Critical Political Economy early career scholar writing workshop

Critical Political Economy early career scholar writing workshop

Thursday 21 July 2022
University of Limerick

On the day before this year’s CPERN mid-term workshop we will be holding a writing workshop for early career scholars (PhD students and recently completed PhDs). This will be an opportunity for those working on attempts to secure their first publication. Participants will be paired with a more established scholar in the field of critical political economy, in order to receive detailed feedback with the goal of facilitating the writing and publication process.


This is the second time we’ve run the early career scholar writing workshop – the last one went well and provided an opportunity for detailed feedback on papers being prepared for publication. We’re confident that this year’s workshop will be equally constructive. 


The workshop is supported by the Conference of Socialist Economists, which publishes the journal, Capital and Class, and which can provide limited funding to support travel and accommodation

If you are interested in attending, please send a brief note detailing the paper you are currently working on (1 paragraph), outlining what stage in your academic career you are currently in (1 paragraph max), and what publications (if any) you already have to date.

Email to: cpern@criticalpoliticaleconomy.net by 28 February 2022.

Agency and the Data Subject, Policy and Praxis

CANCELLED DUE TO STRIKE ACTION

Save the date: 24th March 17.00 (GMT) 18.00 (GMT)

Data agency in surveillance capitalism: empowering citizens in CryptoParties

Prof Dr Sigrid  Kannengiesser 

While citizens are more and more disempowered and exploited in surveillance capitalism, there are initaitives that reflect on the problems and challenges of current datafication and try to empower users of digital media technologies and online communication to put them into the position to decide for themselves if and with whom they share their data and develop skills of data protection. Using the concept of „data agency“ the talk presents results from a study in which CryptoParties have been analyzed as an examples of initiatives in which these empowering practices take place: activsists from diverse backgrounds share their expertice in encryption practices to enable citizens who try to learn these practices to protect their privacy in processes of online communication. While the presentation discusses the possibilities and potentials of data agency in CryptoParties, also constraints and ambivalences that can be identified in these practices are revealed. 

Data subjects as strangers

Prof Dr Phoebe V Moore

Progress has been predicted by privacy activists for people who are also known as ‘data subjects’ by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) because we, as data subjects, technically have more rights to access and control data about ourselves based on this legislation. However, there is not enough clear discussion about the data subject herself in intrinsic, ontological ways not only in recent regulation but in the everyday lives of (deep) mediatisation. The GDPR’s definition refers to an ‘identifiable natural person’. Digging deeper we see that the subject is referenced against two very different ‘selves’: one, a consumer; and two, a worker. These identifiers cannot be conflated, given the opposite social positions that workers and consumers possess, and in particular, the social relations of alienation depending on which transaction we conduct. Data construction of subjects, subjectification and subjectivation must be problematised and Althusser’s theory of interpellation revived. Subjects are potentially so abstracted we become strangers to our’selves’. Indeed, what happens to our subjectivities in the process of datafication? Who now has the right to ‘enunciation’, or the right to formate the self, the right to subjectivity? 

Discussant: Dr Stephan Görland 

Developments in Social Reproduction Theory

The next CPERN workshop (every final Thursday of the month)

Social Reproduction Theory | Socialist Review

Thursday, 25 November 5pm (GMT)/6pm (Central European Time)

speakers: 

Kirstin Munro, University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley.

Jule Goikoetxea, University of the Basque Country

Register here: https://bham-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZclf-ioqTwtHNC7Vyt-9ns8jqwGV2rK6EhC 

For this session, we are focusing on developments in Social Reproduction Theory. 

The discussion will begin with a consideration of the recent paper by Kirstin Munro in Science and Society: “Social Reproduction Theory,” Social Reproduction, and Household Production”   https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/10.1521/siso.2019.83.4.451
This will be followed by reflections from Jule Goikoetxea on issues for social reproduction theory, and beyond, that the paper raises. 


Followed by an open discussion.

We are very pleased to have such excellent speakers join us.

Kirstin Munro is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at The University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley and  much of her recent work has explored the question of social reproduction theory, as well as questions relating to production, unproductive workers, the household, and the Marxist critique of political economy.

Jule Goikoetxea is professor of political theory at the University of the Basque Country, as well as being a member of the International Gender Studies Centre at Oxford University. Her work includes a focus on political theory, state theory, political philosophy, feminist theory and feminist philosophy.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Critical Political Economy for a new Global Political Economy

 CPERN mid-term workshop – Call for Papers (deadline 28 February 2022).

Friday 22– Saturday 23 July 2022

University of Limerick, Ireland

The Global Political Economy is now described, depending on who describes it, as “over-stimulated”, “scarred”, “squeezed”, “unsustainable”, or “jammed up”. Commentators routinely cite the threat of stagflation. The (post-)pandemic recovery is considered “K-shaped”, with assets inflated, to the benefit of asset holders, whilst livelihoods are (further) degraded. Governments have so far failed to put in place a global Green New Deal. The pandemic has exposed the recklessness of decades of austerity, commercialisation, and under-funding of our health and social care systems. While the populist zeitgeist seems to be waning, its successor on the horizon is yet more tepid neoliberal centrism that seeks only to deter those who hope for egalitarian alternatives. Likewise, within academia, efforts continue to sideline, discourage and, if possible, eliminate critical thinking and our ambitions for social change.

Yet, much of the mainstream analysis fails to explain why we face these problems, or how we are to address them. The ‘economy’ is conceptualised narrowly, ignoring the wider social and socio-natural relations that make up our complex and interconnected reality. Economics is considered only in terms of the production, distribution and exchange of commodities; concealing from view exploitation, alienation, extraction, sexed, gendered, and racialised forms of exclusion, and processes of ecological destruction, plus the contestation of each of these social bads. 

In contrast, those of us working (or trying to work) in critical political economy seek to conceptualise and explain the deep rooted inequalities, crisis tendencies and discursive diversions that mark our faltering global political economy. At the same time, we aspire to delineate the alternatives around which progressive social coalitions can (and should) coalesce, as part of our collective struggle to disrupt, ameliorate, transform and (hopefully) transcend the manifold pathologies that comprise contemporary global capitalism. 

We need a new Global Political Economy, and we need critical political economy to provide the intellectual, methodological, analytical and strategic tools through which to conceptualise, explain and critique the multiple crises we face. We invite scholars and activists from across the field of critical political economy to contribute to the next CPERN mid-term workshop, where we seek a Critical Political Economy for a new Global Political Economy

We are especially keen for papers that address the following themes:

  • (Post-)pandemic possibilities. How has our global political economy changed as a result of the pandemic? What are the (new) inequalities, uncertainties and crises that have been generated? To what extent, and why, is public policy (un)able to respond to contemporary social and democratic demands? What, if any, are the (new) opportunities for progressive social change?

  • Build Back Better? The role and the changing nature of the state, and its theorisation, in the post-pandemic recovery. How do we conceptualise the (capitalist) state as it developed and changed over the course of the pandemic?

  • Alternatives and resistance. How, if at all, has the capacity for collective resistance and everyday struggles changed during the pandemic? How, if at all, can social struggle, resistance, and/or social movements play a part in shaping the post-pandemic future?

  • Global production after the pandemic? Jammed up and ready for replacement? How have global production and trade relations changed as a result of the need (but failure to) adjust to the pandemic conditions?

  • Labour after COVID 19. Are we witnessing instances of a “refusal of work”? How can we conceptualise the return of strikes and labour militancy? Has the pandemic opened a new era of grassroots labour organising?

  • (De-)development, dependency and neo-colonialism, before and after the pandemic. How are the divisions, and relations, between the Global North and South affected and changing through the pandemic?

  • Intersectional struggles of capital and labour. How do (changing) struggles, expressed along class, race, sex, and gendered lines, intersect with each other, and within the global political economy?

  • Culture, meaning, identities and alternative imaginaries. How have our cultural understandings and imaginaries of the global political economy changed and developed in a context of lockdowns and social, economic and ecological crisis?

  • Social reproduction. How do we understand social reproduction in the context and (eventual) aftermath of the pandemic? How, if at all, is social reproduction secured in the current state of the global political economy; how are classed, sexed, raced and gendered inequalities manifest in it; and how does critical political economy understand and contribute to the above?

  • Eco-socialism after Covid-19 and COP26. Was the pandemic the most vivid illustration of nature ‘striking back’? If so, what can and should we do about it? What lessons can be drawn regarding human (mis)management of the human-nature relationship through a critical political economy lens? How can this lens help us envision and assess transformative alternatives, ranging from a Green New Deal to a postcapitalist future of de-growth and/or eco-socialism?

  • The critical political economy of geo-politics and militarism. The geo-political tensions that continue to destabilise our world are often neglected by political economy analyses, among other. Yet capitalism and geo-political rivalries are interconnected and require a critical political economy analysis. 

We are interested in all of the above, and more, and wish for the workshop to cover a wide range of topics. We welcome scholars and activists with an interest in critical political economy, from a variety of countries, social backgrounds, and disciplinary affiliations, regardless of whether they are in academia or not. We are particularly committed to promoting the participation of PhD students, early career scholars, and activists. Limited funds will be available for scholars and activists in precarious situations (who cannot get other sources of funding) to support travel and accommodation costs. Please inform us if you may require help with funding when you send us your abstract.

The workshop is planned for in-person attendance, as far as that is possible. If you are unable to attend in-person, let us know and we will try to facilitate online-only sessions to run alongside the workshop agenda.

As a result of our links to the new journal Global Political Economy we also welcome, and will gladly facilitate, panel submissions where the intention is for the panel to result in a special issue proposal for the journal

We will be able to provide workshop invitation letters for those needing a visa.

There is no fee for attending the workshop. The conference language will be English.

Abstracts of around 250 words should be submitted to: cpern@criticalpoliticaleconomy.net by 28 February 2022.

Many thanks,

The CPERN Board

David Bailey, Bernd Bonfert, Alona Lyasheva, Owen Worth, Yuliya Yurchenko

The Critical Political Economy Research Network is Research Network 06 of the European Sociological Association.

Cultural Materialism and “Keywords as method”

The next CPERN workshop (every final Thursday of the month)

Thursday, 28 October 5pm (British Summer Time)/6pm (Central European Summer Time)

speaker: Marie Moran (UCD)discussant: Owen Worth (University of Limerick)

Register here: https://bham-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUtduuhpz4iH9Jb7tnU6RvYsygwggTA93SH  

For this session, Marie Moran (UCD) will present her recent paper, ‘Keywords as method‘, outlining her approach to cultural materialism, drawing on Raymond Williams’ work to show how we can conduct a historicist and materialist study of the relationship between linguistic and social change.

Discussant for the paper will be Owen Worth (University of Limerick).

The article is here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13675494211016858

Followed by an open discussion.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Covid responses and the threat to Higher Education

A recording of this event is now available below:

The idea for the session came about as a response to the shocking redundancies in Leicester earlier this year but also from an age of weariness in the face of managerial control in HE. We felt it was time associations worked more closely with unions in pushing back against these trends. To that end, some of the main political economy associations across Europe agreed to host the session on their websites and to distribute its details to their members. We hope that this will feed out further and encourage broader discussion on the kind of education we all want today.

COVID responses and the managerial threat to Higher Education

Thursday, 8th July, 16.00 London time

CPERN, in collaboration with EAEPE, SASE, ESA CPERN, BISA IPEG, and IIPPE are hosting a discussion with Henry Giroux, Laura Horn and Sam Dallyn. This will be followed by 20 minutes of Q&A.

We aim to raise awareness and solidarity for colleagues under pressure from university managers who are using COVID to mainstream their economics and management programmes and to worsen their employment relations.

-Charlie Dannreuther (Leeds University, convener)
-Henry Giroux (McMaster University, speaking about critical pedagogy)
-Laura Horn (Roskilde University, speaking for critical political economy in Denmark)
-Sam Dallyn (Leicester Business School, speaking about the strike)

Join the event via this link: https://eu.bbcollab.com/collab/ui/session/guest/fcdbc1d7ab2a467caec23118b467ee85

COVID responses and the threat to Higher Education

The idea for the session came about as a response to a number of developments – including the redundancies in Leicester earlier this year and the moves in Denmark to undermine critical research – but also from an age of weariness in the face of managerial control in HE. It is time associations worked more closely with unions in pushing back against these trends. To that end, some of the main political economy associations across Europe have agreed to host the session on their websites and to distribute its details to their members. We hope that this will feed out further and encourage broader discussion on the kind of education we all want today.

The speakers

Henry Giroux has been making powerful arguments against the encroachment of neo liberal practices in universities for many years, so it is very fitting that he begins our discussion. His links of higher education with neoliberalism and contemporary fascism and the role critical teaching plays in creating alternatives (att.) have been developed in over 100 books.

Laura Horn has been recently speaking out on national TV in Denmark against political attacks against critical scholars. She writes on neoliberalism in Europe, runs an annual Repoliticising Capitalism Summer School in Roskilde and is a leading figure in the Euro memo campaigning group.

Sam Dallyn speaks as someone present in Leicester on managerial practices and the challenges to critical thinking. He has also written on post capitalism, the role of the public intellectual and resistance to bureaucratic control.

Thursday, 8th July, 16.00 London time

Climate Catastrophe and the Capitalist State

The next CPERN workshop in the series: A Critical Political Economy of Covid Capitalism (every final Thursday of the month)

Fracking: how the police response is threatening the right to protest

Climate Catastrophe and the Capitalist State

Thursday, 24 June 4pm (British Summer Time)/5pm (Central European Summer Time)

**NOTE SLIGHTLY CHANGED TIME TO USUAL**

commentators:

Andrea Brock (University of Sussex)
Oscar Berglund (University of Bristol)
Madelaine Moore (Bielefeld University)

Register here: https://bham-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUsd-Gpqj4vGdSfb-omMhyV_Pfi5b_F9Fuf

Text: Andrea Brock, 2020, ‘Frack off’: Towards an anarchist political ecology critique of corporate and state responses to anti-fracking resistance in the UK, Political Geographyhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629819301192

Format (derived from our highly successful project – the Critical European Studies workshop):

In order to foster a constructive debate, each workshop starts with a brief introduction of the theme and the pre-selected text used to kick-start the discussion followed by a few select expert commentators discussing and enhancing the perspectives developed in the core text from the angle of their own research/activism and in the context of current struggles. This is followed by a workshop-type discussion instead of the conference-style Q&A, in order to collectively advance knowledge, understanding and analysis of the themes raised in the workshop and develop shared ideas for action.

Initial contributions are limited to 5 minutes per commentator.

Text: Andrea Brock, 2020, ‘Frack off’: Towards an anarchist political ecology critique of corporate and state responses to anti-fracking resistance in the UK, Political Geographyhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629819301192

commentators:

Andrea Brock (University of Sussex)
Oscar Berglund (University of Bristol)
Madelaine Moore (Bielefeld University)

We look forward to seeing you there!