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Saturday, November 12
- Abolition for Health @ 11 AM EST
An introduction to the concept of Abolition Medicine and the movements towards health autonomy and abolition as a health strategy.
- Know Your Rights! Fight Back! @ 1PM EST
The hegemonic control of the property-owning class can only function if we remain isolated and depoliticized. Know your rights and fight back! Join the Greater Boston Tenants’ Union for a lesson on our rights as tenants, and how to build power to resist the exploitation of the landlord class. Our workshop will cover your legal rights, basic principles of housing organizing, and how to get involved in the work of the GBTU.
- Street Knowledge, Kinship Networks, and the Status Quo @ 2:30 PM EST
Feminist scholars have longed stressed the importance of spaces of discourse where members of marginalized communities come together to deliberate issues relevant to their lived experience (Fraser, 1990). “Counter-publics,” according to these scholars, serve as a kind of “dialectical refuge” for members of oppressed groups that enable them to carve out meaningful identifies separate from the dominant norms of a wider public (Higginbotham, 1993).
While I agree that the counter-public framework captures a crucial feature of how members of oppressed groups relate to the mainstream norms and values of a social arrangement, in this talk, I want to offer an alternative account, what I call the “street knowledge view,” to help explain why the formation of a marginalized group depends on its members challenging the norms of particular social arrangements rather than being grounded in traditional race, gender, and class affiliations. What I hope to show is that “being at the margins” does not solely depend on an agent falling under particular oppressed identities. On my view, marginal life depends on a group developing certain ethical resources, or principles of action, that challenge the dominant set of norms in whatever social arrangement they find themselves.
Sunday, November 13
- Alternative Social Media for Anarchists, a.k.a. An Anarchist Introduction to the Fediverse @ 11:AM EST
This workshop will present alternative social media networks and the tools for creating them: what the Fediverse is, how it works, our case for anarchists to try it, and our experiences using it so far!
For better or worse, anarchists are using social media like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. This sucks. Enter the Fediverse, an alternative, open-source social media network that aligns with anarchist values. Rather than being a thinly veiled attention and data gathering capitalist vortex, the Fediverse is an actual social network, built out of a multitude of federated, autonomous, and decentralized instances.
On the Fediverse, we control the infrastructure, we moderate ourselves, and we can gather and share based on our affinities and desires rather than being guided by addictive algorithms. Many anarchists who have dodged the traps of corporate social media are already here, sharing their projects art and ideas. Join us!
- What Is a Meshnet? (And Why You Should Care!) @1PM EST
I plan to present a slideshow about why we need secure internet, the problems with our current system of heavily monitored capitalist internet access, what a meshnet is, and how we can use mesh to create a free, secure, and disaster-proof internet for all, with information about how to get connected with our existing network, and how to set up your own if you’re not in mass or out of range.
- Building the New in the Shell of the Old Praxis: Ecological Sanitation @2:30PM EST
If you give a shit, this workshop is for you. We’ll discuss the political context of human waste, including disease and ecological perspectives, building autonomy and food sovereignty, the metabolic rift, neoliberal WASH fantasies, and responding to the climate and austerity crises with sanitation mutual aid. There will also be practical discussion of how to build “bathroom alternatives” and the differences between composting toilets and ecological sanitation strategies.
