Call for Participants: Labour Studies Conference

Posted by on July 14, 2006

[posted from Higher Ed Service-Learning listserv]

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS
Building Bridges
A Labour Studies Conference at the University of Windsor
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
February 2nd and 3rd, 2007

Conference Theme and Objectives:

In the face of neoliberal globalization, labour market restructuring, war, and other major challenges to social justice, labour and social movements are struggling to create solidarity and overcome many sources of division. This conference will explore those issues which both divide and unite labour and social movements, and discuss current and possible strategies for improving unity within and across movements and borders. The conference will bring together labour researchers, artists, and union and social movement leaders and activists to examine both the sources of division and the potentials for solidarity.

The conference is being held at the same time as the 9th Annual Labour Arts Festival, which will allow participants to take in a variety of arts events over a three-day period.

Call for Participants:

Panellists: The goal of the conference is to foster reflection, debate and strategizing based on insights derived from a variety of different practices academic, activist, and artistic. As such, each panel discussion will have four to five speakers (15-20 minutes per speaker) representing a cross-section of researchers, union leaders, activists and artists. The presentations should be informal and address the following questions:
*What are the major challenges to building unity in your area of practice? *What are the sources of division and in what ways do they hinder movements?
*What initiatives are you working on to address these challenges? What is working and what isnt?
*What strategies should be adopted to build more effective bridges?

Discussants: Each panel will also have a discussant, whose role will be to pull together the themes emerging from the presentations and subsequent discussions, and summarize key strategic lessons. While panellists will not be asked to present formal papers, they will submit a one-page summary of their presentation to the discussant in advance of the conference.

Students: They are also particularly interested in fostering labour studies students participation in the conference, and in building connections between students at different institutions. They have therefore structured in time for students to meet, and will subsidize their participation in the arts events (see below for details. They encourage faculty to actively recruit students to attend. If you are interested in volunteering your services as a panellist or discussant, please email a short (250-word) outline of what you would like to contribute (see the panel topics below). Also, if you know of an academic,movement leader, activist or artist that would be suitable for one of the sessions, please send us their contact information with a short description of why you think they would be a good choice.

The deadline for submitting an intent to participate is August 15th, 2006.

For More Information, Please Contact:

Dr. Alan Hall
Dr. Stephanie Ross
Director Department of Sociology
Labour Studies Programme and Anthropology
hall4@uwindsor.ca
stephr@uwindsor.ca
Both c/o University of Windsor
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
N9A 6B7