This short text was written after we spent two weeks in La Paz in August 2022. It reflects the sp... more This short text was written after we spent two weeks in La Paz in August 2022. It reflects the specificity of the conjuncture in which our visit took place, but we also attempt to sketch characteristics of the political, social, and economic situation of Bolivia that retain their validity also in a situation that has already changed in many respects.
Orizzonti Meridiani, Briganti o emigranti. Sud e movimenti fra conricerca e studi subalterni, 2014
Diciassette saggi contenuti nel libro gettano molteplici sguardi sulla condizione del Mezzogiorno... more Diciassette saggi contenuti nel libro gettano molteplici sguardi sulla condizione del Mezzogiorno d’Italia: affrontano tramite lampi di diverso colore, l’interrogazione chiave sull’esistenza stessa del Meridione. Allo stesso tempo, analizzano i movimenti sociali sorti nel corso degli anni 2000 nelle province meridionali, nel tentativo di restituire alle comunità locali un'autonomia di pensiero e di vita, tanto economica quanto sociale e politica, allontanando le forme di subalternità alle pratiche di governance capitalistica e all'ordine del discorso borghese.
Borders and mobilities have played key roles in the transformations of capitalism that have accom... more Borders and mobilities have played key roles in the transformations of capitalism that have accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic. We attempt to distinguish novel developments in the control of movements of bodies, labour, and capital from processes of renationalisation, financialisation, and platformisation that were in train before the outbreak. Focusing on logistical techniques and technologies that govern the global circulation of people and things, this article explores the spatial shifts and ruptures that have marked the capitalist crisis occasioned by the pandemic. We give empirical attention to movements and struggles of migration in China, India, the Americas, and the Mediterranean.
The article tackles the question of platform capitalism within the framework of a general underst... more The article tackles the question of platform capitalism within the framework of a general understanding of the specificity of modern and contemporary capitalism. Digital platforms, which are emerging among the winners from the current pandemic crisis, facilitate processes of capital accumulation, blur the boundaries between politics and economics, and embody a new type of firm. An emphasis is placed on the infrastructural roles performed by platforms, as well as on their ability to reshape existing spaces and produce new ones. In the last section, the authors describe emerging figures of "algorithmic subjectivities" and contend that an effective critique of platform capitalism, whose operations are predicated upon those figures, should take their movements and struggles as its point of departure.
Questo e-book raccoglie gli atti del convegno organizzato dalla rete Effimera svoltosi
a Milano, ... more Questo e-book raccoglie gli atti del convegno organizzato dalla rete Effimera svoltosi a Milano, il 1° giugno 2019. Costituisce il primo di tre incontri che hanno l’ambizione di indagare quello che abbiamo definito “l’enigma del valore”, ovvero l’analisi e l’inchiesta per comprendere l’origine degli attuali processi di valorizzazione alla luce delle mutate condizioni nell’organizzazione della produzione e del lavoro.
AMÉRICA LATINA EN MOVIMIENTO MIGRACIONES, LÍMITES A LA MOVILIDAD Y SUS DESBORDAMIENTOS, 2019
Esto es lo que configura el proyecto intelectual del que este libro es apenas una primera producc... more Esto es lo que configura el proyecto intelectual del que este libro es apenas una primera producción colectiva: queremos entender la ingober- nabilidad de las migraciones y, a través de mirar las prácticas de fuga, de desobediencia a los diferentes tipos de fronteras vigentes en el continente, comprender en parte las transformaciones del capitalismo, del neolibe- ralismo “desde arriba” y “desde abajo” en nuestra América. A través de entender estas geografías, también nos proponemos aportar pistas expli- cativas para el presente global y el cambio epocal al que asistimos, para, al final de cuentas, compartir las hipótesis con otras luchas y otras comuni- dades de pensamiento y acción.
In The Politics of Operations Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson investigate how capital reshapes ... more In The Politics of Operations Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson investigate how capital reshapes its relation with politics through operations that enable the extraction and exploitation of mineral resources, labor, data, and cultures. They show how capital—which they theorize as a direct political actor—operates through the logistical organization of relations between people, property, and objects as well as through the penetration of financialization into all realms of economic life. Mezzadra and Neilson present a capacious analysis of a wide range of issues, from racial capitalism, the convergence of neoliberalism and nationalism, and Marx's concept of aggregate capital to the financial crisis of 2008 and how colonialism, empire, and globalization have shaped the modern state since World War II. In so doing, they illustrate the distinctive rationality and logics of contemporary capitalism while calling for a politics based on collective institutions that exist outside the state.
What has become of the so-called West after the Cold War? Why hasn’t the West simply become “form... more What has become of the so-called West after the Cold War? Why hasn’t the West simply become “former,” as has its supposed counterpart, the “former East”? In this book, artists, thinkers, and activists explore the repercussions of the political, cultural, and economic events of 1989 on both art and the contemporary. The culmination of an eight-year curatorial research experiment, Former West imagines a world beyond our immediate condition.
The writings, visual essays, and conversations in Former West—more than seventy diverse contributions with global scope—unfold a tangled cartography far more complex than the simplistic dichotomy of East vs. West. In fact, the Cold War was a contest not between two ideological blocs but between two variants of Western modernity. It is this conceptual “Westcentrism” that a “formering” of the West seeks to undo.
The contributions revisit contemporary debates through the lens of a “former West.” They rethink conceptions of time and space dominating the legacy of the 1989–1990 revolutions in the former East, and critique historical periodization of the contemporary. The contributors map the political economy and social relations of the contemporary, consider the implications of algorithmic cultures and the posthuman condition, and discuss notions of solidarity—the difficulty in constructing a new “we” despite migration, the refugee crisis, and the global class recomposition. Can art institute the contemporary it envisions, and live as if it were possible?
Former West: Art and the Contemporary After 1989 is edited by curator Maria Hlavajova and writer and curator Simon Sheikh. Visual introductions to book chapters are curated by Maria Hlavajova and Kathrin Rhomberg.
Contributors include: Nancy Adajania, Edit András, Athena Athanasiou, Zygmunt Bauman, Dave Beech, Brett Bloom, Rosi Braidotti, Susan Buck-Morss, Campus in Camps, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Chto Delat?/What is to be done?, Jodi Dean, Angela Dimitrakaki, Dilar Dirik, Marlene Dumas, Keller Easterling, Okwui Enwezor, Charles Esche, Silvia Federici, Mark Fisher, Federica Giardini and Anna Simone, Boris Groys, Gulf Labor Coalition, Stefano Harney, Sharon Hayes, Brian Holmes, Tung-Hui Hu, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Sami Khatib, Delaine Le Bas, Boaz Levin and Vera Tollmann, Isabell Lorey, Sven Lütticken, Ewa Majewska, Artemy Magun, Suhail Malik, Teresa Margolles, Achille Mbembe, Laura McLean, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Sandro Mezzadra, Walter D. Mignolo, Aernout Mik, Angela Mitropoulos, Rastko Močnik, Nástio Mosquito, Rabih Mroué, Pedro Neves Marques, Peter Osborne, Matteo Pasquinelli, Andrea Phillips, Nina Power, Vijay Prashad, Gerald Raunig, Irit Rogoff, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Naoki Sakai, Rasha Salti, Francesco Salvini, Christoph Schlingensief, Georg Schöllhammer, Susan Schuppli, Andreas Siekmann, Jonas Staal, Hito Steyerl, Mladen Stilinović, Paulo Tavares, Trịnh T. Minh-Hà, Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor, Marina Vishmidt, Marion von Osten, McKenzie Wark, and Eyal Weizman.
Published by BAK, basis actuele kunst and MIT Press, 2016 | Design by Mevis & Van Deursen, Amsterdam | English language | 748 pages | Paperback | ISBN: 9780262533836
This short text was written after we spent two weeks in La Paz in August 2022. It reflects the sp... more This short text was written after we spent two weeks in La Paz in August 2022. It reflects the specificity of the conjuncture in which our visit took place, but we also attempt to sketch characteristics of the political, social, and economic situation of Bolivia that retain their validity also in a situation that has already changed in many respects.
Orizzonti Meridiani, Briganti o emigranti. Sud e movimenti fra conricerca e studi subalterni, 2014
Diciassette saggi contenuti nel libro gettano molteplici sguardi sulla condizione del Mezzogiorno... more Diciassette saggi contenuti nel libro gettano molteplici sguardi sulla condizione del Mezzogiorno d’Italia: affrontano tramite lampi di diverso colore, l’interrogazione chiave sull’esistenza stessa del Meridione. Allo stesso tempo, analizzano i movimenti sociali sorti nel corso degli anni 2000 nelle province meridionali, nel tentativo di restituire alle comunità locali un'autonomia di pensiero e di vita, tanto economica quanto sociale e politica, allontanando le forme di subalternità alle pratiche di governance capitalistica e all'ordine del discorso borghese.
Borders and mobilities have played key roles in the transformations of capitalism that have accom... more Borders and mobilities have played key roles in the transformations of capitalism that have accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic. We attempt to distinguish novel developments in the control of movements of bodies, labour, and capital from processes of renationalisation, financialisation, and platformisation that were in train before the outbreak. Focusing on logistical techniques and technologies that govern the global circulation of people and things, this article explores the spatial shifts and ruptures that have marked the capitalist crisis occasioned by the pandemic. We give empirical attention to movements and struggles of migration in China, India, the Americas, and the Mediterranean.
The article tackles the question of platform capitalism within the framework of a general underst... more The article tackles the question of platform capitalism within the framework of a general understanding of the specificity of modern and contemporary capitalism. Digital platforms, which are emerging among the winners from the current pandemic crisis, facilitate processes of capital accumulation, blur the boundaries between politics and economics, and embody a new type of firm. An emphasis is placed on the infrastructural roles performed by platforms, as well as on their ability to reshape existing spaces and produce new ones. In the last section, the authors describe emerging figures of "algorithmic subjectivities" and contend that an effective critique of platform capitalism, whose operations are predicated upon those figures, should take their movements and struggles as its point of departure.
Questo e-book raccoglie gli atti del convegno organizzato dalla rete Effimera svoltosi
a Milano, ... more Questo e-book raccoglie gli atti del convegno organizzato dalla rete Effimera svoltosi a Milano, il 1° giugno 2019. Costituisce il primo di tre incontri che hanno l’ambizione di indagare quello che abbiamo definito “l’enigma del valore”, ovvero l’analisi e l’inchiesta per comprendere l’origine degli attuali processi di valorizzazione alla luce delle mutate condizioni nell’organizzazione della produzione e del lavoro.
AMÉRICA LATINA EN MOVIMIENTO MIGRACIONES, LÍMITES A LA MOVILIDAD Y SUS DESBORDAMIENTOS, 2019
Esto es lo que configura el proyecto intelectual del que este libro es apenas una primera producc... more Esto es lo que configura el proyecto intelectual del que este libro es apenas una primera producción colectiva: queremos entender la ingober- nabilidad de las migraciones y, a través de mirar las prácticas de fuga, de desobediencia a los diferentes tipos de fronteras vigentes en el continente, comprender en parte las transformaciones del capitalismo, del neolibe- ralismo “desde arriba” y “desde abajo” en nuestra América. A través de entender estas geografías, también nos proponemos aportar pistas expli- cativas para el presente global y el cambio epocal al que asistimos, para, al final de cuentas, compartir las hipótesis con otras luchas y otras comuni- dades de pensamiento y acción.
In The Politics of Operations Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson investigate how capital reshapes ... more In The Politics of Operations Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson investigate how capital reshapes its relation with politics through operations that enable the extraction and exploitation of mineral resources, labor, data, and cultures. They show how capital—which they theorize as a direct political actor—operates through the logistical organization of relations between people, property, and objects as well as through the penetration of financialization into all realms of economic life. Mezzadra and Neilson present a capacious analysis of a wide range of issues, from racial capitalism, the convergence of neoliberalism and nationalism, and Marx's concept of aggregate capital to the financial crisis of 2008 and how colonialism, empire, and globalization have shaped the modern state since World War II. In so doing, they illustrate the distinctive rationality and logics of contemporary capitalism while calling for a politics based on collective institutions that exist outside the state.
What has become of the so-called West after the Cold War? Why hasn’t the West simply become “form... more What has become of the so-called West after the Cold War? Why hasn’t the West simply become “former,” as has its supposed counterpart, the “former East”? In this book, artists, thinkers, and activists explore the repercussions of the political, cultural, and economic events of 1989 on both art and the contemporary. The culmination of an eight-year curatorial research experiment, Former West imagines a world beyond our immediate condition.
The writings, visual essays, and conversations in Former West—more than seventy diverse contributions with global scope—unfold a tangled cartography far more complex than the simplistic dichotomy of East vs. West. In fact, the Cold War was a contest not between two ideological blocs but between two variants of Western modernity. It is this conceptual “Westcentrism” that a “formering” of the West seeks to undo.
The contributions revisit contemporary debates through the lens of a “former West.” They rethink conceptions of time and space dominating the legacy of the 1989–1990 revolutions in the former East, and critique historical periodization of the contemporary. The contributors map the political economy and social relations of the contemporary, consider the implications of algorithmic cultures and the posthuman condition, and discuss notions of solidarity—the difficulty in constructing a new “we” despite migration, the refugee crisis, and the global class recomposition. Can art institute the contemporary it envisions, and live as if it were possible?
Former West: Art and the Contemporary After 1989 is edited by curator Maria Hlavajova and writer and curator Simon Sheikh. Visual introductions to book chapters are curated by Maria Hlavajova and Kathrin Rhomberg.
Contributors include: Nancy Adajania, Edit András, Athena Athanasiou, Zygmunt Bauman, Dave Beech, Brett Bloom, Rosi Braidotti, Susan Buck-Morss, Campus in Camps, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Chto Delat?/What is to be done?, Jodi Dean, Angela Dimitrakaki, Dilar Dirik, Marlene Dumas, Keller Easterling, Okwui Enwezor, Charles Esche, Silvia Federici, Mark Fisher, Federica Giardini and Anna Simone, Boris Groys, Gulf Labor Coalition, Stefano Harney, Sharon Hayes, Brian Holmes, Tung-Hui Hu, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Sami Khatib, Delaine Le Bas, Boaz Levin and Vera Tollmann, Isabell Lorey, Sven Lütticken, Ewa Majewska, Artemy Magun, Suhail Malik, Teresa Margolles, Achille Mbembe, Laura McLean, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Sandro Mezzadra, Walter D. Mignolo, Aernout Mik, Angela Mitropoulos, Rastko Močnik, Nástio Mosquito, Rabih Mroué, Pedro Neves Marques, Peter Osborne, Matteo Pasquinelli, Andrea Phillips, Nina Power, Vijay Prashad, Gerald Raunig, Irit Rogoff, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Naoki Sakai, Rasha Salti, Francesco Salvini, Christoph Schlingensief, Georg Schöllhammer, Susan Schuppli, Andreas Siekmann, Jonas Staal, Hito Steyerl, Mladen Stilinović, Paulo Tavares, Trịnh T. Minh-Hà, Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor, Marina Vishmidt, Marion von Osten, McKenzie Wark, and Eyal Weizman.
Published by BAK, basis actuele kunst and MIT Press, 2016 | Design by Mevis & Van Deursen, Amsterdam | English language | 748 pages | Paperback | ISBN: 9780262533836
Dans ce dialogue, Álvaro García Linera et Sandro Mezzadra discutent de l’actualité et de l’inactu... more Dans ce dialogue, Álvaro García Linera et Sandro Mezzadra discutent de l’actualité et de l’inactualité de la pensée de Nicos Poulantzas. Après avoir retracé le rôle joué par la théorie poulantzasienne de l’État dans leurs travaux respectifs, la conversation se penche sur ses potentiels usages dans le présent. L’entretien aborde ainsi plusieurs sujets clés pour l’analyse critique du capitalisme contemporain, tels que les récentes mutations de l’économie mondiale et de la scène internationale, la montée de l’extrême droite et les horizons possibles d’une transition post-capitaliste. In this dialogue, Álvaro García Linera and Sandro Mezzadra discuss the relevance and irrelevance of Nicos Poulantzas's thought. After tracing the role played by Poulantzasian theory of the State in their respective works, the conversation turns to its potential uses in the present. The conversation touches on a number of key issues for the critical analysis of contemporary capitalism, such as recent changes in the global economy and the international scene, the rise of the far right and the possible horizons of a post-capitalist transition.
The paper discusses a notion that figures in Karl Marx's Capital and is often employed with respe... more The paper discusses a notion that figures in Karl Marx's Capital and is often employed with respect to migration. What I have in mind is the notion of industrial reserve army. I start by discussing the critique of this notion developed by Yann Moulier Boutang in his book De l'Esclavage au salariat. I then emphasize the background of that critique, focusing on the fact that the concept of industrial reserve army is often employed to stigmatize migration. Nonetheless I ask whether other uses of the notion are possible. To this aim I turn to Marx's Capital in order to demonstrate that his understanding of the industrial reserve army is flexible and nuanced. I focus in particular on his analysis of mobile and "nomadic" populations and I end by reflecting on the multiple shapes that the Marxian problematic takes in the present. The concept of "potential labor," often employed in research reports of ILO in recent years, provides an important entry point in this respect.
The article takes the lively discussion of citizenship in the 1990s as its point of departure, fo... more The article takes the lively discussion of citizenship in the 1990s as its point of departure, focusing in particular on the works by Étienne Balibar and Engin Isin. The author shows how the (illegal) migrant emerged as a paradigmatic figure in that discussion in the wake of the struggles of the sans-papiers in France and elsewhere in Europe. What characterizes the discussion of citizenship and migration since the end of the 1990s is an attempt to theoretically grasp the multifarious tensions between processes of deprivation and dispossession on the one hand and migrants' agency and even the autonomy of migration on the other hand. It is working within this field of tensions that many scholars focused their analysis on the blurring of the boundary between inclusion and exclusion, pointing to migrants' capacity to open new spaces of citizenship. Borders-external as well as internal-came therefore to play an increasingly important role in the debates surrounding citizenship and migration. In the last section, the article discusses the ongoing conjuncture of crises, underscoring both the persistent predicament of migration to and in Europe and the crucial role of migrants in the building of coalitions for social justice.
Intervento all'interno di una tavola rotonda sugli Studi culturali in Italia (il testo si trova a... more Intervento all'interno di una tavola rotonda sugli Studi culturali in Italia (il testo si trova alle pp. 148-153)
Sandro Mezzadra est professeur associé de philosophie politique à l'université de Bologne et ... more Sandro Mezzadra est professeur associé de philosophie politique à l'université de Bologne et un militant dans les mouvements sociaux. Ces dernières années, il a largement contribué à la relecture des processus migratoires, du capitalisme contemporain et de la globalisation, tout en soulignant l'importance de considérer la « tension permanente » au sein de ces processus entre les assemblages de pouvoir et la production de subjectivités qui les remettent en question constamment. Dans cet entretien, nous avons parlé de son livre, Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor (2013), écrit avec Brett Neilson, qui porte sur les changements que la mondialisation a apportés dans le monde du travail et sur les approches réflexives à privilégier pour mieux les cerner. La figure de l'étranger y est souvent évoquée, notamment dans le contexte contemporain, dans lequel la notion simmelienne peut être repensée à nouveaux frais. Mais le point central de la réflexion est le lien en...
1. Sandro Mezzadra teaches the History of Contemporary Political Thought at the University of Bol... more 1. Sandro Mezzadra teaches the History of Contemporary Political Thought at the University of Bologna. He is an active figure in the alternative globalisation movement in Italy, and has been particularly involved in bringing the question of migration to the centre of political struggle in that movement. Sandro is the author of works such as Diritto di fuga: Migrazioni, cittadinanza, globalizzazione (2001) and (with Fabio Raimondi) Oltre Genova, oltre New York: Tesi sul movimento globale (2001). He is also a member of the editorial collective of DeriveApprodi magazine, one of the chief venues in Italy for the critical analysis of contemporary capitalism. We met in Bologna one foggy January afternoon to discuss the global movement, migration, and border control in Europe and Australia.
Page 1. Page 2. Page 3. Estudios postcoloniales Ensayos fundamentales Page 4. Page 5. Traficantes... more Page 1. Page 2. Page 3. Estudios postcoloniales Ensayos fundamentales Page 4. Page 5. Traficantes de Sueños no es una casa editorial, ni siquiera una editorial independiente que contempla la publicación de una colección variable de textos críticos. ...
... Stefano Lucarelli 125 ... Y sin embargo estamos convencidos que en nuestro tiem-po, independi... more ... Stefano Lucarelli 125 ... Y sin embargo estamos convencidos que en nuestro tiem-po, independientemente de cuanto pueda pensarse a propó- sito del pasado, ya no vale la tesis, central por ejemplo en el trabajo de Giovanni Arrighi, según la cual los «ciclos sisté- micos de ...
By Andrea Fumagalli and Sandro Mezzadra; Abstract: Crisis in the Global Economy is the latest and... more By Andrea Fumagalli and Sandro Mezzadra; Abstract: Crisis in the Global Economy is the latest and most innovative collective reflection on the state of global capitalism,. ... Edited by Andrea Fumagalli and Sandro Mezzadra (). in MIT Press Books from The MIT Press. ...
Starting from a brief review of the new forms of nationalism emerging in Italy and in Europe, the... more Starting from a brief review of the new forms of nationalism emerging in Italy and in Europe, the essay proposes to analyze them within the framework of the new kind of assemblage between territory, autonomy, and rights that is taking shape in our global age (S. Sassen). The ...
Berliner Institut für empirische Integrations- und Migrationsforschung, Humboldt Universitat, Ju... more Berliner Institut für empirische Integrations- und Migrationsforschung, Humboldt Universitat, June 23, 2016.
Presentazione di A. Negri, La fabbrica della strategia. 33 Lezioni su Lenin, nuova edizione, Roma, Manifestolibri, 2023, pp. I-XXIV., 2023
Nella natura e nella storia non accadono miracoli, ma ogni svolta storica repentina, e quindi ogn... more Nella natura e nella storia non accadono miracoli, ma ogni svolta storica repentina, e quindi ogni rivoluzione, offre una tale ricchezza di contenuto, sviluppa combinazioni così inattese e originali delle forme di lotta e dei rapporti tra le forze in lotta che molti fatti devono sembrare miracolosi a una mentalità filistea.
Published in N. Sakai, J. Solomon, and P. Button (eds). Knowledge Production and Epistemic Decolonization at the End of Pax Americana, London – New York: Routledge, 2024: 112-134., 2024
The current tumultuous transformations of the world order and disorder, and in particular the dec... more The current tumultuous transformations of the world order and disorder, and in particular the declining hegemony of the U.S. build the general framework of the analysis pursued in this chapter. At stake is the issue of decolonization, which is discussed with reference to the different theoretical approaches that have addressed it in recent years (through such notions as "neocolonialism," "postcolonialism," and "decoloniality"). The chapter focuses on the relations between the transformations of the global order, decolonization, and contemporary capitalism. Starting from a discussion of "neo-extractivism" in Latin America, an expanded notion of extraction is proposed to grasp crucial aspects of the operations of capital today. Moving across the boundaries between critique of political economy and postcolonial critique, the chapter end with a reflection upon the need to rethink the notion and practice of internationalism.
The essay discusses Nancy Fraser’s work taking as a point of depar- ture her famous controversy w... more The essay discusses Nancy Fraser’s work taking as a point of depar- ture her famous controversy with Axel Honneth on redistribution and/ vs. recognition. The way in which Fraser frames gender and race in that controversy is taken as a guiding thread for the analysis of her writings on the relation between sexism, racism, and capitalism in the following years. Race and gender have been key to the plea that the very notion of capitalism needs to be expanded, in particular to include social repro- duction. Fraser’s contribution to feminist debates over the last years is discussed from this angle, emphasizing her attempt to combine Marx and Polanyi to forge a critical theory of capitalism up to the challenges of the present. The essay ends with an analysis of the important distinction pro- posed by Fraser between the concepts of expropriation and exploitation. A critique of the narrow way in which the latter is understood and an attempt to outline an expanded theory of exploitation conclude the essay.
The essay starts with a discussion of the legal and political logic of recognition with respect t... more The essay starts with a discussion of the legal and political logic of recognition with respect to labor and labor relations. Such a logic is historically and geographically con- textualized in the framework of the development of industrial capitalism and in par- ticular of mass industrial production, i.e., Fordism. The notion of a «standard labor relation» associated to this development is then critically analyzed. It is from this angle that the author discusses the emergence of digital, and more specifically platform labor, which radically challenges any idea of a standard labor relation. Several dimensions of platform labor are explored, from algorithmic management to the explosion of the working day, from its peculiar cooperative nature to experiences of self-organization. As an instance of «labor beyond recognition», platform labor allows shedding light on wider transformations of labor and asking crucial questions on the position of labor in a project of radical transformation today.
This paper investigates the implications of the current global economic situation in the developm... more This paper investigates the implications of the current global economic situation in the development and nature of capitalism through the contribution of postcolonial criticism. The assumption from which they move is that decolonisation is not over at all, although the sense that it takes on is profoundly different than in the past It is a question of saving this project and 'transposing' it into a completely different global context. It is not a question of thinking without Modernity or of building epistemological scaffolding , as scholars of the Coloniality/Modernity/Decolonialid group try to do, rather, working on the edges of Western concepts and categories that become open fields of struggle to the intervention of former colonized subjects. Resumen Este documento investiga las implicaciones de la actual situación económica mun-dial en el desarrollo y la naturaleza del capitalismo a través de la contribución de la 1.
This essay explores the lively debates around notions of extraction and extractivism in Latin Ame... more This essay explores the lively debates around notions of extraction and extractivism in Latin America so as to expand these notions and thereby grasp the specificity of contemporary processes of the valorization and accumulation of capital within the region and beyond. Going beyond mining and the extensive agriculture that characterizes the notions of extraction and extractivism used in Latin America today, the essay seeks productive angles for a critical investigation of finance and financialization and also the persistence and mutations of neoliberalism in the region. This attempt to expand the notions of extraction and extractivism connects to a long history of struggles and theoretical elaborations that have expanded the notion of exploitation itself to include topics such as the hegemony of rent, the persistence of primitive accumulation, and accumulation by dispossession, all against the background of contemporary developments of capitalism, social struggles, and “progressive” governments in Latin America.
The article takes the debates surrounding the 'politics of autonomy' in Latin America as its poin... more The article takes the debates surrounding the 'politics of autonomy' in Latin America as its point of departure and investigates the transformations of the political notion of autonomy against the background of developments that have characterized the so-called long decade of the new 'progressive governments' in the region. Moving beyond the alternative between 'conflict' and 'cooptation' that has shaped academic and political debates on the topic, the authors analyze the relations between 'social movements' and 'progressive governments' from the angle of the transformations of capitalism in Latin America and of emerging new forms of activism rooted within everyday life (particularly within 'popular economies''). The article critically discusses such notions as neoliberal-ism and neo-extractivism in order to build an analytical framework within which to reconstruct the history of Latin American social movements since the early 2000s and to test the productivity and the limits of the very notion of 'social movement' in the present political conjuncture.
A peer reviewed roundtable review and discussion of The Figure of the Migrant with important scho... more A peer reviewed roundtable review and discussion of The Figure of the Migrant with important scholars in the field: Sandro Mezzadra, Todd May, Ladelle McWhorter, Andrew Dilts, Robin Celikates, Daniella Trimboli, and Adriana Novoa. Interview conducted by Mark Westmoreland. Responses by author, Thomas Nail.
Il volume dà conto dello straordinario lavoro storiografico condotto a partire dall’inizio degli ... more Il volume dà conto dello straordinario lavoro storiografico condotto a partire dall’inizio degli anni Ottanta da un gruppo di storici indiani, raccolti attorno al progetto dei cosiddetti Subaltern Studies. I protagonisti di questo progetto, tra cui figurano autori come Dipesh Chakrabarty e Partha Chatterjee, hanno in particolare sottolineato come la storia dell’India britannica non si limiti ai rapporti tra le autorità coloniali e le élite dominanti all’interno della società "indigena", ma sia piuttosto incomprensibile senza tenere nel debito conto i movimenti autonomi delle masse "subalterne" dentro e contro il sistema di dominio coloniale. Da questa opzione metodologica fondamentale hanno preso avvio ricerche che, incrociando felicemente una lettura eterodossa del marxismo, il riferimento a Foucault e suggestioni derivanti dall’evoluzione del post-strutturalismo francese, hanno finito per investire questioni decisive nello stesso presente postcoloniale e globale: dalle migrazioni alle trasformazioni che stanno investendo il piano delle identità collettive. Della globalizzazione contemporanea i Subaltern Studies pongono più in generale in evidenza una genealogia complessa, di cui fanno parte a pieno titolo sia il progetto coloniale dell’Occidente moderno sia la resistenza al colonialismo posta in atto dalle masse "subalterne".
Gli autori Ranajit Guha ha insegnato in numerose Università in India, in Inghilterra, negli Stati Uniti e in Australia. Tra le sue pubblicazioni: Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India (1983), Dominance without Hegemony. History and Power in Colonial India (1997) e History at the Limit of the World-History (2002).
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak insegna alla Columbia University di New York. Bengalese di nascita, si è trasferita negli Stati Uniti a metà degli anni Settanta. Oggi è una delle più affermate teoriche femministe statunitensi e una protagonista degli "studi postcoloniali". Tra le sue pubblicazioni: The Post-Colonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues (1990) e A Critique of Post-Colonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (1999).
Il curatore Sandro Mezzadra insegna Storia del pensiero politico contemporaneo nella Facoltà di Scienze Politiche dell'Università di Bologna. Tra le sue pubblicazioni: La costituzione del sociale. Il pensiero giuridico e politico di Hugo Preuss (Il Mulino, 1999); Diritto di fuga. Migrazioni, cittadinanza, globalizzazione (ombre corte, 2001). Ha inoltre recentemente curato l’edizione di Cittadinanza e classe sociale di Thomas H. Marshall (Laterza, 2002).
The coronavirus pandemic has shown the fragility of our current economic and political order. In ... more The coronavirus pandemic has shown the fragility of our current economic and political order. In the face of this, governments across the world have pushed a form of "Malthusianism", not least Boris Johnson's Conservatives. But, as Sandro Mezzadra argues, it could also offer new spaces for solidarity.
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Books by Sandro Mezzadra
a Milano, il 1° giugno 2019. Costituisce il primo di tre incontri che hanno l’ambizione
di indagare quello che abbiamo definito “l’enigma del valore”, ovvero l’analisi e
l’inchiesta per comprendere l’origine degli attuali processi di valorizzazione alla luce
delle mutate condizioni nell’organizzazione della produzione e del lavoro.
The writings, visual essays, and conversations in Former West—more than seventy diverse contributions with global scope—unfold a tangled cartography far more complex than the simplistic dichotomy of East vs. West. In fact, the Cold War was a contest not between two ideological blocs but between two variants of Western modernity. It is this conceptual “Westcentrism” that a “formering” of the West seeks to undo.
The contributions revisit contemporary debates through the lens of a “former West.” They rethink conceptions of time and space dominating the legacy of the 1989–1990 revolutions in the former East, and critique historical periodization of the contemporary. The contributors map the political economy and social relations of the contemporary, consider the implications of algorithmic cultures and the posthuman condition, and discuss notions of solidarity—the difficulty in constructing a new “we” despite migration, the refugee crisis, and the global class recomposition. Can art institute the contemporary it envisions, and live as if it were possible?
Former West: Art and the Contemporary After 1989 is edited by curator Maria Hlavajova and writer and curator Simon Sheikh. Visual introductions to book chapters are curated by Maria Hlavajova and Kathrin Rhomberg.
Contributors include: Nancy Adajania, Edit András, Athena Athanasiou, Zygmunt Bauman, Dave Beech, Brett Bloom, Rosi Braidotti, Susan Buck-Morss, Campus in Camps, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Chto Delat?/What is to be done?, Jodi Dean, Angela Dimitrakaki, Dilar Dirik, Marlene Dumas, Keller Easterling, Okwui Enwezor, Charles Esche, Silvia Federici, Mark Fisher, Federica Giardini and Anna Simone, Boris Groys, Gulf Labor Coalition, Stefano Harney, Sharon Hayes, Brian Holmes, Tung-Hui Hu, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Sami Khatib, Delaine Le Bas, Boaz Levin and Vera Tollmann, Isabell Lorey, Sven Lütticken, Ewa Majewska, Artemy Magun, Suhail Malik, Teresa Margolles, Achille Mbembe, Laura McLean, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Sandro Mezzadra, Walter D. Mignolo, Aernout Mik, Angela Mitropoulos, Rastko Močnik, Nástio Mosquito, Rabih Mroué, Pedro Neves Marques, Peter Osborne, Matteo Pasquinelli, Andrea Phillips, Nina Power, Vijay Prashad, Gerald Raunig, Irit Rogoff, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Naoki Sakai, Rasha Salti, Francesco Salvini, Christoph Schlingensief, Georg Schöllhammer, Susan Schuppli, Andreas Siekmann, Jonas Staal, Hito Steyerl, Mladen Stilinović, Paulo Tavares, Trịnh T. Minh-Hà, Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor, Marina Vishmidt, Marion von Osten, McKenzie Wark, and Eyal Weizman.
Published by BAK, basis actuele kunst and MIT Press, 2016 | Design by Mevis & Van Deursen, Amsterdam | English language | 748 pages | Paperback | ISBN: 9780262533836
Papers by Sandro Mezzadra
a Milano, il 1° giugno 2019. Costituisce il primo di tre incontri che hanno l’ambizione
di indagare quello che abbiamo definito “l’enigma del valore”, ovvero l’analisi e
l’inchiesta per comprendere l’origine degli attuali processi di valorizzazione alla luce
delle mutate condizioni nell’organizzazione della produzione e del lavoro.
The writings, visual essays, and conversations in Former West—more than seventy diverse contributions with global scope—unfold a tangled cartography far more complex than the simplistic dichotomy of East vs. West. In fact, the Cold War was a contest not between two ideological blocs but between two variants of Western modernity. It is this conceptual “Westcentrism” that a “formering” of the West seeks to undo.
The contributions revisit contemporary debates through the lens of a “former West.” They rethink conceptions of time and space dominating the legacy of the 1989–1990 revolutions in the former East, and critique historical periodization of the contemporary. The contributors map the political economy and social relations of the contemporary, consider the implications of algorithmic cultures and the posthuman condition, and discuss notions of solidarity—the difficulty in constructing a new “we” despite migration, the refugee crisis, and the global class recomposition. Can art institute the contemporary it envisions, and live as if it were possible?
Former West: Art and the Contemporary After 1989 is edited by curator Maria Hlavajova and writer and curator Simon Sheikh. Visual introductions to book chapters are curated by Maria Hlavajova and Kathrin Rhomberg.
Contributors include: Nancy Adajania, Edit András, Athena Athanasiou, Zygmunt Bauman, Dave Beech, Brett Bloom, Rosi Braidotti, Susan Buck-Morss, Campus in Camps, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Chto Delat?/What is to be done?, Jodi Dean, Angela Dimitrakaki, Dilar Dirik, Marlene Dumas, Keller Easterling, Okwui Enwezor, Charles Esche, Silvia Federici, Mark Fisher, Federica Giardini and Anna Simone, Boris Groys, Gulf Labor Coalition, Stefano Harney, Sharon Hayes, Brian Holmes, Tung-Hui Hu, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Sami Khatib, Delaine Le Bas, Boaz Levin and Vera Tollmann, Isabell Lorey, Sven Lütticken, Ewa Majewska, Artemy Magun, Suhail Malik, Teresa Margolles, Achille Mbembe, Laura McLean, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Sandro Mezzadra, Walter D. Mignolo, Aernout Mik, Angela Mitropoulos, Rastko Močnik, Nástio Mosquito, Rabih Mroué, Pedro Neves Marques, Peter Osborne, Matteo Pasquinelli, Andrea Phillips, Nina Power, Vijay Prashad, Gerald Raunig, Irit Rogoff, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Naoki Sakai, Rasha Salti, Francesco Salvini, Christoph Schlingensief, Georg Schöllhammer, Susan Schuppli, Andreas Siekmann, Jonas Staal, Hito Steyerl, Mladen Stilinović, Paulo Tavares, Trịnh T. Minh-Hà, Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor, Marina Vishmidt, Marion von Osten, McKenzie Wark, and Eyal Weizman.
Published by BAK, basis actuele kunst and MIT Press, 2016 | Design by Mevis & Van Deursen, Amsterdam | English language | 748 pages | Paperback | ISBN: 9780262533836
In this dialogue, Álvaro García Linera and Sandro Mezzadra discuss the relevance and irrelevance of Nicos Poulantzas's thought. After tracing the role played by Poulantzasian theory of the State in their respective works, the conversation turns to its potential uses in the present. The conversation touches on a number of key issues for the critical analysis of contemporary capitalism, such as recent changes in the global economy and the international scene, the rise of the far right and the possible horizons of a post-capitalist transition.
Gli autori
Ranajit Guha ha insegnato in numerose Università in India, in Inghilterra, negli Stati Uniti e in Australia. Tra le sue pubblicazioni: Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India (1983), Dominance without Hegemony. History and Power in Colonial India (1997) e History at the Limit of the World-History (2002).
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak insegna alla Columbia University di New York. Bengalese di nascita, si è trasferita negli Stati Uniti a metà degli anni Settanta. Oggi è una delle più affermate teoriche femministe statunitensi e una protagonista degli "studi postcoloniali". Tra le sue pubblicazioni: The Post-Colonial Critic: Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues (1990) e A Critique of Post-Colonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (1999).
Il curatore
Sandro Mezzadra insegna Storia del pensiero politico contemporaneo nella Facoltà di Scienze Politiche dell'Università di Bologna. Tra le sue pubblicazioni: La costituzione del sociale. Il pensiero giuridico e politico di Hugo Preuss (Il Mulino, 1999); Diritto di fuga. Migrazioni, cittadinanza, globalizzazione (ombre corte, 2001). Ha inoltre recentemente curato l’edizione di Cittadinanza e classe sociale di Thomas H. Marshall (Laterza, 2002).
https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4598-politics-of-struggles-in-the-time-of-pandemic