The Spirit of Winnipeg 1919 and Contemporary Geographies of Class and Resistance
Sessions - Calls for Participants
The Spirit of Winnipeg 1919 and Contemporary Geographies of Class and Resistance
Organizer: Steven Tufts
Full Description:
The centennial of the Winnipeg General Strike (May-June 1919) provides an opportunity to reflect on the contemporary geographies of class and resistance. The six-week general strike involving 30,000 workers was a moment of mass solidarity that sparked fear in the capitalist class and state. The Canadian government was forced to use state violence to end the strike and suppress growing support in other cities. Academic debate and critique concerning the fragmentation of class (both objectively and theoretically) persists in geography and the social sciences. Yet, we see emerging class-based mobilization across the world that, despite their many contradictions, hints toward the same possibilities and tensions that were experienced a century ago. In these panels we address the issue of class mobilization and resistance today. We invite papers on a variety of broadly related topics:
- Attacks on public sector workers
- Teacher unions and strikes
- Solidarity and anti-racist/anti-fascist organizing
- Labour internationalism and transnationalism
- Social reproduction and mobilization
- Right/Left populism and workers
- Labour’s engagement with LGBT and Queer activism
- Contradictions of recent campaigns (e.g., Green New Dealism, Guaranteed Income)
- Struggles beyond unions (e.g. Fight for $15)
If you wish to contribute to this session, please contact Steven Tufts (tufts@yorku.ca) with an abstract and title by March 1, 2019.