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Materialities and socialities of postcapitalism: Commons, peer to peer sharing and solidarity

Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2020 10:38 am
by Giotitsas
Dear ephemera community,

We hereby invite to participate in our yearly ephemera conference:

Materialities and socialities of postcapitalism: Commons, peer to peer sharing and solidarity

Time and place: Tzoumerka, Greece, 25-26 May 2020.
Deadline for submitting abstracts: 13 of March 2020.

Greece has been at the centre of the current Euro-crisis, giving rise to novel and innovative forms of civil activity. Many of these gestate post-capitalist forms either by necessity or by design. By applying self-management and peer-to-peerpractices inspired by the commons and economic solidarity – and using digital and other technological innovations, new crisis-resilient socio-technological systems are emerging. Hence, the event will be held in the largely neglected yet unspoiled mountainousregion of Tzoumerka, where farmers and researchers have created a community/space to collaboratively build practical solutions and tools for their production needs, usingmodern and traditional technologies.

The aim of this conference is to inquire into the organising for the potential collapse of the current dominant mode of production and consumption. By doing so, we build on the ephemera conference in Copenhagen in 2014 around the theme of organising for post-growth, as well as several special issues in ephemera(Graziano and Trogal, 2019; Phillips and Jeanes, 2018; Chertkovskaya, Johnsen and Stoborod, 2017; Johnsen, Nelund, Olaison and Sørensen, 2017).

Nevertheless, the aim is not to provide yet more critique on capitalism. Instead, we invite researchers, practitioners, activists and artists to contribute to the ongoing dialogue for post-capitalist construction, and to discuss howanother world is in the making. We wish to be inspired by and learn from real life projects leading the way in building alternatives locally and globally. We want to discuss empirical studies on themes related to sustainable and resilient grassroots development.From a theoretical point of view, we want to open up space for discussion on how we can create and be part of postcapitalist imaginaries through various levels of organising.

Attached you find the full call for participation. We encourage participation in a variety of formats including articles, notes, photo essays, exhibitions or any other practical and experimental contributions.

The deadline for submitting abstracts is 13 of March 2020. Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be submitted in a PDF/word document, and any questions addressed to Chris Giotitsas (chris.giotitsas(at)gmail.com). The conference is freefor participants without institutional support, while a selection of fee options is available for those with funding who wish to support ephemera.

An open call for a special issue in ephemera will follow the conference to which participants and non-participants will be able to submit papers.

We are looking forward discussing these urgent themes with you in May,

Chris Giotitsas, Lena Olaison and Ozan Nadir Alakavuklar
on behalf of the ephemera collective