International, interdisciplinary colloquium explores "Languages of Economic Crises"

An international and interdisciplinary colloquium titled “Languages of Economic Crises” will take place March 17 from 7 to 9pm and March 18 from 11am to 3pm.

Speakers from five countries will present both live and via teleconference during the event. Panellists will explore the way in which language serves as a response to economic crises and a way of thinking of the economy otherwise through a series of international dialogues.

This is a free and public event, and refreshments will be served. It takes place in South 802, Ross Building.

The schedule of events and speakers include:

Thursday, March 17, 7 to 9pm

Katherine Gibson will present from Australia via teleconference. She is a renowned economic geographer at the University of Western Sydney. Her work with Julie Graham (under the pen name JK Gibson-Graham) includes influential texts such as The End of Capitalism (as we knew it); A Postcapitalist Politics and Take Back the Economy. This session will focus on the intersections between gender, language and economic crisis. Given the recent global financial crisis, we will explore ruptures in capitalism, language and the possibility of community-based economic organization. Professor Phillip Kelly (York University, Department of Geography) will give an introduction to the work of Gibson-Graham. Panellists Katharine Rankin (University of Toronto, Department of Geography) and Nancy Worth (York University, Department of Geography) will join the conversation on language, gender and the economy.

Friday, March 18, 11am to 12:15pm

The panel for “Constituting and Recovering Crises: Spain and Argentina” includes Jose Luis Carretero Miramar who is an author (La autogestión viva: Proyectos y experiencias de la otra economía al calor de la crisis) and activist from Madrid, Spain. He will give a talk on “Spain: crises and resistances. From social devastation to a battle for institutions”, which will address the context of the economic crisis in Spain, the discourse of popular resistance through the M-15 movement and the battle for institutions through radical municipal governments and the rise of the anti-austerity Podemos party nationally.

Joining this dialogue on the recovery from crisis is Professor Marcelo Vieta (University of Toronto OISE, Leadership, Higher and Adult Education). His research deals with worker self-management and cooperatives in Italy and Argentina. He has recently authored a book entitled There’s no stopping the workers: Crisis, autogestión, and Argentina’s worker-recuperated enterprises. His paper entitled “The language of autogestión: Argentine workers’ ethics-of-the-other in their stories and practices of self-management” will explore the language of the recovered factory movement in Argentina.

Friday, March 18, 12:30 to 1:45pm

Daniele Besomi, a researcher at the Centre Walras-Pareto (University of Lausanne), has written extensively on crises and business cycles, and has edited an authoritative collection on Cycles and Crises in Economic Dictionaries and Encyclopaedias (Routledge 2011). He will explore the shifting register of metaphors used to represent economic crises throughout the past two hundred years during a presentation entitled “Metaphors of Crisis”.

Joining this conversation is Sonya Scott, who is a professor of Business & Society at York University. She has written on the relationship between subjectivity and economic thought in a book titled Architectures of Economic Subjectivity: the philosophical foundations of the subject in the history of economic thought. She will present a paper on the use of the ‘vulture’ metaphor to describe predatory financial capitalism in sovereign debt crises, specifically focusing on Argentina during the recent governments of Nestor and Cristina Kirchner.

Friday, March 18, 2 to 3:15pm

Peter Bratsis, a professor of Political Science at the City University of New York (CUNY), is the author of several books, including Everyday Life and the State. His research focuses on the Greek crisis and the relationship between the state and popular movements. He will present a paper on the challenges posed by the way in which the Greek crisis was framed – from its characterization as a problem of PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) to the left response which focused on putting an end to human suffering and a desire to end austerity measures.

Also part of this panel is David McNally, both an activist and a professor of political science at York University. He is the author of many books, including Bodies of Meaning: Studies on Langauge, Labour and Liberation; Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism; and Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance. McNally will join the conversation with an intervention on the nature of contemporary crises and forms of popular resistances thereto.