Wednesday -- 3.12.14 -- Territories in Resistance -- Week 15

CONTENTS:
0. About Wednesday
1. Suggestions for Wednesday

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0. About Wednesday's Common(s) Course

What: Common(s) Course Meeting / Conversation
When: Wednesday, March 12 (from 5:00 to 7:00)
Where: CUNY Graduate Center (365 5th Ave @ 34th st), Room 6107 (6th floor)
Who: Free and open to all

This week we will continue our discussion on solidarity economies and
networks of mutual aid, turning to recent local initiatives in Latin
America. Popular kitchens in Lima, urban gardens in Uruguay, neighborhood
assemblies in Venezuela, and urban water committees in Bolivia among other
examples.

What happens in these "black holes" outside of state control where the
poor attend to the needs of everyday life through autonomous activity? Why
do these practices of nourishment prove so threatening to state and
capital? How does a politics of care open up fronts for resistance that
may not seem possible through strikes and riots?

Barter and other experiments with non-monetary exchange do not disrupt the
equations of capital accumulation in a technical manner. These initiatives
from Latin America remind us that the emancipation of use value or
abolition of exchange value is not an economic proposition. It is a
political project connected to and sustained within popular struggle. The
logics of incommensurable exchange and non-commodity production can only
be of vital significance on these terms.

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1. Suggested Readings for Wednesday

Raul Zibechi, Territories in Resistance: A Cartography of Latin American
Social Movements (Ak Press, 2012). We will discuss Chapter 15, "The Urban
Peripheries: Counter-Powers from Below" (pp.189-263) and suggest focusing
in particular on the section "Recent Experiences" (pp.228-257).
http://sduk.us/money/zibechi_the_urban_peripheries.pdf

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