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Hello, everyone. Yeah. Welcome to this session. we have 4 presenters who are online and to our ace, I I can't see Eliz, you as tank over here.

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No, okay. So maybe they come at some point. We might have 3 presentations, but I suggest we keep the 50 min for for each present, because maybe they come, and then we won't have time. If you go a longer, so I will show a sign of 5 to. So you know, like you have 5 min left, and so we have.

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the first presentation from the class and Cooper's Struggles. The Critic of Capitalism in contemporary Latin American Queer Politics, by Alexander Martin, from Fraya University of Berlin.

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Our second, the presenter is on is schrei meta from National University of Singapore. Presentation is on agrarian populism and authoritarian hegemony in India. Farmers, movements and electoral politics at the crossroads are a third presenter, if they are still not here. But I hope they come. He is on remaking class divisions and Territories, space-class conflict and consent into Portuguese districts

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mit Ctl. And and it's a paper by Elizio is Tank and Danielle Camero Francisco from a Unes Franca, S. P. Brazil and University of Canberra, in Portugal, and last, but not least, the politics of real Utopia's labor regimes in a Cleveland laundry cooperative by Ahmed Murray from Johns Hopkins University. One.

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Can I please invite our first presenter? Thank you.

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Good morning, everyone.

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I'd like to first thank you. The the opportunity to be here, the acceptance of my paper. I'm a Phd. Candidate at the Fry University at Berlin, and currently my second year of my Phd.

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I originally come from Brazil, where I had my training, so far as a sociologist, and in my Phd. I'm studying the contemporary Korean trans. Politics in different case studies in Latin America. And what I would like to present today is how Cla and capitalism have been present in contemporary struggles, in their tactics and

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their discourses by core entrance movements, doing a comparison in the ways that those issues were part of the strategies of those movements in the farming years of them in the 70 s. And how they are present today. So a brief overview of my presentation, after an introduction of what are my aims here this morning, I will briefly present how those were issues in the 70 s. And the 80 s. And those movements, how that have changed.

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that has changed in contemporary current and social movements. And then some preliminary results of this analysis that I'm doing.

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To start the way that I'm understanding and studying those social movements is by

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putting myself distance from a position that analyzes queer and true and social movements as one issue of politics as social movements that are only talking and only doing politics around gender and sexuality.

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I understand that not dialogue with Roderick Ferguson that made an analysis of how the Estonia riots that today are were remembering the fifty-fourth anniversary of the Stonial riots in New York in 1,969, that those were riots that only took place because of those activists being also part of different activists, anti-colonial and a racist and a capitalist

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activists in the city of New York at that moment, and the same idea, the same angle for analysing who are and what do queer and trans activists want either on the seventies and what they are doing now is part of the way that I am approaching query and trans social movements. And what I want to understand is how class every distributive claims. They have been considered

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constitutive of contemporary currentrence politics, and to it extend the contemporary discourse as update and transform the ways that those issues were being tackled in the 70 s. As far as methodology is concerned, I have done a collective analysis of written documents produced by those social movements and elected Argentina, Columbia, and Chile. As my case studies here

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the farming ears they are called gay liberation. I selected those specific movements with some emblematic manifests and flyers from them. And in this image we can see that it was a public manifestation.

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When parentism in Argentina was allowed again, and then these incipient. Homosexual activism went to the streets to to put the the

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The. They struggle for a homosexual liberation alongside the working class shrug in Argentina in 73, and what they are demanding here is also freedom for political prisoners. This was a context that was very similar in other parts of Latin America. The emergence of gay and lesbian struggles and groups

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before or after military dictatorships, and the moments of intense political violence, and how, being against those repressive violence from the State were part of their agenda, and also part of how those strategies were taken to the streets.

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how closing capitalism were present on those struggles. First of all, many of the leaders of founders of those movement. They came from Communists and Anarchist groups

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in Argentina and Colombia. The main founders. They were expelled from the Communist parties for taking the homosexual liberation struggle inside of their political struggle. They also thought about themselves as part of the working-class movement in a way that they would establish a dialogue and a critic of anti-homosexual violence in inside and discrimination inside of the working class groups.

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This is, of course, a part of the story of those groups. I'm only focusing here in the ones that view themselves and inserted themselves in the working-class movement. I'm not analyzing here the more liberal part of the movement that since that moment did not aim to transform society to a radical transformation group to revolution, but were aimed into integration and just liberal reforms.

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the ones that had those horizons of revolution they had in those manifest different ways of thinking how sexual liberation could be, and should be, part of a social revolution. And here we have in Bogota disclaim for a social liberation, together with sexual one.

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pleasure, homosexuality, the different capabilities of the bodies that could be liberated through this struggle, embedded in the social class in Chicago, were analysed as with a radical potential for transforming, finally transforming gender and transforming the ways to produce and reproduce social life.

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What we saw in the following decades was that the hegemonic parts, the one that were louder on the streets.

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made a big transformation of the way to frame all of those issues, and which discourses they would take to the streets.

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And then we have a big narrative of how to analyze the different waves of queer, gay LGBT social movements that goes from this narrative of transformation struggles in the seventies, the sixties, then to our right struggle, and then to a struggle for individual rights.

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that in this narrative, then, gay marriage becomes one of the main issues, not the abolishing family, but fighting for inclusion on those institutions, and also frames of anti algebraic violence. As a criminal problem that I started on my master thesis on which way the idea of fighting against police against prison became hegemonically. I struggle for inclusion in the police and inclusion to be protected, supposedly protected by the repressive institutions of the State.

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And this is also a reframing of what queer and transactivist want, what are they fighting for? Into this one issue politic frame that's also embedded on the Ngo organization, frame structure. Institutional structure that was very, very strongly is pride during the Aids, pandemic and other noliberal diversity, integration, strategies of diversification, inclusion, and entrepreneurship.

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But it is only part of this story. It is not what happened with all of the activists. Radical Korean trans. Politics. They captured

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the critique of capitalism and the critic of a class society pretty much alive during those years, and it's with them that I want to focus now, those are some of the movements that I have been analyzing in those countries. And here we have a public manifestation for a labor, quota and inclusion for Travisius and Tren's law in Argentina provisions, that Latin America

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that's an American trends, identity and transgender people are all of the people that are not gender people like me, that I am a gay cisgender Mayo, that recognized with the same gender that I was assigned by birth.

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 There is a continuity of the affiliations of those radical activists that many of them come from anarchists and the fascist and Communist groups. In Argentina, for example, the 3 men leaders in the 2,000 2,000 times of the travesty movement. 2 of them. They were part of the Communist party, and they had as a central pillar of what was their public discourse, and it a capitalist one.

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The resistance to now liberal capitalist frames of these struggles is part of the way. Also those aggregations are naming themselves so in Chile the idea of section gender distance instead of

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sex and gender diversity, by putting themselves a distant of the power relations that are hegemonic in capitalism, or by not washing what the queer entrance politics are about with sex workers in Colombia, for example, being central to the mobilizations and the aims that they have. A refusal to normalization is part of those strategies, and this is quite a 250

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open and loud on the countermeeters that have been taking place in Bogota and Bonozadis, and they are contemporaries regarding the official neoliberal integrative marches of of pride marches.

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and they are persons at boundaries in different struggles for rights in a way that I think a big example is the gender identity law in Argentina in 2,012. This was the most avant-garde, the law for the recognizing the out of the term, the self-determination of gender identity. But when they got that right to change a May of our female or female for Mayo, and the name in civil documents.

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what the Cherofishi leaders in Argentina they went public to say, is that that was not enough. They wanted to keep fighting until there were no more gender marks on the documents, and that was part of

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of a way to tackle the problem of keep pushing the fight in order to abolish gender, not only change those documents, and another consequence on, on. That was also the fight for material reparation from the State. After having the symbolic recognition of the possibility to change the documents. Then he started a fight in Argentina for the reparation for all of those years in which those people have been violated for this State in many different ways.

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So in during military dictatorship and after the military dictatorship.

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Here are some preliminary results of some continuities and discontinuities, from the seventys to the 2,010. One of them is an anti-capitalist critic that keeps being present now with an antennial liberal frame against pink capitalism against Pinky was in, and the way that this is part of these slogans taken to the streets in their counter-matches. In all of

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those countries also, the idea that the adapt is with us is with the traverses, the trends and pre-communities, not the diabetes with the FM. I. And this is also as a log, and present in different social movements in Argentina, for example, but it's being embraced by Korean trans. Radical politics to say that. To put another logic of what they state should be doing as far as economy and social rights are concerned.

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Another continuity is this anti-repressive and authoritarian and anti-state violence campaign that's taken the form of abolition of police and prison, both in Argentinian, queer and trans. Radical politics, and in Colombia. In the Colombian case it was very visible during the national strike in 2,021, when

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the Tolopo-sunga campaign with leaderships of trans activists on the streets, would do vogging performance in front of the police, aiming for the abolition of that violent institution that not only daily would attack the right and the lives of trans people, but especially during that a national strike was killing many of social activists on the streets.

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There are also some discontinuities.

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The mature operation that is being demanded was not part of the Shrugos in the seventies. But this is part of the struggle now, after big moments of a more constant

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political and physical violence against those communities, and we also have economic redistribution claims claims for jobs, for Travis is transcoda in the public national administration that was approved in 2,021 in the case of Argentina, and also access to health care, to education, into housing.

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And at the same time that those demands are taken to the State. There is also a dimension of building inside of those movement prefigurative strategies. So, for example, housing for Travis, or is schools for preparatory schools for trans. People in Argentina as a way of already given the possibility of repairing all of that that has been denied, all of those material conditions that have been denied.

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and that has been produced, and very material consequence for those collectivities. For example, the life expectancy of trans. People in Argentina and Columbia. It's at 35 years old.

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and how to fight that and build other possibilities of life.

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For concluding remarks. The point I wanted to make with these presentations that a section of current and social movements. They continue to be part of anti-capitalist working-class movement.

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as we can see by the affiliation of many of the leadership of the horizons of struggles that have been put into place by those social movements.

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and at the same time many of their demands. The more radical ones that keep these revolution are disruptive, transformative aim. There are redistribution demands. They are not only recognition without redistribution, even though that this has been a frame that has been quite hegemonic on how to analyze and how to write and think about what Korean trans struggle could be about.

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they are directly with distributive demands as far as jobs or housing are concerned. But there are also recognition domains with some cereals, with distributive implications. So the gender identity law, when it recognized the possibility that trans. People have access to health care without facing discrimination and violence. This has a

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big implication of how they will be able to leave their lives, and as the last point that I would like to make is that a kind of a continuity that I found is that if the revolution and the transformation are radical way.

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was more present on the seventies. Now this discourse is going side by side with some struggles for rights that keep a transformative and Utopian aim on the horizon. So it is not only about imagining fighting for other futures beyond the neoliberalism beyond capitalists, but it is also some strategies for disputing the resources in the here and now for being allowed to create those futures and to keep those struggles alive.

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Thank you so much for attention.

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Great status.

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Wonderful.

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So yeah.

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1 s.

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he's not there

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 1 s.

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just going to close the window and then

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to

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actually.

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Shray Mehta: sorry you're not coming through.

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Okay, okay, great. You can now share your screen if you would like to.

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Shray Mehta: Right. Thank you, Professor Darby. So I'll be reading out my paper rather than sharing with the screen. thank you very much for this opportunity. And good morning, everyone.

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Shray Mehta: I'm currently coming to you from India from field work. I'm based in Eastern India.

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Shray Mehta: I do hope my electricity holds up, but I do have backup in case it it does drop so

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Shray Mehta: My my work broadly is on. Sorry can I confirm if I'm audible? And if you can see me?

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Oh.

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yes, we can hear you

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Shray Mehta: all right. And then just 1 s.

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Dave, are you able to full screen present to please? Thanks.

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Okay, you can continue.

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Shray Mehta: Thank you. So I'm I'm well. so yeah. So coming to the research, my work is broadly.

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Shray Mehta: I I study anti- authoritarian politics in India. it's a quality. I use qualitative sociological methods to study sort of oral histories, and current mobilizations of these politics. And within this context, I have kind of developed an understanding of a Grant populism, and which is what I bring to you, which is a sort of a historical overview.

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Shray Mehta: who understand a simple question, which is, why are farmers organizations? Not an electoral force in India?

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Shray Mehta: as we saw recently, you guess, one of the biggest movements by farmers. But you know, all that it could achieve was the status quo

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Shray Mehta: And we know India has a deep rooted agreement crisis, and the farming sector has been suffering quite a lot. This has even exact. this has become even worse, after the country to to turn towards the authoritarian democratic politics in in 2,014 So this is a broad sort of you know, this is a broad stroke. Attempt to understand that historical query.

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Shray Mehta: and and you know, I aim to do this through intellectual and a political history of how politics around a grand population has developed in India after the after independence in 1,947 and so I'll now, you know, come to the paper, and give give an overview of of the paper.

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Shray Mehta: So one of the most remark features of Thomas protest in India has been the distance it has maintained for political parties. The resilience of the protest has also been partly credited to this, and yet, after the withdrawal of the 3 farm laws against which the movement started. there were

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Shray Mehta: at the center of contention in 2,021, some of the sorry out. And yet, after the withdrawal of the 3 farm laws that were at the contention at the center of contention. In November 2021,

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Shray Mehta: some of the farmers, unions and leaders who participated in the protest took the plunge into active politics, even as the protest themselves were suspended. Several political commentators and the Skm, which is the umbrella organization of the farmers. Unions which coordinated the protest express disappointment at this development, claiming that the involvement in electoral politics dilutes the radical potential of the movement.

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Shray Mehta: This paper argues that this, but ostensibly desirable separation between farmers, social movements, and electoral politics, is historically produced in post colonial India, however, in the current political conjunction of authority and politics, electoral strategies to capture State power might offer the possibility to make substantial gains. This conjuncture is widely characterized by a combination of various factors, such as King.

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Shray Mehta: a crisis of India's developmental regime, channeling of popular discontent towards strengthening Hindu to a majoritarian politics, stifling of social movements in civil society, and an intensification of neoliberal economic policies resulting in a hitherto resilient but contingent unity

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Shray Mehta: of contradictory interests. This constitutes the crucial context within which the future of a current Populism needs to be understood. In India.

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Shray Mehta: I understand, agree, and Populism, as the articulation of and mobilization of demands from the State by a rural collective that appears to represent the homogeneous interests of the people against a clearly identified other.

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Shray Mehta: In India. This other has been the urban and agrarian populism has represented the interest of the middle

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Shray Mehta: peasant turned capitalist farmers in the idea of the village, so the village, as opposed to the other, which is the urban.

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Shray Mehta: I emphasize that India's version of a gradient Populism which provided a vision for development that was opposed to Nehru's model, emerged

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Shray Mehta: both through wide ranging and dynamic forms of farmers, mobilizations, as well as in close conversations with it, with evolving electoral politics. This implies that farmers claim making from the State as citizens.

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Shray Mehta: both through electoral politics and the social movements, is crucial to the understanding of a current populism, and how it has evolved over several decades in India.

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Shray Mehta: Oh.

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Shray Mehta: so I will now come to. the 4 phases of the development of farmers movements through a great populism in India. I will demonstrate how it interacted with other forms of politics, especially you know a formative politics of Socialist parties, and then I will, in the fourth phase after 2,014. Talk about how the new farmers will the the current phase of armist movements developed leading up to you know, the victory and the maintaining of the state of school.

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Shray Mehta: So again, Populism has developed in 4 phases

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Shray Mehta: in India, on the basis of how farmers, movements and elect

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Shray Mehta: electoral politics have engaged with the dominant trend of politics and party and policy paradigms. The first phase was the anti Congress Palmer. Mobilization and formation of non Congress, State governments in the 1960 s. And seventies.

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Shray Mehta: This phase of history which was an Eli which was which had an electoral success under a leader peasantly it recalled Charlotte and saying.

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Shray Mehta: He started his career with the Congress, but left it in 1967, and was fundamentally opposed to Nehru's vision of development which prioritized industrialization.

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Shray Mehta: The same year he formed the first aggressive party of India, the the the Indian revolution in front, which,

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Shray Mehta: argued for increased state investment in agriculture for the benefit of peasant proprietors and small scale industry to employ rural landless as a finance minister. A decade later he reduced indirect interest on agricultural inputs and allocated funding for rural electrification.

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Shray Mehta: so you will see some parallel between this and the People's Party in the 18 nineties onwards in the Us. at the time. This sort of you know, given the significance of the issues for middle peasants or emerging capitalist farmers. This budget came to be known as a Kulak budget Kulak, as in the Russian Board Kulan.

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Shray Mehta: The second phase of this you know. grade. Populism begins in 19 seventies and eighties. Again, Populism at this time was completely out, competed by the politics of affirmative action, and sort of a new, a political form of commerce. Mobilizations became the dominant articulation of a current mechanism.

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Shray Mehta: This was broadly related to the rise of social movements which followed the new social movements. Paradigm

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Shray Mehta: This politics of affirmative action

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Shray Mehta: on the platform of Socialist parties won elections consistently throughout India.

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Shray Mehta: and because of this present politics lost out electively.

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Shray Mehta: The loss of electoral space for present politics meant that farmers, mobilization and their backgraded population came to be identified with with this period.

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Shray Mehta: These then became non political party present mobilizations, led by the middle and rich peasantry and bureaucratic procedures and and focused on issues such as input for crops, zoning restrictions, debt on farmers, electricity prices. And you know, pirochatic procedures that were common to all farmers.

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Shray Mehta: They also had a dis illusionment with established politics which also comes from the discourse of new social movements.

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Shray Mehta: In the third phase in the 19 nineties, with the mobilization and legalization and the deregulation of agriculture in India. these organizations not only accepted the reforms of liberalization, but also went into alliance with political parties which propagated this kind of deregulation and legalization of the variance sector.

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Shray Mehta: It was in this background that we come towards 2,014 you know by by. So over these decades of these 3 phases.

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Shray Mehta: these farmers movements set succeeded significantly, first electively, in the 19 seventies. Then they moved to a different platform because of the success of Socialist parties, which, you know, argued for social justice and affirmative action in politics.

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Shray Mehta: And then these organizations brought you other than the left farmers movements. These organizations in India. Bahamas movements. They

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Shray Mehta: gave ascend, they and accepted the liberalization.

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Shray Mehta: So this is the background in which, after 2,014 you know there is the rise of and this is the crossroad that I refer to in the title of the paper.

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Shray Mehta: So

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Shray Mehta: there was a obviously a a a big crackdown on the farmers movement in 20 in (202) 020-2021, the

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Shray Mehta: already. Thank you. this challenge of authority and Populism in India led to the tension between the movement and electoral politics. Coming back

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Shray Mehta: that, we saw in several State elections and A lot of people broke away from the Farmers movement got into contest elections, and they actually lost the elections quite significantly. But by this point the Thomas movement also realized that they need to step out of this mode of protest and need to contest election

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Shray Mehta: So

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Shray Mehta: this is where I say that there is an impasse in the strategy of a current Populism in India, firstly, in policy terms, even as it continued to be led by largely middle present turned capitalist farmers. Their interest was stacked up against a State whose convictions have changed, and this State is not interested in development of agriculture sector anymore.

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Shray Mehta: so in

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Shray Mehta: so in in in in conclusion that I would like to. you know. Say that, on the other hand, a great populism in India has been represented by the interest of middle presenter capitalist farmers

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Shray Mehta: belonging predominantly to the intermediate cost. It's evolution in the last few decades, and the recent past, especially the challenge at face due to globalization and to qualitative politics, has overstated to a point whereby the interest of relatively smaller and poorer farmers

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Shray Mehta: and landless workers are also sought to be articulated within the framework of a great Populism, and this has led to a new form of politics of alliance making about which Professor Party talks about in in a brilliant paper that came out in international society.

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Shray Mehta: so it's it's because of this sort of strange way in which a grain Populism is function that you know. it's reached this stage

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Shray Mehta: So

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Shray Mehta: finally, recognizing this as a conjunctional moment is significant, because after 2,014 mobilizations of different types, including, you know, caste based mobilization, mobilization for affirmative action, and farmers. Organizations have significantly failed in India to make and make a dent on the popularity of the Bjp.

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Shray Mehta: So you know, this victory of the farmers, even though it gave gave a new this opening for the new discourse to emerge. It remains to be seen How Politically effective. It will be

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Shray Mehta: So yeah, I will stop there.

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Shray Mehta: Thank you.

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Yeah, thank you very much. That was very interesting.

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So we now

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juices. Here.

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it should be all fine.

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Okay, thank you. You can. Just yeah.

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Yeah. 1 s.

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okay. okay.

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yeah. Just as these are as, yeah. yeah, yeah, yeah.

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5 min.

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okay, okay, thank you.

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Hello. Good morning, everyone.

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It's a great pleasure to be here in Melbourne. I came from Portugal. Besides, I'm living in Brazil now.

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and I'd like to share with you some experiences about the Portuguese case in terms of discussing the class concept and considering different trends that we have been living in in the recent 3 or 4 decades, especially after our revolution in 74.

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So the main lines. This is, of course, a very brief abstract here. It's not running. I don't know what.

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It's not passing

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to to be there.

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That's quite strange.

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Oh, okay, now, it's okay. You're right.

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Okay? So drawing in some very well known theories around class since Marx Max Weber, and also under the influence of E. P. Thompson, for example.

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I've been studying through since

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to more than 2 decades, 2 different cases in Portugal, and these 2 different cases are quite well connected with the territory and the forms of structuring the territory and the making of the of the labour class of the working class.

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I think, we have to consider 3 types of forces. So 3 variables and a. In this analysis, in this reflection, I consider the economy, of course, as a as a structural force to very, this is even the the building of the social class.

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I consider also the local culture community community cultures in 2 different districts there, and also, of course, the role of the state and the role of the state here, in the case of Portugal is important that we remind the history of of the twentieth century, because we've been leaving for a long period of detectorship, as you might well well know

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these 2 different districts.

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I, it's it's it's a. The first topic that I would like to refer is related to the asymmetric dynamics in in the population, in the Portuguese population along the the last 50 years or so

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our country is very tight, but the even though 3, 2 thirds of the population is living by the sea is leaving the coastal regions, you know. So there is a a threat of desertification in the inland regions, which is very complicated, and that's different social and the and double consequences very destructive for the for the country.

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In these these 2 cases, Averu and C, 2 B. A. Very is more or less in the middle.

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in the middle of the country by the sea, and the is a Southern Lisbon, that region that the Brown region peninsula of Saturday.

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They have been developing their own dynamics in social class terms and in the in the economical terms and their different logic, different traditions, and different influences. The case of setup is a case of the concentrated industry, normally including the

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and including factories of metal industry and also port industry since the late nineteenth century. This this was a very important poll of the building of the the first phase of the building of the working class in in Portugal. Most of these workers they've kind. They came from the south of Portugal, from a territory called Alan Teju, which is a

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which is a latifun, due landscapes with a very authoritarian experience, a lot with with a a very strong sense of communitarian dynamic er lots of periods of resistance strikes and repression and prison over these workers.

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since the decade of 1960 S. Mo. Many of these workers and population came from there because there was hunger. There was a very poor situation, and they it come to to the, to the coastal areas, namely, to suituble, because the industry there was growing very, very fast, and the conditions, the salary conditions and working conditions were

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good. So these history. These live territories of these internal migrants have been

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giving great influence in terms of class identity, class experience. And so they reinforce the trade unions. There they have been building a very resistant actions

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it since the sixties. Even during the period of the Stad Nova Salazars, but specially after the 25 April 74 there was a very dynamic class struggle there. under the influence of the left wing Communist party ideology. It's a it's a very strong identity. And what

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working class? A manual working-class culture is very strong there. But the space of the peninsula of Setup

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have been restructuring since the 19 eighties. There was a big crisis. With the beginning of the globalisation and the competitiveness

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wild world. Many factories have been disease structuring, and with the help of the pochy State. There have been new investments in metal industries, the automobile industries. The Volkswagen group is one of the most important there. So the logics and the dynamics of this class struggle have been spread out and

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the adaptation remain and became more important than resistance. You know, after the after these big big prizes.

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So the world identity class identity have been spread out and they've been getting weaker and weaker. This is in the substance of of Lisbon and the influence of salesars's ideology. The ideology was very important, very influenced all over the country during, for during 48 years of the authoritarian regime, with a very strong ideology which penetrated

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all in all different in the in the Portuguese society. this. So the culture of acceptation, constant and resignation, was quite, quite strong, and the repression was also quite strong. But in this area of and in the south of of Portugal there have been quite a different moments of

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struggle, of resistance and a quite strong social class identity.

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And. of course, during the P. The revolutionary period there was great mobilization in Portugal, The idea of class class as a as a political actor became in in the, in, the, in the front line, became in the, in the first, in the first place, and all over the all, all the other movements urban movements

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common Italian movements. for example, occupation of empty houses for the poor in in Lisbon was very very, very strong also feminist movements and the other social movements have been all, all of them under the influence of the of Marxist language under the influence of the the idea of Avant Garde

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as taking the the manual working class as a political Marxism ideology, and it was quite strong in Portugal after

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W. 2 years after the Revolution. Most of these dynamics have been break down, because the option of the governments and the State and the armed forces have been reoriented government and the States towards a Social Democratic

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models toward the European framework of of representative democracy. So the dynamics, the grassroots, dynamics of most of these social movements have been weakened, weakening more and more since then.

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Now let me talk a little bit about the other case. The other case is is a region where the footwear industry is very important.

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it's a region in the center of the country. I've been working in a factory there in the late nineties, and I've been since then. reflecting and writing around around this. it's it's a quite different situation in terms of the influence of 5 min the influence of the ideology. There is mainly dependent on the difference of the Catholic Church.

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and also the influence of the division of property. Land, property, contrary to what happened in Atlanta, is quite much more divided, and so the petty bourgeois logic is very strong in this region, and but anyway, the the

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the dynamics of in the industry there is composed by a very dice first framework of very small enterprises. Most of the workers they dedicate to very and with some enthusiasm. and they accept. They tend to accept the the

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the owners, ideology and the owners discourse and they record to the trade union organization just when there is a trouble where there is a conflict there. There is a this missing, or there is a very strong situation, and even though this is in made in individual terms more and more than in collective collective mobilization.

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So the dispersion of the the entrepreneurial enterprises, and the and the industry and the division of the division in the space helps these

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attitude, these subjectivities in the marked by individualism, marked by the idea of social up up upward social mobility. Because the workers, besides, they are very bad pay. The. It's a very poor situation, and they work much more than they they should in terms of a of a contract signed contracts.

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but they believe in this. There is a complementary logic between the industries, salaries, and the complement of the agriculture and commercial, all informal commercial, economic, informal economy that helps families to to, to

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to gather some resources. And and so it helps also to accept the difficulties and the repression, and even the violence that he happens in the, in the factories specially violence against women. in the in the nineties there was a great movement or a great protest by the trade union and by and in in the the public sphere against the child would work.

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children work. This was quite denounced, and also the conclusions of my of my research at the time.

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all also, interfer a little bit in the in these in these discussions and that the authorities start being much more, they paying much more attention to these abuses of the authoritarianism over child children and over over women at this moment. Of course, the capacity is in terms of class struggle is very weak.

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and the this content and the people, feeling feeling, left the part they are. They started, unfortunately, I guess.

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supporting Poplist and the right toing proposals and discourses which are growing too fast in Portugal. The the our right wing, Nazis, for Pronas is party called the Sega. It means enough. The name of the party means enough. But and they are going a lot

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the, of course. with this discuss demographic discourse against everything, against the social policies, against migrants, against gypsies, against the any minorities, against women, against against the homosexual orientations, etc., etc. All of the flags that the the the old memory.

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Nazis and Sashi, from the times of sales are we are carrying out. So unfortunately, this right wing public is going up. The discontent is not any more reinforcing class struggles in terms of supporting social reforms and social emancipatory policies.

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Thank you.

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That was great. Thank you very much.

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Yeah, of course

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I didn't. Yeah. we we have one more presentation.

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Ahmed Mori: I I can share my screen. Is that right?

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1 s

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cool to

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right? Can you hear us? Yes, yes, we can. Okay. Great. Yes, please start. Thank you.

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Ahmed Mori: Great, thank you.

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Right.

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Ahmed Mori: all right. So first of all, thank you so much for having me and for you know, inviting me today where I guess for me, it's tonight right now in the Us. but you know it's I'm very excited to be here. This is actually the first time I ever present. research, I'm a graduate student, and Johns Hopkins University just finished up my second year. And this is, you know, working through some of the field work I've already begun of begun doing

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Ahmed Mori: so first sort of by way of an introduction. you know, this renewal of

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Ahmed Mori: anti-capitalist sentiment and movements, both in the Us. And across the world, and much of it, of course, tends to focus on organizing within unions and parties to engage in direct confrontations with capital with the State. Now I've but I've also become really interested in looking at different kinds of challenges emerging, say, among within Co. Ops or other prefigurative economic formations, not just worker cooperatives, right but as possible alternative sets of strategies that embody

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Ahmed Mori: different theories of social change, but ultimately share similar goals or endpoints. So this motivated the choice to conduct a case study of I would say, a pretty ambitious Us. Based

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Ahmed Mori: Community Economic Development Project, where there are a group of chief architects that hope the project could provide a model for

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Ahmed Mori: antimi, liberal in some ways, maybe vaguely post-capitalist city level economic development largely through experimenting with worker cooperatives.

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Ahmed Mori: So this, you know, really, looking at a project like this, I guess, let me just start with 2 particular research questions. First, you know to the extent that worker cooperatives of radical potential.

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Ahmed Mori: How can they be dampened by these interactions in partnerships with pretty powerful local institutions that are intended to grow the cooperative. And that's what we see with a lot of these community economic development projects, especially in the us. We have

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Ahmed Mori: strange F bedfellows that are getting together like foundations. Ngos, you know, and other nonprofit service providers, state actors, private firms that don't necessarily align on goals, norms, or or strategy. And so, secondarily, looking at the cooperative as a unit of analysis.

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Ahmed Mori: how does a worker co-OP that is capitalized? It's technically proficient. it's.

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Ahmed Mori: you know, it's it's designed to not be subjected to different kinds of market pressures. How do they? Never the how does it? Nevertheless generate worker owners right who are in theory again working and managing the enterprise or de facto wage workers. So how does this proletarianization occur? with no traces of self organization within the cooperative.

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Ahmed Mori: So as a sort of theoretical jumping off point. And this is I, I really started the project. And I'm currently sort of in the process of working through this paper. I, you know, I started by thinking through a erical and writes for a Utopia sociology. just as a way to understand the particular blend of strategies at play. in the in the case in the case that I'm that I'm looking at. So in looking at, you know, right through Utopia is really it's this idea that we have these projects that pre-figure.

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Ahmed Mori: you know, some kind of Socialist future real Utopias in that, in this formulation can pave the way towards the Socialist mode of production, and they proliferate, they connect. If they expand. he outlines 3 logics of transformation that can sort of result in

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Ahmed Mori: sort of a a, a, a guideline to which, when can use to create some of these real Utopian projects with these interficial transformations. He's really talking about projects that avoid direct confrontations with the capitalist class, but they try to pre-figure

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Ahmed Mori: Socialist modes of production really in in his formulation. So this can include cooperatives, worker cooperatives, other forms of collective or community ownership and commenting. As long as you know, there's some kind of economic decision making placed

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Ahmed Mori: or our decision making over economic activity place in the hands of communities

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Ahmed Mori: symbiotic transformations. Here. We'd say they're more reformist efforts that solve problems that impact both the capitalist and working classes say, like anti poverty initiatives frequently But the idea is to pressure the State to build power over economic decision making and some degree of decommodification of labor while seeking class compromise with the capitalist class. So so examples, these sites are universal basic income, participatory budgeting. You know, these kinds of initiatives.

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Ahmed Mori: and he has this sort of relatively vague notion that in some way symbiotic strategies can establish conditions necessary, right by really kind of pressuring the State in these ways for interstitial projects to grow

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Ahmed Mori: my particular case, we can kind of reformulate some of the questions that I'm interested in in terms of thinking under what conditions.

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Ahmed Mori: to symbiotic strategies such as this community development project or community economic development project made up of all these different

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Ahmed Mori: you know, nonprofit state actors, etc. Which we'll get into in a bit. How do these semiotic strategies enhance or subvert

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Ahmed Mori: potential interstitial strategies like worker cooperatives.

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Ahmed Mori: So

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Ahmed Mori: on the right formulation. Cooperatives in theory, you know, can potentially, you know, represent some kind of small scale subversion to, you know, relations of production, but doesn't really necessarily help us measure the extent to which the structuration of co-ops are actually in, you know, in some way prefiguring Socialism. And so

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Ahmed Mori: I think what I so what I'm arguing here is that we should turn to the labor process and really examine the extent to which a co-OP is subverting relations in production

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Ahmed Mori: and and that kind of serving as a more appropriate gauge to determine, just like the prefigurative potential. Some of these projects. So, of course, turning to, you know, Michael bore boys work you know, bore. I asked, how consent in in the labor process arises through some through an emphasis really on labor, power, reproduction, and state intervention.

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Ahmed Mori: And so he develops, you know, to to generate factory regimes, the despotic regime and the hegemonic regime. by looking at factors such as you know, to the extent to which workers are dependent on wages, whether State backed. Social insurance is present.

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Ahmed Mori: To what extent labor legislation is present in the workplace? Right? And so in a despotic regime, workers really depend on wage employment for their livelihoods.

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Ahmed Mori: coercion maintains discipline and hegemonic regime of the production we're talking, you know, this is determined, or it's determined by the extent to which workers livelihood depends on wage employment and state social insurance is present. So it's just minimum wage regulation, and that there's some

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Ahmed Mori: infliction of discipline and punishment, but it's nevertheless consensual.

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Ahmed Mori: So sort of based on, you know, just this particular theoretical framework I I observe in this term is not finalized, you know. So I I'm still. I'm this is still very much under construction a a distinctive form of regime in in the case that I'm analyzing that that I'm calling for now. Contractual despotism. it's a sort of formal but not an effective consent to codifying coercion

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Ahmed Mori: within, you know, as part of the labor process or woven within the labor process of the Co-OP that I'm looking at by contracting away

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Ahmed Mori: worker owners rights to control the Co office owners. So while there are still some ownership rights entailed in that such as you know, say, access to financial benefits and ownership control is relinquished.

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Ahmed Mori: the the the reason I I focus on a sort of despotic relationship, as opposed to say, like a hegemonic relationship with some consent to this is because it's, you know, the in in terms of like analyzing the data, and the deeper I got into case work, I realized there really wasn't some consensus codification. It was baked into an initial employment relationship when this crop began to recruit potential employees or worker owners.

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Ahmed Mori: So

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Ahmed Mori: getting into the case a little bit and and then sort of, you know, maybe moving into findings coordinate. This is the the greater University Circle initiative was a

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Ahmed Mori: project in Cleveland, Ohio. It was launched in 2,005 to connect different communities in the greater University circle area, specifically 6 neighborhoods around that area to connect them to different

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Ahmed Mori: anchor institutions. And by that I'm referring to these Ngos nonprofits. Right? They're they're not for profit institutions with really high employment opportunities, because they're very large and they have large spending power. So frequently we're thinking about, say, hospitals and universities. They're anchors because they're unlikely to relocate. They don't really just pick up and leave typically

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Ahmed Mori:  And so this is coordinated by the Cleveland Foundation. This is the largest community foundation in the United States. Actually,

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Ahmed Mori: and the effects of the project were mostly to promote some kind of workforce development really hiring programs and small or micro entrepreneurship across these neighborhoods.

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Ahmed Mori: you know. 6. the foundation contracted. A nonprofit think tank or a nonprofit consultancy called the Democracy Collaborative, which helped idiate the evergreen Project, and this is a project that arose within the the greater University Circle initiative. that was focused on, you know, figuring out long term procurement opportunities with these anchor institutions specifically for worker cooperatives

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Ahmed Mori: that we're addressing some supply chain needs of the anchor institutions. And we're doing so in a way that provided green-friendly products, services and solutions 150.

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Ahmed Mori: There's one of these initial 3 co-ops. It's still in operation today. which is the evergreen cooperative laundry. And that's what I focus on in my, in my research

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Ahmed Mori: to network the co-ops the partners also created this an apparent nonprofit organization or parent Ngo that had a 20% ownership stake in these co-ops called the Evergreen Cooperative Corporation. I'll usually refer to it as the nonprofit parent or the corporation. As we move forward. also this, the State. The ownerships taken provisions in the cooperative bylaws gave the corporation veto rights. If any corporation, if any cooperative trying to exit the evergreen system.

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Ahmed Mori: so my research, as I mentioned, is constructed as a case study. I conducted a site visit to the Cooperative itself last year, and 20 interviews over about 4 months June, through October of 2,022, I interviewed various figures involved with the project worker, owners, nonprofit corporation employees, government partners, other Ngo partners to try to get as sort of most complete of a view as possible.

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Ahmed Mori:  one important limitation is that despite various times, I couldn't really secure interviews with staff at anchor institutions. So some of the findings, I guess, just to go through it, since I only have 5 min left is that, you know, ownership options were obscured by the corporation through this particular relationship that this nonprofit parent, this corporation parent has, with regards to the Co. Ops ownership options are obscured

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Ahmed Mori: during it, particularly during times when the launches revenues are precarious. So worker rooms were coming in. They did not know when they came in as workers, that there was a possibility of becoming an owner after a year and they didn't really find that out until their first anniversary and weren't really given all that much education in terms of what their ownership stake means.

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Ahmed Mori: They also demonstrably low participation in cooperative governance. They don't run for board positions or other governance positions. Membership meetings are pretty low attended the share really motivates worker owners to overwork, to claim financial benefits.

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Ahmed Mori: you know, worker ownership really became

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Ahmed Mori: becomes more like an incentive based bonus and retirement plan. And, in fact, the financial rights that they have as owners as part of the cooperative. They actually are referred to as bonuses, and they're controlled and distributed by this nonprofit parent corporation. There's a clear distinction between worker owners and corporation staff say, like managers and Hr. Professionals, that the nonprofit or Ngo parent

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Ahmed Mori: brings in to manage the actual cooperative. These are staff that do not have pathways to work or ownership. you know they don't. They don't necessarily know what cooperatives are. they don't especially align with the values or work, or cooperative, or really, you know, sort of try to practice democracy in that way. And you know, due to really, at this point, you know a lack of guarantees

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Ahmed Mori: from some of the anchor institutions that were supposed to be contracting with this co-OP the the corporation eventually negotiated. Finally, after approximately 14. So sorry 12 years in operation, negotiated a contract with one large hospital system in the Cleveland clinic to some really represent 60% of the co-ops revenues. But that contract because they were in such a week. Bargaining position at this point ended up

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Ahmed Mori: really creating in like a really intense conditions of control where the hospital system is controlling certifications the kinds of hairnets that worker owners wear the kinds of uniforms they wear. they're, you know, installing real time productivity software systems like spindle, which is demonstrated on the screen. It requires workers to function 95% capacity at all times. And so

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Ahmed Mori: really, you know, at at play here, and I'm sort of, you know. Wrap up now, you know I didn't time this well enough. But there, you know these. It's really these 2 contracts. It's a a mix of these 2 contracts between the cooperative and the nonprofit parent has outsized control. and and it's so baked into the employment relationship that we're workers are prohibitively organ prohibitively

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Ahmed Mori: sort of they're prohibited.

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Ahmed Mori: essentially or effectively prohibited from organizing the limit managerial domination. And then this contract signed between the cooperative and the Cleveland clinic that gave the latter really outsized control over a large portion of the of the cooperative. And so that's when we see these kind of mechanisms that play as a result of these contracts, this top down control. you know, these, the goals of this particular economic development project really having just created a precarious market

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Ahmed Mori: for labor where you have, you know, in very intentional recruitment of folks from throughout the community without giving them any education, with words to where cooperative ownership is. and this like market insulation. We're supposed to have these co-ops that we're insulated from the market through rank or procurement guarantees backfires, really, you know, as a lot of these contracts fall through, and then they're left in a weaker bargaining position. And so really, this is a case where this particular kind of symbiotic strategy that I mentioned subverts

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Ahmed Mori: the interstitial It's, you know, if without a particular focus on structuration and just kind of thinking about the theoretical potential of upending or subverting relations of production of, you know structures like co-ops. It's very difficult, right? Because we're not really thinking about how to. You know what what the ability of working class organization, the potential working class organization is within crops to ground the crop

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Ahmed Mori: and transformative Ames, and can really contribute to degeneration really, of of the cooperative names and goals. so I had to rush through that. I apologize. But I'm going to wrap up now and thank you every.

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thank you very much. Ahmed.

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Okay, yeah, we're gonna do. Q. And A, can we just have all this?

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Yeah. okay, great. So now we have got about 40 min for Kianu.

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yeah. Danielle is one of the organizers of the session. He has, prepared some questions, so we can start with him and then also collect some questions from you. it's good that we have enough time for Q. A. a good discussion. I I thought the the presentations were great. They cover different topics, but they also cover different regions. So I I'm looking forward to a very interesting discussion.

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Yeah. Daniela, would you like to start? And then Anna Margarita, who is another. organizer of this session. And then we collect more questions.

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Yes.

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and we use that one as well. Is that okay?

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Thanks for your presentation. We have listening to very different experiences. And so we are in front of many confluence conflicts! Many dominant processes and alternatives to in a changing world of work.

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It is basic for the scholars to share their findings and also their theoretical framework and analytical categories. So my question is one is simple.

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but it is really challenging. At the same time the question is, what is your definition of class?

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What is your shortest, most conceived

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definition of class. And so.

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if we are in front of a queer struggles, community-based working struggles in Portugal, Indian farmers in front of the Populism and alternative cooperative workers.

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or if we can talk about class at general level in front of the global capitalism. So your definition of class, please.

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Thank you.

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Okay, good morning. Everyone. My name is Anna Margarita Steve. I'm also Portuguese, like Eliz, you oops! I don't know. Maybe I should come here to the to the middle, so that the people

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where online can see me.

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I'm also Portuguese, like Eliz, you and I know very well the, the, the reality you were describing, because I come from it. I was born and bred in it.

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and I think it's very important that you what you pointed out about how you know about the fragility of working class struggles in Central Portugal, and how the and how the structure, the structure of agricultural property kind of defines the consciousness of working class people.

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and I would like to. I would like to add a couple of questions.

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In first place, how did how did the noitering or the you know, or the aceptization of working-class culture doing the Salazar dictatorship contributed to that, because

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I remember reading a lot and hearing also from my from my forebears about how village community culture was destroyed during the Salzar dictatorship.

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How many community traditions were outlawed

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about how the so-called Kazz Dupovo led to

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you know, led to the destruction of local traditions, how the rejuvenation of memory.

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and how it was substituted by a much more individualistic consciousness. and also one thing that I noticed now, and which which is contributing to the very far and very scary rise of the far right in Portugal, is that

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the individualistic agricultural property and the authoritarian structure that was really brought off a terrain structure and mentality that was reinforced during the dictatorship

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provided working-class people, especially working-class men

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with.

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you know, with very strong psychological compensations.

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especially an identification with power and authority.

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by identifying, by identifying with strong leaders in the States, in the factory and in the village. It kind of gave us a justification to be a strong leader at home.

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to be an authoritarian father and grandfather. And then there was the idea, like you said, of

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of social mobility, the aspiration to social mobility, which also bred a culture of envy that is very strong in in working-class Portugal.

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And and also there is another thing. Next year we will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Carnation revolution.

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and one thing that that we very often forget is that for many working-class people in Portugal the Carnation revolution and progressive politics is seen as a Maltese project

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by people who were already socialized from birth into urban culture. into a culture with high educational capital. and which had little to no contact

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with with rural culture and with the kind of, and and with the psychological compensations that make that kind of patriarchal authoritarianism so strong, so easily reproducible, reproducible, so difficult to eradicate.

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and which kind of, kept it under a very weak and very thin lid for 50 years to the point that it's now boiling up and emerging very fast and in a very scary manner. Thank you.

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Right? Thank you. Do we have other questions?

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Yes, please.

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of my.

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would you mind splitting in the microphone? Because I'm not sure if the online participants can hear otherwise.

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let me confess, because it's one of the examples how a a country which is at the margin of the European, you know, process in general. it's compensating by by, you know, accessing the European path of development, the European Union, and so on and so forth. But the question is.

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are the Portuguese wording other people satisfied with what happened in the last 50 years? How they perceive that

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And I will not make the you know this, this the atomic approach, the rural and the war. But Portuguese it should be, you know, a middle middle middle class, or a a bourgeois perspective on on the on the last 50 years, or something. Yeah, thank you.

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Great. Thank you. So we've got 3 questions. Now. let's start with the first question which was address to the whole panel. would you like to start in the order you present it to to respond? Yes, great. And then the the

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get. The other other questions.

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Thank you for the question in my work class actually, is a category being mobilized by the social movement by the core entrance movement that I have been analyzing. and if there were more strict definitions of that in the manifest that they had in the seventys.

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In the mark.

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classic maxist-leness, tradition.

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Now it's very broad, the way that the class has been present on those manifest, as far as as analytical to to understand that I'm more focusing on class as class struggle in a dialogue with John Holloway of thinking about how those struggles are part of negation of a negative movement in contemporary society, of negating capitalist social relations. In that sense those

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movements are part of the class, each struggle. So that's what I would have to.

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Shray Mehta: yeah, I think I'm next. since I was a second presenter.

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Shray Mehta: I mean I

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Shray Mehta: how does one answer such a question like that. And I I think for me it's as follows, for me, class is a dialectic between

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Shray Mehta: social history and social action.

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Shray Mehta: most of my work. I'm at the end of my field work now, and I I look at sort of anti assaulted in politics in India. And I think of this definition of the being relevant to what I've sort of, you know, experienced

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Shray Mehta: as I've been long term histories of left mobilizations in India, and sort of understand how we are faring contemporarily in in response to, you know the solitary politics of

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Shray Mehta: so the dialectic between social history whereby, you know you, you take a balance of forces in terms of how

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Shray Mehta: power is organized in society. That's what I would mean. as a social history. And when I say social action you take the balance of how you know, movement against that balance of power is organized. And it's this dialectic between social history and social action which I think

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Shray Mehta: has to be sort of a historically and a temporarily informed definition of how I understand class. yeah.

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okay, thank you too much. Too many interesting questions.

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but probably with the difficult answers. I think we live in a moment in a historical moment where questioning the world is is necessary. But we have not any more certainties about the concepts as we have in the past, for example, the concept of class. Of course, during many, many, many decades, we well.

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people of my generation, mainly we share the the traditional definition of Marx of social class as a determinated by the the, the, the possessions of the means of production and the relations between owners and workers more or less. Well, I think

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capitalism still is this. But the capitalism of today is not the same than than in the nineteenth century, and the also, I think, er differently than what happened in the period of Karl Marx, and afterwards and and during the first decades of the twentieth century, I think we could obs observate in the international scale in many.

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many different contexts. a correspond, a direct correspondence between this abstract definition and the real real world. The collective actions by the workers reflected in trade unions, movements, and very radical dynamics from grassroots, and it has, add many profound consequences

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in different contexts, of course, in different continents, different in Latin America than in Europe. But, for example, in Europe well, the the the the birth of Most of these questions and these so sociological approaches. The result was not the revolution. The result was not the real Socialist. The result was the was the

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Welfare state, for example, with the very deep reforms and policies that helped a lot substantially the economic conditions and social conditions of the working class and the social mobility became a reality. But this reality is not as not happen as a result of a competitiveness or in the individualism, but as a result of struggles and those struggles where class struggles

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plus struggle still exists. But the class struggles. The class that is winning this class circle today is capitalism. No doubt about that, because while capital is becoming coordinating in the world, wide scale, the working class is not, is divided more and more divided, more and more accepting, accepting the dynamics of the market, accepting even the, the the precariousness of the of the conditions in in labor. The younger generation is more

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well for more well educated and with more developed skills. But they have no, not any more. Any type of class consciousness or any volunteer to become affiliated in training unions, or whatever. So when the discontent grows up, when the the resentment

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it comes without control, they go where the multitudes are going, and the multitudes at this recent period are much more oriented toward right wing radicalism than to left.

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So this is a a real big problem. So class struggles, of course, exist. But we have to to pick up the the, the particularities according to the connections with the the localities, with territory with local cultures. Of course.

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subjectivities are much important, and that's why Weberian influence is important. That's why Ippy Thompson and others approaches are very important in order to understand the contradictory dynamics of the the local communities and the local movements

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in poach oil. I think Anna Margaret have been explaining very well better than me the case of Portugal. In many aspects, of course, there are subjective aspects. There are results of of

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for 50, almost 50 years of dictatorship, but there are also the influence of secular influence of the very conservative Catholic Church also the division of the property. This individualism is is very, very visible in many, in many.

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in many contexts. in Portugal. But someone asks if the pop, the Portuguese are satisfied or not. After 48 years, or almost 50 years of the Democratic revolution.

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Well, anyway, in spite of everything in the last elections, I think, may the majority of Portuguese electors, they have been voting Socialist party because they were afraid of fascism because they they didn't want. This is my opinion. They didn't want to take the risk of seeing as such the so called Social Democrats. Right? Wing Liberals. Making

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alliances with the Radical right with the neo-fascist groups. This political party that I mentioned, and I think that's why the Socialists

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Center left, as you might know, real social well, not real. But they pretend being a Social Democrats. But the developing interesting social qualities in many, in many, in many aspects.

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But the the level the economic level the economic life is is not progress progressive. As people expected the years ago, you know. And so the we all this crisis with the financial crisis in the the at the end of the first decade of the century, and recently they covid the impact.

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etc. They did factors that didn't help the development that people expected. So the welfare state, which

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have been always fragile in Portugal, never enough strong, and which supported the middle class. The so part, the so called middle class in Portugal, is a at the risk of imploding in in many aspects, so the levels of salaries are very low. The expectations have been broken in many segments of society.

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and the, I think democratic state and the educational policies didn't didn't develop enough. The formation of the younger generations in political and democratic terms. So civic and democratic culture political culture is a part of everything, because the educational system we have been giving priority to technology

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is to innovative technology, which are important. But they put aside the human humanitarian formation and cultural aspects, and the development of the sense of citizenship to the younger generations. And I think that also explains these subjectivities of resignation of acceptance

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many large parts of the Portuguese working class in the inland regions, mainly they leave for work, you know. They work, they the, the, the weekends, the leisure periods of their people, active activity in the families they work, they work in the small portions of land, they work in other activities. So

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there is this, this we we called in the Portuguese. I don't know how to translate this in English.

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Yeah, the this, this tutorial logic, tutorial, and the submissive attitude towards part or power is a have been cultivating in the younger generation. In the universities. I've been studying also these use cultures in the universities, and they promote the sense of resignation. The sense of humiliation.

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seeing as a good thing, as a requisite, as a necessity to have an opportunity for life, for professional life. This is terrible. I think this is some of the reasons why now fascists

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approaches are again growing growing too fast, and like Margarita, I am also afraid of the future in Portugal. But there is some hope.

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Thank you.

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Ahmed Mori: Thank you, Ahmed. Would you like to respond to the first question. Yes, thank you. Yes, thank you. So of course, it's a

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Ahmed Mori: pretty big question in terms of the definition of class. I mean, I think I like. I always kind of resort to, you know. A pretty, I I think, a starting point that's been referenced already many times right.

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Ahmed Mori: you know. In some sense, there's, or at least like where where I start is some kind of structure. It's a structural location, right? If I'm thinking about as an analytical tool for an associate, our economic system based on our relationship to your own labor power, how you wield it, the potential for extraction of surplus value, some bifurcation of exploit or surplus, not even exploited. But I think the definition for me of class shifts, at least as an analytical tool, as the

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Ahmed Mori: as critiques, and as struggles against existing institutions and structure shift as well. So you know. And it's that's why it's it's it's important as as I think a few of my colleagues tonight or today. Sorry I know it's the morning over there have referred to. It's important to take into account, you know, specific concentrations of power when thinking about conceptualization of class. So

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Ahmed Mori: there's also for me an element of political identification, right of a political identity that is an active process. We're always in an active process of definition and redefinition of, you know, different forms of we maybe porous, but nevertheless different forms of boundary drawing, marked by resistance to capitalism as as as a mode of production. And that is to me that you know. Here we're thinking class struggle

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Ahmed Mori: sort of changes or shifts the contours of class, especially a structural locations based

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Ahmed Mori: on, you know, based on our relationship to our own labor, power and service. Solid extraction become more complex or forms of control and surplus extraction change right? So you know a long way of saying.

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Ahmed Mori: it's kind of porous and and and there's a shift there.

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Wonderful! Thank you. Are there other questions? Yes, please.

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Hello, everybody. Thank you so much for your presentation. I don't work on this field at all. But I just I first of all have a question to Alexand, and maybe that

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can concern others as well.

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in terms of class struggle.

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I guess that today we talk much more about the class struggle of

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probably declining middle class for me. That's the impression that I have. The thing is that I I I'm South Korean, but I am studying and living in France.

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you know. They're having a lot of moment in in in France, and especially for Alexander in terms of queer movement.

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I was wondering. Sorry I missed the beginning of your your presentation, and probably I missed some elements.

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I was wondering about the here, and

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if you can raise your minorities. how they are represented in newer field work, especially in Latin American countries.

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and how they're so all this movement and mobilization articulate with their, you know, working class.

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I don't know if I can say that identities, if they identify themselves to working class, and if there is any link

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with you know the the racial capitalism, you know. Framework. Thank you.

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Thank you. Good questions. Yes.

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thank you very much. Very interesting presentations. But

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my question will go to Alicia, and I hope I'm saying your name correctly. My name is Samuel I I'm from South Africa.

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and I come from my context of the history of apartheid.

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and for somehow to a certain level.

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And we, you know, we shared

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the same or similar sentiments as what Elijah has presented.

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We have trade unions in South Africa. We've got 2 trade union federations

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in South Africa.

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and how those trade unions feature in the post-apartheid era

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is in the tripartite. a structure of where we have the state. the employer. and with the the employer represented by the employer organizations, and then we have the the employees that are represented by the the trade unions.

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My question is in a Portugal. what is the relationship that the trade unions have with the State.

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And the reason why I'm asking this question is based on the context or on the South African context in that South Africa

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came that is now led by the African National Congress

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came into power, and they adopted a next

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method of of what of the fiscal policy of, you know, like the finances of the country.

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and the next approach.

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It is its capitalist and Socialist approach.

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you know, which has caused a lot of confusion. you know, in South Africa so. and again

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betray Unionists

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More inclined

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to to to the left rather than the right.

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And now that is why I want to ask the question, what is the relationship that children and trade unionists have with the State? Because even us in South Africa we are on the verge of imploding

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because of trade unionists that are now not sure where they belong.

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One day they they slip in one page with the right, and then the next day they sleep in one page with the left.

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It's a it's a huge confusion.

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So I'm also scared of the future of South Africa. Thank you.

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Thank you. I have one question to shre, if I may ask my question, is a bit more optimistic. I'm also scared of the future, but I thought

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the last phase of farmers movement in India was very promising. It was one of the most interesting, most inspiring.

409
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and the capitalist victories actually, we've seen, because they forced the Government to repeal the the antifarm laws. Right? So my question is, how do you think that this huge victory, which was achieved under really difficult circumstances. The farmers protested for one whole year during Covid in the cold and in the hot weather, and it was really really hard and challenging, but they won finally. So how has this victory impacted leftist policies in India?

410
01:31:46.140 --> 01:31:50.160
So if you have 3 questions. would you like to start?

411
01:31:51.250 --> 01:31:53.730
Thank you. Thank you so much for your question.

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 it appears in different ways the ways that those queer trends activists identify themselves

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as part of the working class.

414
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There is one way doing field work in Argentina in which that appeared when I was talking to some Travisi activists, and they would say that things that have changed in the last years, and now that they are trans people into police forests, trans. People very bourgeois on the media. But the way that they would say that they are doing that. But they are not like us.

415
01:32:27.360 --> 01:32:43.989
They're not part of the same struggle. They're not doing the same thing that we are doing. And they would say that it's a good thing that now they're not facing the same amount of violence, those other individuals in those bourgeois and capitalist institutions, but that they would say, Yes, but

416
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it's another thing. They're not travishes in the way that we are in the way that we are as working class traverses that are being the aim of police violence and having to sell our working

417
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for us.

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So this is one way of identification as being traversed as being an identity also part of the working class. And another way of identification is that the social protests that that are articulated in Colombia and Argentina. We have those radical Korean trends, activists being part of

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we could say more specifically, explicitly, working class is struggles for social rights against austerity measures on those countries against more debt with the Fmi in Argentina, for example, and in some cases even on the frontline, being there in working class struggles, and for the other side also, when there are those countermarches, and also in some more radical or critical parts of the official. Pride, marches

420
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There are the Communist parties and anarchists and the fascist activists that are at the same way in those more traditional identifications with leftist organizations and with career entrance struggles and the part of

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what I want to the point that I want to make with this research, and with this way of thinking about the working class as part of the Korean trans struggles is that the opposite has been quite a

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clear in many other investigations. So the way that the far right, the capitalist and the ones that are way winning the class struggle right now how they have been articulated with measures and with politics, against gender, against the queer entrance rights and the against all of that in a way that also there is other articulations here that we could see both analytically, we could see, but also empirically. They are taking place of those Korean trends activists as being

423
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part of them, as being part of the working class and the capitalist, and in a liberal

424
01:35:03.740 --> 01:35:08.099
okay? And thank you again for the for the questions.

425
01:35:08.650 --> 01:35:19.640
Well, let me point out just 2 2 topics. One topic is put by a mangel

426
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about the relationship between the trade unions and the State. Well, in Portugal

427
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everything is under this acceleration, dynamic, and also in the trade unions field. There is a new

428
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cleavages, new asymmetric situations, and the new new phenomena, you know. there is the main. The 2 main confederations are recognized by the State, and they participate in the within the dialogue structures the their days. There is a a very important board that discusses economic policies

429
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with the participation of the State through government and through the bosses, representatives, and also the trade unions. They discuss the main lines of economics, but they are not a. They have no decisive power. You know. The Parliament, then, have to discuss and decide the manual main laws and the main rules.

430
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Well, I I should say that in terms of legislation, and in terms of the improvement of certain regular mechanisms, of of a regulation in a in a lab relations, there have been some progress. But in the real terrain it does an impact. It doesn't. It does work

431
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because and the one of the reasons they have to to do with the with the Trade union's mentality and the the may. They mentioned trade union currents. They are not in a they are not at all sensitive to these questions, to the identity politics, to these new inequalities in terms of gender, in terms of sexual orientations, in terms of race

432
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or class, their their discourse is very conservative. Let's let's say, and I think that it helps to explain why the new generations do not become closer to the traditional trade unions, and this also open space to new discourses of right wing. Inside the labour movements. New trade unions have been

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organized and they they're trying to come up with the new languages seduting the these segments of the working class and following the the the former the former

434
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slogans and the the ideas of Salazar's regime. And now it's even incredible. Why, The this discourse is not only denouncing the government, but denouncing.

435
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So the idea of Socialism. The idea of democracy is becoming the something that we have to run away, you know, and then and this, this, this, this course they have accept us by the the. The very significant strata of the working class. And this, of course, is, is very concerning. The future is, is quite

436
01:38:30.640 --> 01:38:33.570
tarnishing. But

437
01:38:33.760 --> 01:38:58.390
this relationship between trade units, and of course trade trade union movement became institutionalized after the revolution of the the the institutional democracy become strong, strengthening. But nowadays the new segmented. The new start of the working class of the the new precariat is not becoming organized. They accept.

438
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they they? They accept surveillance, you know, and surveillance is becoming naturalized.

439
01:39:05.260 --> 01:39:33.549
This is very, very concerning I am living. As I said, I'm living in Brazil now, and I am, quite paying attention to the Latin America reality, which is yes, it's particular. It's and, for example, Brazil is the one of the more inequal countries of the world. And also I can observe that directly is one of the countries where the poor they, they admire the rich people.

440
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and they take their situation as natural. They they do not have any type of consciousness. I mean, the my larger majority is, of course, there are movements. There are dynamics that are emancipatory discourse is also, but the large majority of the poor people is not there. No.

441
01:39:54.800 --> 01:39:56.150
thank you.

442
01:39:57.490 --> 01:39:59.010
Thank you very much.

443
01:39:59.290 --> 01:40:07.139
Okay, Shre. Would you like to go ahead?

444
01:40:07.559 --> 01:40:10.599
Shray Mehta: Yeah, thank you for your question.

445
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Shray Mehta: So it's it's it's been you know, in in in response to how has to victory affected the left in India. the I I think. First, we need to, as you also premise, the question we need to appreciate the fact that this was an

446
01:40:28.680 --> 01:40:32.480
Shray Mehta: absolutely, incredibly well fought victory

447
01:40:32.500 --> 01:40:48.009
Shray Mehta: against all odds of all kinds. but I think what we also need to sort of get you know, into the context is the fact that this is the victory against an extremely aggressive move

448
01:40:48.059 --> 01:40:52.700
Shray Mehta: towards corporatization of all facets of upgraded life.

449
01:40:53.040 --> 01:40:58.890
Shray Mehta: so in the sense that it was a victory against this aggressive move it was a success. But

450
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Shray Mehta: as far as the larger platform of a gradient crisis in India goes all that this quickly achieve most to maintain the state of school. right? So

451
01:41:08.889 --> 01:41:37.760
Shray Mehta: in in in. So you know But what it did was to sort of bring out these 2 sort of ways of doing politics within a gradient populism and partners. Movements. One was the, you know, larger traditional left of the Communist party. And one of the sites of my research is the Communist party. I've been looking at, you know, new youth movements which have been deriving especially associated with the universities which have been providing the movement

452
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Shray Mehta: so so the the so to this, you know, segment of the old left its electoral decline has continued, and it has absolutely not managed to.

453
01:41:50.480 --> 01:41:56.469
Shray Mehta: you know, gain at all any strength from, you know, even the success of the Farmers movement.

454
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Shray Mehta: Oh.

455
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Shray Mehta: what has also immersed? And you know you also,

456
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Shray Mehta: interviewed some of the people for your work, for your own. work in the paper that I mentioned in the presentation this sort of new sort of you know, left thinking which looks at a politics of everyday life.

457
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Shray Mehta: as you know. It's not that they don't understand class war or or a graded politics in that sense. but

458
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Shray Mehta: they cultivated through a very, very slow process of everyday politics of, you know, organizing in a very new way. So you know. After the movement ended this segment of left they moved to different places within India, and they started, sort of, you know, local level organizations and organized against sort of issues which were very relevant to a very micro section of the context. So, for instance.

459
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Shray Mehta: in the State of Punjab you know. They they started organizing against liquor factories, which were sort of, you know, causing us, or huge amount of environmental damage. So you see, an emergence of a new discourse after the success of the the Farmers movement

460
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Shray Mehta: which is given them a new legitimacy. So on, a wider spectrum of of, you know, the left that emerges from the victory of this farmers mobilization. They are yet to make any electoral impact in the sense of being able to capture. you know seeds within the Assembly or the Parliament.

461
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Shray Mehta: though. you know, we have now discovered newer tools to articulate. You know this decade. Long crisis of liberalization. that's happening, a new realization that's happening in India.

462
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Wonderful. Thank you. We have 2 more minutes left, Anna Margaret, that would you like to say something? Yeah, but it's just like

463
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less than 2 min, right? It's a bit.

464
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It's a very quick question for El Chandra, are you Are you aware of movements of cis-gendered, gay men, especially in the global North, with

465
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with identify themselves with far right politics, but through the medium of a very eroticized military quasi, pinky beds, aesthetics!

466
01:44:11.990 --> 01:44:13.470
Are you aware of that?

467
01:44:17.270 --> 01:44:39.849
Yes, and it has been also part of the tradition. Different moments of having some part of that non-core, not really normative ways of being gay men in the world, and affiliated to extreme rights, since the fascist in the thirties. And now and yes, this is part also of the enemies of the people that I have been working with.

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Great. This has been such an incredible session. Thank you so much to our presenters and to the audience for your wonderful questions.