Paola Sartoretto and Ekatarina Kalinina- Communicative solidarity : networked resistance to neoliberalism in urban spaces
Contemporary urbanization processes have led to fragmentation of urban communities, operated by dissociation between living and work, as well as rapid commercialization and diminishing of urban public spaces. Coupled with post-industrial urbanization; neoliberalism has gained dominance as a political system with both local and global effects. Increasing precarization of work that reduces the security of contemporary life leads, for many, to precarious existences lacking the stability to plan their lives. Meanwhile increasing individualization of relations mediated by consumption has intensified in hyper mediatized and commercialized urban centers. These processes happen in a context of so-called space schizophrenia (Santos, 2021) in which space is both singular and global, while citizenship is practically exercised at the local level, with global actors being anti-citizen in nature. Social fragmentation is particularly visible in times of crises with the care functions of neoliberal state failing to meet citizens’ needs. With the neoliberal dismantling of the welfare state and the safety net it provides, individuals are left alone to self organize.
However, in times of crisis we can also see the need for these connections to be forged and maintained, and witness how collectives self-organize to (re)kindle lost connections. Solidarity emerges thus as a strategy of action with practical and political aims to disrupt isolationism and forge networks of care needed to overcome crises. In this presentation we propose to conceptualize urban solidarity networks that emerge and are being maintained in contemporary urban settings during the times of crisis political processes that forge symmetric relations between communicating subjects through the appropriation of social technologies.
We build our theoretical argument on the study of the specific cases, such as Refugees Welcome Stockholm, Transport a Sister – Help Ukraine as well as several examples of community gardens and community kitchens. These cases show that communication technologies can be appropriated for solidarity purposes in at least two ways: 1) visibility and identification – communication in social media can give visibility to local questions and lead to collectivization of problems, and 2) engagement and participation – social media offer possibilities of action beyond symbolic identification through connections forged digitally.
Hjalte Betak- The digital freelancer as co-owner, employee and freelancer at once? Potentialities of platform cooperative organizing
The digital platform economy challenges the labor rights and social protection of a precarious workforce (Piasna et al. 2021; Ilsøe et al. 2022), decreases workers’ autonomy in algorithm-based platform work (Wood et al. 2019; Möhlmann et al. 2021), and constrains trade unions in protecting platform workers (Vandaele et al. 2019; Ilsøe 2022). Addressing these challenges invites solution-oriented research about alternative forms of organizing, which express and enact collective aspirations or hopes for the future.
Questions about who owns and controls the digital infrastructures of work and how this affects the well-being and working conditions of platform workers become relevant to posing alternatives to the currently dominant order of the platform economy. Platform cooperatives, defined by democratic ownership of digital platforms and governed by the cooperative principle of one member one vote, have, as several studies show, the potential to create better working conditions among platform gig-workers (Scholz et al. 2016; Schneider 2018). This paper explores potentialities of such alternative organization among knowledge working digital freelancers in a Danish context. Specifically, the research focuses on the relationship between autonomy, job satisfaction and democratic ownership, on the one hand, and control of platforms and work-related data, on the other.
Through exploratory and collaborative research with Danish union and cooperative partners, the research aims at contributing to the interdisciplinary exploration and promotion of new models of collective organizing related to democratic ownership in the digital sphere.
Potentialities for platform cooperative self-organization, and new models for work-related data control, are thus examined as alternative or supplementing strategies for enabling digital spaces of resistance, which may enhance the potential for better work lives among digital freelancers. Thus, the study contributes to the discussion of digital commons and alternative organizing as emancipatory alternatives to capitalistic forms of exchange (Wright 2009; Kostakis 2018; Reijers et al. 2018)
Eliisa Vainikka- Volunteering as an act of care : European volunteers’ place-making, mobilities and digital practices
This project aims to investigate, first theoretically and later empirically, the local practices and mobilities of European volunteers, as seen through the volunteers’ acts of care. The ethos of care can be seen as a foundation for hope, as care for the planet, people, communities, animals and even soil. The project will deepen the understanding of forms of care and collective caring, especially in relation to digital media practices, mobilities and place-making in local communities.
In this paper I ask, how can we further develop the idea of care as a theoretical concept in media studies? Care is understood here broadly as caring for other people, other living beings, and the environment. Behind the often optimistic and idealized visions of volunteering projects, looms the tension between solidarity and precarity. Volunteers from another country offer their work power to benefit the receiving community, but often their input remains as hidden work. Volunteers are described as change-makers, but the voluntary service is not only based on solidarity, but it can also be a way of escaping precarious conditions of the home country.
In the empirical part of the project, I plan to study European volunteers, working for example in eco villages and youth centres in Finland and in Italy. I ask, how does care emerge in relation to different human and non-human actors and events in the volunteering experience? The liminal space of an international volunteering experience offers an interesting transitional phase to study digital practices and ways of connecting to another place digitally, physically and emotionally.
Nadia Nava: ‘YouTube Cuba’: Showcasing hope and despair in the digital revolution era
Paraphrasing prize-winning journalist Abraham Jímenez, a new civil society generation was born in Cuba when internet access was made public for the first time in 2015. This paper delves into the (g)local narratives produced by Cuba’s Digital Revolution generation, with a particular focus on young internet users turned into YouTube microcelebrities who engaged in ambulatory practices (Cresswell 2010). By featuring landmarks, attractions, and quotidian itinerances that portray the city and the changes occurring within it and on its representations, they draw visual maps of a city in flux, available to global audiences. Their (g)local narratives can be understood as 1) an object of nostalgia and affection, 2) artifacts of hope for visual agency in a highly censored society, 3) a visual diary of the societal tensions that led to the largest migratory exodus from Cuba since the triumph of the 1959 revolution, amidst public discussions of a generalized and shared sense of societal despair. I aim to present a broad reflection on the connections between everyday political agency, space and place in the urban quotidian, and digital affordances in Cuba’s post-socialist economy. The paper is based on the analysis of more than a thousand videos uploaded to the YouTube platform between 2018 and 2023 and netnographic and mobile team ethnography observations.