Programme

Forum

• A grand opening with much pomp!

  Wednesday 23 – 17-20
   Amphi 630  Introductory

  Wednesday 23 August at 5pm, we will meet in the lecture hall “amphi 630”. The time is now to open the European Summer University for social movements. Co-organised by the European Attac Network and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, this inaugural session of the Summer University will pass the microphone to international speakers known for their engagement and for their analysis of the world as it presents itself today.

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• The crisis of establishment politics in the EU and new ways forward

  Thursday 24^th – 17-19
   Amphi 630

  The crisis of the EU’s establishment seems to leave the citizens of the union with a “choice” between exclusivist nationalism vs. a globalised neoliberalism (not exclusive of each other). How then could credible alternatives appear with social justice at their heart? And how can we build European convergences?

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• The End of the Western World? Emancipatory answers to the transformation of the international system towards a multipolar world

  Thursday 24^th – 17-19
   Amphi B  Introductory

  We witness a profound transformation of the international system. After 500 years of dominance of Western Europe and its North American offspring over the „rest of the world,“ we are heading towards a multi-polar world. This transformation contains new opportunities and new risks. Is there a chance for peace and democratization of the world order or will instability, conflict and war prevail? The panel will look into the complexity of the new problems beyond simplistic black and white schemes. A focus will be on the Middle East and Europe - from the Atlantic to (...)

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• The Future Isn’t Working: Automation, precarious work and the future of employment

  Thursday 24^th – 17-19
   Amphi C  Introductory

  The nature of paid work is changing rapidly, particularly in the West. Automation is affecting both skilled industrial jobs and unskilled service sector jobs. Work is increasingly precarious, not least because of the rise of ’platform capitalism’. What demands should we make to ensure ordinary people benefit from these technological changes, rather than corporations? Could work time reduction or a universal basic income make a difference? And how do we ensure care work, which is often unpaid, is valued too?

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• Bridges not borders : Building an Europe where migrants are welcome

  Friday 25^th – 17-19
   Amphi B

  Thousands of people are dying each year on the borders of the European Union. They are fleeing war, desperate poverty and even the effects of climate change, but the EU is trying to keep them out. Across Europe, far-right groups are gaining influence on government policy. Yet from Lampedusa to Calais, migrants are fighting for their rights, and many ordinary people are acting in solidarity with them. How do we build on these struggles to create a common movement for universal rights, which also integrates migrants into all of our social struggles? Let’s build a Europe of solidarity against the EU’s border (...)

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• Neoliberal globalisation, the end of a cycle?

  Friday 25^th – 17-19
   Amphi 630

  Brexit and the election of Trump, do they mark the end of the expansion of economic and financial globalisation? Do they translate a nationalistic fallback which is likely to generalise? Are they no more than accidents in the “inexorable” global capitalist integration? In this plenary session we will analyse globalisation’s “pause” (trade’s part in global GDP is in stagnation) while the WTO continues to be a powerful promoter of it and while new trade and investment agreements are transforming states in order to conform with the canons of neoliberalism and with the impunity and with the growing powers of multinational (...)

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• Collapse of the Casino? Is finance capitalism coming to its end?

  Saturday, 26^th – 17-19
   Amphi 630  Introductory

  Liberalization and deregulation of finance has been the economic gravity centre and the engine of globalization. Transnational capital markets have changed economy and society dramatically. What is behind the new phenomena? Is finance capitalism heading to its collapse? How does an emancipatory answer look like? There are a lot of new questions for which we need to discuss.

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• Tactics for social and ecological change

  Saturday, 26^th – 17-19
   Amphi B  Introductory

  As outcomes of the dominant economic model, climate change, the destruction of nature, injustice and inequality are interlinked: if the crisis is systemic, we need systemic solutions. But how do we achieve social and ecological transformations of our economy? By which actions is social change made? And what role does civil disobedience need to play? We will look at struggles against airport expansions, gas pipelines, privatization of water, and land grabbing to learn how to act and mobilize effectively and to bridge single-issue campaigns into a powerful force of (...)

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• At the intersection of struggles: class, race, gender, ecology

  Saturday, 26^th – 17-19
   Amphi C

  Already in the 1970s, radical feminism strongly claimed that social revolution would not come about without women’s liberation. Similarly, antiracism was slowly integrated into the fights lead by the Left. If women and other discriminated-against groups do not make up a homogeneous group, their struggles across the world speak volume of the importance of mixing analyses. How do relationships of domination interact with each other? How can these analyses participate in the elaboration of an alter-globalisation project?

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• Assembly of mobilisation

  Saturday, 26^th – 19-21
   Amphi 630  Introductory

  The time is now to pass the microphone to representatives of the diverse social movements who will present their analysis and their perspectives. Faced with the pursuit of antisocial, discriminatory, productivist and fiscally unjust politics carried out in France like the rest of Europe, how can we develop social and citizen mobilisation? How can we construct convergence between the social movements and across borders? How can the social movements be the messengers of alternatives and of experiments in order to convince a majority of citizens that there is another way, based on equality, rights and (...)

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• The left and the social & ecological movements: an assessment of the alterglobalist movement today

  Sunday 27^th – 14.15-16.15
   Amphi B  Introductory

  Over the past years, the pace of change, at every level, has accelerated. This plenary will focus on the transformation of movements, in particular after 2011, and on the debate among the left. We will present the situation in three continents: South America: the left governments arrived in power 15 years ago, generating a wave of hope all over the world. What is the evaluation of these governments and what is the situation of social movement in the continent? USA: both the Sanders campaign and the huge rise of mobilisations before and after the election of Trump are important for the rest of the world Europe: despite the strength of social movements across Europe and the new (...)

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• Building systemic alternatives to ecological disaster and social crisis

  Sunday 27^th – 14.15-16.15
   Amphi C  Introductory

  Our epoch can’t be reduced to a simple crisis of capitalism. Our societies and life on Earth are menaced at their foundations. Behind the instability and the chaos of a world more unpredictable with each passing day, radical social practices and new stories are reinventing themselves. New worlds are emerging.

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Seminar series

Workshop

Outdoor activities