Free Event in August at ISE

THE RELOCALIZATION OF GLOBALIZATION:
The Political Ecology of Tech/Media Activism
and Computer Hacking
Biella Coleman
MONDAY, AUGUST 9, at 7:30 p.m.

The force of economic globalization has been matched
by various activist and cultural "counter-powers"
grounded in other visions and practices of
globalization. This evening discussion surveys some of
the most enlivening counter-powers of tech/media
production and activism to provide a map of actually
existing forms of relocalization that are facilitated
by the social practices and material infrastructure of
information technologies. Instead of collapsing these
various instances as an example of a united front (for
example, by their de facto use of the Internet), there
is merit in a sustained, anthropological comparison
that seeks a clearer sense of the similarities and
differences. Though there are significant similarities
and increasing connections between some of these
associations, "the power" of these counter-powers lies
in creating a differentiated aggregate, a political
ecology composed of diverse practices, moral visions,
aims, desires, and possibilities. It is imperative to
sustain and make visible the plurality of potential
and actual alternatives in the face of a largely
monolithic system of globalization, whose very thrust
is precisely to deny the viability and worth of
heterogeneity.

Biella Coleman is finishing her PhD in anthropology at
the University of Chicago on the political and ethical
dynamics driving the collaborative production of free
and open source software. A native of the Caribbean,
she has worked in the Dominican Republic and Guyana in
religious healing communities, and her next project is
on expressive and human rights within the psychiatric
survivor movement. She has also worked aboard an
environmental science research vessel, interned at the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, and served on the
board of the Online Policy Group.