of depriving workers, and people in general, both of the numerous times and spaces of social disconnection and the thousand defence strategies which counted on this disconnection.