We hosted a very well-attended workshop in the name of Red Mirror at the Anarchist Book Fair in Malmö. We’d like to thank the organisers of the event for allowing us to be there and of course everyone who attended as well!
We started with a brief introduction to the themes of Red Mirror, particularly focusing on the changes in labor from a fordist to a postfordist regime of work where factory work and it’s hegemonic male and white centered worker has given way to postfordism and it’s focus on services, feminization of labor and disintegration of classical political visions for the left. This we connect to the capacity of us to envision a post-capitalist society and relayed how this is an imperative task for the left today.
After this, we had two discussion blocks in small groups. One of these focused on political struggle, and the other on working (with “work” meaning also studies, unemployment and so on). This is our summary (mainly written as bullet points which we wrote on a white board) of the discussions in these groups, which we unfortunately did not have the time to finish properly. If you were there and would like to add something or to correct something we might have misrepresented, please write a comment.
STRUGGLE
- Facebook organising: surveillance vs openness/mass character of Facebook
- Use of encrypted apps
- Norms: everyone is expected to have a smartphone
- – Issues of organizing with norm breakers in tech (exclusions through tech)
- Metadata, phone tracking
- Possibilities through worldwide communication, joint attacks without direct contact
- Using older tech vs refusing tech
- Lack of knowledge on surveillance breeds paranoia
- Data is a new front in the struggle
- The city itself is recording
- Far right recording is a threat
- Symbols have power
This discussion focused on information and communication technologies (ICT:s) as the first question related to this. It became obvious that ICT:s are a focal point of organising which is more or less indispensable. Yet, ICT:s create a number of issues: first of all in the possibility of our enemies using them against us in various ways (police surveillance, far-right attempts to out us) but also in how it structures the democracy in a given group. Those who break the norms and for one reason or another do note use the ICT:s everyone else uses loses quite a bit of potential involvement in the group.
WORK
- Key passes/spaces blocked off or surveilled
- Time tables
- Self-survillance
- App-surveillance/digital time stamps
- Different jobs (ways to relate to tech) is highly different
- GPS trackers in carsControl increases through techWorkers have increased knowledge of systems visavi management
- Collapse of working day into all of life – increased exploitation
This part was mainly devoted to the first question (it was obvious we had too little time for what we had planned!) which was on surveillance in the workplace. What was common in most discussions were how digitalization had created new ways of controlling time, the stop watch has become digital and wormed it’s way into more and more places.
ICT:s creates a collapse of the working day into our everyday life as well. Now, we can be reached 24/7, and are expected to be reachable. At the same time, management loses more and more understanding of the systems that workers work with, and this offers chances for resistance.
Conclusion
We would like to thank everyone who attended! We were badly pressed for time, and hadn’t done Red Mirror in this way before. Please get in touch if you would like to collaborate with us further.