There must be some way out of here: Views of our multiple crisis from Left Field
A LivingMaps Webinar, in association with Compass
First there was Brexit. Then the Labour Party goes down to a historic defeat with its most radical Social Democratic agenda since 1945. Then widespread floods across the country presage an environmental apocalypse to come unless climate change is properly addressed. And now we have the advent of a pandemic on the epic scale of Spanish Flu after the First world war, to be almost certainly followed by a global economic recession. It is easy to Join up these very large dots into an overwhelming picture of doom and gloom, or alternatively to re-imagine them as the birth pangs of a new culture and society liberated from the toxic impact of consumerism and racism, making Black Lives Matter, re-valuing the labour of care, and building on the moral economy of mutual aid which has emerged so suddenly from ‘left field’.
The electrifying response of BAME communities and their supporters to the endemic racism revealed by the pandemic is certainly a cause for optimism. But as Gramsci well knew, optimism of the will, left to its own devices, can lead to the kind of wishful thinking which characterises the Exiteers and our present muddled transition from lockdown. Equally unalloyed pessimism of the intellect, which sections of the Left are also very good at, leads to the kind of armchair utopianism which has no real skin in the game and offers academic consolation for political defeats. We know it is difficult to find a balance, but this is a tight rope we will all have to learn to walk and which, in their different ways, the contributors to this webinar are taking some first steps towards...
Programme:
Phil Cohen will map a range of responses, both official and popular, to the pandemic and the measures that have been adopted to deal with it, focussing on what they tell us about the kind of society and political culture we live in.
Valerie Walkerdine will talk about her experience of canvassing in the 2019 election campaign in London and South Wales, for what this reveals about the dynamics of affiliation and disaffection towards the Labour Party’s programme.
Dick Pountain will examine the limits and conditions of Left re-grouping around a Green New Deal as a plan for economic recovery.
Interlocutors
Ashwani Sharma will respond to the speakers by reflecting on the refrain ‘I can’t breathe’ in terms of race and death in relation to the pandemic, police violence and protests for racial justice. Does the mourning of black death, and the removal of monuments to slavery and imperialism require us to rethink the relationship between public memory, nation and left politics?
Lynne Segal will discuss how the pandemic has made the role played by the labour of care publicly visible for perhaps the first time: Whether carried out in care homes, hospitals or the family this labour, mainly done by women and members of the BAME community, has been disregarded and under-valued, but is essential for maintaining the fabric of civil society. How can this scandal be addressed and what needs to change in our politics, culture and economy to make this happen.
The Speakers:
Phil Cohen is an urban ethnographer by trade and has written many books based on his work with youth and communities in East London since the 1970’s. He is currently research director of the Livingmaps Network, working on developing a Young Citizens Atlas of London. His latest book is Waypoints: steps to an ecology of political mindfulness (eyeglass books 2019) www.philcohenworks.com
Dick Pountain grew up in Chesterfield, Derbyshire. Involved in Left politics and the counterculture since the 1960s. Computer journalist (Byte Magazine, PC Pro) and director of Dennis Publishing until last year. A regular contributor to Political Quarterly and co-author (with Dave Robins) of Cool Rules: anatomy of an attitude (reaktion books 2007).
Valerie Walkerdine is Distinguished Research Professor in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. She has researched and written about issues of class and gender for many years, with more recent work engaging with deindustrialisation, neoliberalism and a psychosocial approach to classed experience.
Ashwani Sharma is a Senior Lecturer in Film and Screen Studies at the London College of Communication (LCC), University of the Arts London (UAL). He is completing a book on Race, Memory, and Visual Culture (Bloomsbury Academic). He is the founding co-editor of darkmatter journal (www.darkmatter101.org) and writes and performs poetry.
Lynne Segal is a socialist feminist academic and activist, author of many books and articles, and participant in many campaigns, from local community to international. Her most recent book is Radical Happiness : Moments of Collective Joy(2017).