Theory in Crisis seminar - Deborah Cowen, 'Crisis in Motion'

n

hi everyone

00:11

my name is eugene brennan i'm a lecturer

00:13

at the university of london institute in

00:15

paris

00:16

and i'm really pleased to present to you

00:18

today a talk by deborah cowan from the

00:20

university of toronto entitled crisis in

00:22

motion

00:25

this talk takes place in a series

00:27

following on from talks by alberto

00:29

toscano

00:30

and sheila bembe entitled theory and

00:32

crisis

00:34

and this makes reference to um a number

00:36

of kind of

00:37

crises weighing on the presence we might

00:39

think of the global pandemic and

00:41

climate change uh various neo-fascisms

00:44

of the contemporary moments

00:46

what seeks to reintegrate the role of

00:49

critical theory more broadly

00:50

in times of crisis crisis indexes

00:54

certain changes

00:55

conditions of intensifying brutality but

00:58

the manifestations of

00:59

crisis today are not always novel for

01:02

many of the racialized and colonized

01:04

who have confronted being confronted

01:06

with such plural brutality throughout

01:08

modernity

01:10

in this regard theory always entails a

01:12

reflection

01:13

on periodization and never more so in

01:15

the case of crisis theory

01:17

which demands taking stock of the long

01:19

history of racial

01:21

capitalism to think through continuities

01:24

as well as rupture today

01:26

debra counts work provides a rich set of

01:29

resources for thinking through these

01:31

problems

01:33

deb's research is broadly concerned with

01:35

the politics of

01:36

infrastructure and circulation as well

01:39

as the military underpinnings

01:41

of nominally social life

01:44

in the deadly life of logistics her 2014

01:47

book

01:48

she maps the rise of logistics its

01:50

centrality to

01:51

more and more domains of social life

01:54

with particular attention to

01:55

commercial trades dependence upon

01:58

military planning and violence

02:00

the book deals with the so-called

02:02

logistics revolution

02:04

which describes the trends by which

02:06

firms started experimenting with

02:09

innovations in the distribution and

02:11

circulation of goods

02:13

as much as if not more so conventional

02:15

sites of production

02:17

the rise of the container ship

02:19

technologies such as just-in-time

02:21

delivery

02:22

total systems planning and later on

02:24

logarithmic managements

02:26

all these sorts of innovations as deb

02:28

argued

02:29

blurred the boundaries between making

02:31

and moving between production

02:33

and circulation and deb's book provides

02:36

illuminating insights

02:37

into these shifts in contemporary

02:39

capitalism in that regard

02:42

this reading of logistics suggests a

02:45

particular relationship to crisis

02:47

bound up with de-industrialization and

02:50

the so-called

02:51

long downturn of western economies

02:55

understanding logistics as a war on

02:57

labor uh

02:58

cutting back on costs experimenting with

03:01

spheres of circulation to

03:03

compensate for declining profits in more

03:05

conventional sites of production

03:07

this is one broad avenue for

03:08

understanding or thinking about the

03:10

relationship

03:11

between logistics and crisis but deb's

03:14

work

03:15

also shows how logistics is and always

03:17

has been intrinsically racial and

03:19

colonial

03:20

bounds up with dispossession and

03:22

military aggression throughout its

03:23

history

03:24

moreover another key line of

03:26

interrogation for this

03:28

series is how crisis indicates

03:31

possibility as well as limitations

03:34

how do actors and resistance movements

03:36

improvise and

03:37

forge possibility out of constraints

03:41

if power is more and more identified in

03:43

infrastructures

03:45

circulatory systems logistical choke

03:47

points

03:48

then a whole set of a whole repertoire

03:52

of them

03:53

tactics related to blockade

03:56

to um to sabotage have received renewed

03:59

attention

04:00

in recent years what some have called

04:03

circulation struggles or what deb and

04:06

many of her colleagues and friends have

04:07

called

04:08

and counter logistics

04:11

deb's work has been particularly

04:13

attentive to the

04:14

specifically settler colonial

04:16

geographies of infrastructure more

04:19

broadly

04:20

and the counter logistical organizing of

04:22

indigenous communities

04:24

in north america and elsewhere you can

04:26

read deb's work on this

04:28

um in publications such as the south

04:30

atlantic quarterly

04:32

urban geography the phenomenalists and

04:34

society and space

04:36

where deb is also on the editorial board

04:40

her talk today is similarly concerned

04:42

with the imperialist

04:44

uh logistics of circulation and the

04:46

entangled struggles over as she puts it

04:48

in the abstracts

04:50

and infrastructures refusal

04:52

reconfiguration

04:53

and repair so i for one can't wait to

04:57

hear the talk so i'm not going to delay

04:59

any further

05:00

and just a little bit of housekeeping

05:02

before i hand you over to dead as you

05:03

can see indicated on screen i think

05:05

uh there will be a q a session at the

05:07

ends we'll have plenty of time for

05:08

discussion

05:09

so please do answer your questions or

05:12

comments

05:12

and we'll try and get through as many as

05:14

we can afterwards

05:16

so it's uh an honor to introduce deborah

05:20

account

05:20

and over to you dad

05:24

thank you so much eugene um it is

05:27

such a pleasure to be here i want to

05:29

thank you for um

05:31

let me just get my slide up

05:35

there we go i want to thank you for that

05:38

beautiful introduction very generous

05:39

introduction

05:40

and for organizing such a vital series

05:42

that um we've really been enjoying i

05:44

think many of us

05:45

um i want to thank eric ertl for the

05:47

tech support which has also been

05:48

fabulous

05:49

i want to thank angen eisen who has

05:51

always been one of my most important and

05:52

inspiring mentors

05:54

um and thank you to alberto toscano and

05:56

akilemenbe for your earlier talks in

05:58

this series and for

05:59

being such terrifying and wonderful acts

06:01

to follow

06:02

more locally i want to thank my my

06:04

quarantine team my mom leslie um

06:07

sometimes here cash kai and asha and

06:09

occasionally sumana and especially elisa

06:12

trotts

06:12

who strengthens all my emotions and

06:14

inspires me with hers

06:16

i also want to try and start on a good

06:18

foot by asking us to reflect

06:20

on our geographies i'm speaking to you

06:22

today from toronto or takaronto

06:24

treaty 13 territory on the lands of the

06:27

hodnessoni the anushnabe

06:29

the wendat and the mississauga of the

06:30

credit first nation

06:32

this is an exquisite place animated by

06:34

extraordinary solidarity and creativity

06:37

but it's also a settler colony where

06:39

violence and dispossession

06:41

of indigenous life and land unfold in

06:43

real time

06:44

and where anti-black racism and uneven

06:46

vulnerabilities to premature death

06:48

are laid bare following my my colleague

06:51

professor jill carter i also want to

06:53

acknowledge our digital geographies

06:55

the ability to gather in this way may

06:57

appear placeless but corporate digital

06:59

platforms implicate particular locales

07:02

we're meeting today on microsoft teams

07:05

just two weeks after it was announced

07:07

that

07:07

bill gates has become the largest

07:09

landowner in the united states

07:11

now claiming possession of 242 thousand

07:14

acres of farmland

07:16

i cannot even begin to speak to these

07:19

histories of colonization and

07:20

dispossession across such a vast

07:22

real estate portfolio but i will try and

07:24

draw attention to these connections in

07:26

my talk today

07:28

so finally before i start i want to

07:29

invite all of you to close your eyes for

07:31

just a moment

07:32

and um imagine a sound or sight of

07:35

motion that to you feels

07:37

calming maybe even joyful it might be

07:40

like a river running

07:41

or an electronic beat you won't be asked

07:44

to share your motion don't worry

07:46

but it might come in handy later

07:50

okay so if 2020 was a year of cascading

07:53

crises

07:54

then the arrival of 2021 reminds us that

07:57

gregory and temporal borders cannot

07:59

contain the forces of life

08:01

and death any better than westphalian

08:02

spatial ones the first

08:04

week of the new year saw eight eighty

08:06

thousand three hundred coveted deaths

08:08

around the world

08:09

bush fires burning again in australia

08:11

and the stunning white supremacist

08:13

attacks on the us capital

08:14

among so many other disasters there's

08:17

something about the ubiquity of crises

08:18

that defines

08:19

our present even as the everyday has

08:22

long been unlivable for so many

08:24

in his recent book the apocalypse of

08:26

settler colonialism

08:28

gerald horn reminds us that even

08:29

apocalypse the biggest crisis of all

08:32

is a recurring experience for colonized

08:34

and enslaved people

08:36

and yet the feeling that life cannot or

08:38

will not go on in this way may be shared

08:40

now more widely than ever before

08:42

today i want to think with you about a

08:44

common thread to the multitude of crises

08:46

that constitute contemporary life

08:48

i want to explore the catastrophe of the

08:50

present as

08:51

crisis in motion in the framing text for

08:54

this series eugene brennan cites stewart

08:56

hall's conception of crisis as occurring

08:58

quote when the social formation can no

09:01

longer be reproduced on the basis of

09:03

pre-existing system of social relations

09:06

lauren berlant likewise locates crisis

09:08

in reproduction

09:10

all right all times are transitional she

09:12

writes but at some times like this one

09:15

politics is defined by a collectively

09:17

held sense that a glitch has appeared

09:19

in the reproduction of life reproduction

09:22

insists that life

09:23

life worlds and what beverly mulling's

09:25

terms life work in the tradition of

09:27

feminist social reproduction theory

09:29

need to be continually remade at a

09:31

variety of scales

09:32

at once intimate and imperial bodies

09:35

need to be fed

09:36

cells need to regenerate populations

09:38

need to be replaced

09:40

relations need to be performed even

09:42

solidarity according to ruthie gilmore

09:45

needs to be remade and remade and remade

09:47

it never just

09:48

is wherever reproduction is the linchpin

09:51

crisis is already understood as crisis

09:54

in motion

09:56

the notion that life is in motion or

09:58

life is motion has myriad sources

10:00

writing from this territory where i

10:02

speak indigenous scholar and artist lan

10:04

simpson

10:05

explores how anishinabe life worlds are

10:07

anchored in motion

10:08

simpson writes being enmeshed in the

10:10

cyclical flux of the earth lodge

10:11

mishnatic people traveled

10:13

throughout their localized territories

10:15

in seasonal fashion

10:16

our lifeway required cyclical and

10:18

rhythmical movements

10:20

society and clan structure expanded and

10:22

contracted like a beating heart or

10:23

working lungs

10:24

end quote simpson engages weissner's

10:27

seminal work on the concept of

10:29

transmotion

10:30

uh wiseman writes natives have always

10:33

been on the move by chance

10:34

necessity barter reciprocal sustenance

10:36

and by trade over extensive routes

10:39

the actual motion is a natural right and

10:41

the tribal stories of transmotion are a

10:43

continuous sense of visionary

10:45

sovereignty

10:47

octavia butler who has been described as

10:49

a radical black

10:51

feminist theorist historiographer and

10:53

researcher across

10:54

fields and disciplines was also invested

10:56

in motion

10:58

in her extraordinary novel parable of

10:59

the sower life is in motion

11:01

god is change like the biblical figure

11:04

who struggles to find fertile soil to

11:06

sow seeds for a future

11:08

butler's brand of radical reproduction

11:10

requires that we cultivate change

11:13

as butler explains in general we can

11:15

shape change but we can't stop it

11:17

no matter how hard we try throughout the

11:19

universe the ongoing reality is change

11:22

indeed motion is at the heart of black

11:24

radical and feminist thought through

11:26

figurations of fugitivity

11:28

for sadia hartman movement constitutes a

11:30

kind of deeply situated faith

11:32

and futurity she writes the thought of

11:35

what might be possible was

11:36

indistinguishable

11:38

from moving bodies and the transient

11:39

rush and flight of black folks in the

11:42

city within the city

11:44

in these traditions motion is

11:46

constitutive of life itself

11:47

and crisis takes shape through

11:48

disruption leanne simpson for instance

11:51

describes colonialism as a bomb going

11:53

off in slow motion

11:55

which disrupts the rhythms cycles and

11:57

movements of nishnabe life

11:59

yet alongside these vital visions of

12:01

life in most motion

12:02

are diagnoses of the violence of

12:05

colonial and racial capitalist

12:06

circulation

12:08

for marx crisis doesn't simply emerge

12:11

with problems in circulation

12:12

but in the production of particular

12:14

regimes of motion

12:16

as nail writes for marx everything is in

12:18

motion not just capitalism

12:20

the issue for marx is not between

12:21

capitalist movement and revolutionary

12:23

stasis

12:24

the question is how a specifically

12:26

capitalist pattern of circulation works

12:28

capitalism for marx is a regime of

12:30

motion defined by dispossession and

12:32

exploitation

12:34

jody melamed emphasizes the violent

12:36

motions of racial capitalism

12:38

when she writes capital can only be

12:40

capital when it is accumulating

12:41

and it can only accumulate by producing

12:43

and moving through

12:45

relations of severe inequality among

12:47

human groups

12:48

marx's extended focus on motion is

12:50

associated with volumes 2 and 3 of

12:52

capital

12:53

but the argument that capitalism is in

12:55

itself a regime of motion

12:57

lies at the center of his most

12:58

fundamental and basic theory of value

13:01

it is his quote general formula for

13:03

capital

13:04

the capitalist regime of motion is

13:06

identical with what he terms expanded

13:08

reproduction

13:10

here reproduction is not characterized

13:12

by subsistence

13:13

instead capital is accumulated as it

13:15

moves from money

13:17

to cap to commodity capital and back to

13:19

m prime or money form again

13:21

it's not magic that makes expanded

13:23

reproduction possible but

13:25

theft surplus rather than survival

13:27

becomes the end game of reproduction

13:29

within a capitalist regime of motion

13:31

or as rosa luxembourg explains profit

13:34

becomes an end in itself and

13:36

the decisive factor which determines not

13:38

only production

13:39

but also reproduction theft is typically

13:42

thought of in terms of labor surplus

13:44

but as dna scholar glenn quiltard argues

13:47

if we take colonialism seriously

13:49

then expanded reproduction may equally

13:51

or additionally entail thefts of land

13:53

and more than human life primitive

13:56

accumulation as harvey has reminded us

13:58

is perpetual rutha gilmore reminds us

14:01

that motion takes different forms that

14:03

are related

14:04

but not identical she insists that

14:06

capital circulates through captive

14:07

humans

14:08

whose own motion is disrupted by their

14:10

containment incarceral

14:12

and we should add plantation space

14:14

physical movement is critically

14:16

important and for marx even a source of

14:18

value

14:18

and yet he also suggests that capital

14:20

circulation quote

14:22

can take place without physical movement

14:24

a house that is sold

14:26

from a to b circulates as a commodity

14:28

but it does not get up and walk

14:30

this does not make motion any less

14:32

important only more complex

14:35

while these forms of motion are not

14:36

identical they also can't be

14:37

disentangled

14:39

physical circulation has the special

14:40

capacity to accelerate the circulation

14:43

of capital

14:44

for instance the circulation of legal

14:45

documents and financial transactions are

14:47

necessary to the house sale

14:49

and these are undeniably material

14:52

luxembourg sees

14:53

these two forms of motion as necessarily

14:56

entangled

14:57

making expanded reproduction inherently

15:00

imperial

15:01

it is driven not only by quote a

15:03

permanent incentive to reproduction in

15:05

general she writes but also a motive for

15:07

its expansion

15:08

for reproduction on an ever larger scale

15:11

for luxembourg

15:12

expanded reproduction inevitably

15:14

inevitably relies on geographic

15:16

expansion

15:18

but what underpins particular

15:19

configurations of motion

15:21

how does the relationship between

15:22

different forms of motion materialize

15:24

and how does motion get organized

15:26

otherwise

15:28

infrastructures are quite literally the

15:29

socio-technical systems

15:31

assembled to sustain or expand

15:33

reproduction

15:34

decades ago david harvey argued that

15:36

crises of capitalist motion can be

15:38

temporarily resolved through the

15:40

production of built infrastructure

15:42

what he terms a spatial fix ruthie

15:44

gilmore writes

15:46

in the material world infrastructure

15:48

speeds some processes and slows down

15:50

others

15:50

setting agendas producing isolation and

15:53

enabling

15:54

cooperation ever concerned with the

15:56

complexities of materiality

15:58

gilmore also reminds us that the

15:59

infrastructures of feeling are material

16:02

too

16:02

in the sense that quote ideology becomes

16:05

material as do the actions that feelings

16:07

enable or constrain

16:09

assuming a capacious materiality lauren

16:12

berlant helpfully

16:13

defines infrastructure as quote the

16:15

movement or patterning of social form

16:17

and suggests that an infrastructural

16:19

analysis helps us to see that what we

16:21

commonly call structure

16:23

is not an intractable principle of

16:25

continuity across time and space

16:27

but a convergence of force and value in

16:30

patterns of movement

16:32

that's only solid when seen from a

16:34

distance

16:35

years ago dorian massey argued that

16:37

various

16:38

transportation and communications

16:39

infrastructures produce power geometries

16:42

speeding up motion and connectivity for

16:44

some but in ways that erect barriers or

16:46

slow the motion of others

16:49

imperial infrastructures support the

16:50

flourishing of some at the expense of

16:53

others

16:54

infrastructure is vital to biological

16:56

and social reproduction

16:57

but as winona leduc and i argue have

16:59

argued insofar as they are oriented

17:02

towards

17:02

expanded reproduction infrastructures

17:05

dispossess

17:06

extract and accumulate a whole range of

17:09

anti-colonial and indigenous writers

17:11

including audrey simpson la le calilli

17:12

simone brown nishwana gomen

17:14

and spice nick estes tim mitchell sherry

17:17

pasternack michelle

17:18

murphy manuka i could go on and on and

17:20

on here um

17:21

explore the infrastructural

17:22

underpinnings of imperialism so for

17:24

leanne simpson who we've we've heard

17:26

from before today

17:27

it's a colonial hydro dam that disrupts

17:29

her people's life ways

17:30

their rhythms and motions by fragmenting

17:33

the movement of waters and fish

17:35

walter rodney provides a breathtaking

17:37

account of the backbreaking enslaved

17:39

labor that built the systems of dikes

17:40

and canals

17:41

which made the plantation and human

17:43

habitation

17:44

possible along the guyanese coast omar

17:47

salamanca explains how construction of

17:49

road systems that segregate palestinian

17:51

and israeli mobilities

17:52

are vital to land dispossession and the

17:54

reproduction of the wider apartheid

17:56

system

17:58

even nasty old imperialists can help us

18:00

think about imperial motion as

18:02

infrastructural

18:03

alfred there man a founding father of

18:05

classic geopolitics

18:06

suggested that the geography of british

18:08

colonies could be mapped according to

18:10

one simple logic

18:12

the fueling of maritime forces mann

18:14

writes

18:15

quote useful harbors and the conditions

18:17

of the communications between them

18:19

constitute the main strategic outlines

18:21

of the situation

18:22

infrastructure materializes imperial

18:24

circulation

18:26

and as such becomes a critical site of

18:28

anti-colonial struggle

18:29

so with the remainder of my time today i

18:32

want to track the infrastructures of

18:33

broken worlds

18:34

and movements beyond i want to trace how

18:37

crisis is produced by particular

18:38

configurations of motion

18:40

and so too by particular forms of

18:42

infrastructure

18:43

i'll ask whose reproduction get in gets

18:45

infrastructured

18:46

and engage the radical alternatives to

18:48

racial capitalists and settler colonial

18:50

circulation that abound

18:52

tethered to this territory where i am

18:53

now i tell three tales of crises the

18:56

crisis of the coven 19 pandemic

18:58

the crisis of anti-black racism and

19:00

colonialism and the climate crisis

19:03

but i emphasize their deep entanglement

19:05

each story is a fragment of a wider

19:07

story about the violent motion of

19:09

expanded reproduction

19:10

i invite you to listen for places people

19:12

and forms of power that repeat

19:14

in the entangled crises of premature

19:16

death dispossession and ecological

19:18

collapse looking to struggles over the

19:21

imperial logistics of circulation and

19:23

containment

19:24

i ask what kinds of collective futures

19:26

are set in motion through

19:28

infrastructural

19:28

refusal and repair

19:33

as the last month last month of the

19:35

wretched year of 2020 drew to a close a

19:38

dramatic crisis of circulation

19:40

unfolded at the french british border as

19:42

many as 10 000 truckers transformed

19:44

hundreds of kilometers of roads in

19:46

southern england

19:47

into a massive linear parking lot when

19:49

the channel crossing closed

19:51

france's refusal to allow usual traffic

19:54

through

19:54

was officially prompted by attempts to

19:56

contain the second covet strain

19:58

truckers from across europe who had

19:59

carefully planned transnational

20:01

itineraries in order to make it home for

20:03

winter holidays were left stranded

20:05

no food no services and no tests were

20:07

initially on

20:08

offer despite the dependence of national

20:10

economies on transnational supply chains

20:13

little thought has been invested in

20:14

planning for disruption of this kind or

20:16

at this scale

20:17

for the first few days of the crisis

20:19

truckers relied on small provisions they

20:21

kept in their cabs

20:22

and the few filthy restrooms they could

20:24

find nearby

20:25

eventually the british army was deployed

20:27

to manage the scene

20:28

only as coveted tests were processed did

20:30

the french allow the backlog to ease

20:32

but this crisis in motion diagnosed some

20:34

key elements

20:35

of the power and precarity of supply

20:37

chain capitalism in our pandemic present

20:40

from panics over toilet paper and the

20:42

hoarding of essentials in the early

20:44

spring

20:44

to concerns about shutdowns in china

20:47

creating disruption to supply for

20:48

western consumption

20:50

to the geopolitical crisis of ppe to the

20:53

current logistics of

20:55

vaccine apartheid pandemic pedagogy has

20:58

involved mass education about some basic

21:00

tenets of supply chain capitalism

21:02

labor scholar kim moody suggests that

21:04

the pandemic has graphically

21:05

demonstrated the centrality of the human

21:07

networks that keep the global supply

21:09

chains moving

21:10

that is all those who produce the goods

21:12

and those that bring them to the factory

21:14

the hospital the supermarket

21:16

and your self-isolating home end quote

21:19

it was fears about disruptions to supply

21:21

chains that led to the designation of

21:24

essential workers

21:25

that seemed so briefly to offer an

21:27

opening the possibility for the

21:28

valorization of hyper-exploited

21:30

precarious workers mostly of color

21:33

instead what we've increasingly come to

21:34

see are corporate pr stunts performing

21:36

gratitude to the supposed

21:38

essential worker heroes while refusing

21:40

meaningful shifts in financial

21:42

compensation

21:43

sick leave or even access to ppe it's

21:46

not an accident that amazon's jeff bezos

21:49

the world's first trillionaire is a

21:51

leader in the logistics sector

21:52

he and others like him have grabbed even

21:54

more wealth through the pandemic largely

21:56

through the hyper-exploitation of that

21:58

category of worker

21:59

making the really dramatic explosion of

22:01

labor actions in these sectors

22:03

additionally important

22:05

this is critical but the problems of

22:07

logistics and disruption also run

22:09

much deeper in this moment this deeper

22:11

problem of logistics speaks to how this

22:13

calculative management and

22:15

martial science has remade society and

22:17

space beyond just transportation and

22:19

distribution

22:21

in fact the crisis in motion of this

22:22

moment lies not only in matters of

22:24

physical distribution

22:26

but also in the production of life in

22:28

imperial motion

22:29

logistics has long been about making

22:31

live and die by making and containing

22:33

motion logistics has its ancient genesis

22:36

as an art of war

22:37

supplying and sustaining the battlefield

22:40

modern logistics emerged through

22:41

gruesome imperial circulations

22:44

the transatlantic slave trade as motin

22:46

and harney have explored for instance

22:48

the revolution in logistics took place

22:50

in the post-world war

22:51

ii period and saw the harnessing of

22:52

military methods of

22:54

quote supplying the front for corporate

22:56

operations

22:57

before the revolution logistics emerged

23:00

as a management science of materials

23:02

movement across production and

23:03

distribution in both

23:05

sorry before the revolution logistics

23:07

was a martial art of moving and

23:08

provisioning men and munitions in quotes

23:12

after the revolution logistics emerged

23:14

as a management science of materials

23:16

movement across production and

23:17

distribution

23:18

in both the corporate and military

23:20

sector logistics transform not just

23:22

distribution but racial capitalism

23:24

itself

23:25

its relations to questions of

23:27

circulation and containment

23:29

and to matters of life and premature

23:30

death

23:32

in order to flesh this out let us return

23:34

to turtle island or north america to an

23:36

earlier scene of backlog

23:37

one perhaps more gruesome than the first

23:40

this brutal backlog took shape at a

23:42

border of sorts

23:43

the border between animal life and meat

23:45

product at the slaughterhouse gate

23:47

along with prisons care facilities and

23:50

distribution centers

23:51

meat processing plants have been ground

23:53

zero for pandemic outbreaks with

23:55

striking impacts on precarious often

23:57

migrant workers who are mostly of color

24:00

after decades of corporate consolidation

24:02

a small number of american

24:03

slaughterhouses

24:04

process billions of pounds of meat each

24:06

year

24:08

one single smith fields plant in north

24:09

dakota produces five percent of the

24:11

nation's pork products

24:13

ninety-eight percent of beef products

24:15

are processed in just 50 slaughterhouses

24:18

coveted outbreaks occur because of

24:21

working conditions and productivity

24:23

demands

24:23

that make meaningful distancing

24:25

impossible because of the lack of

24:27

provisioning of ppe

24:29

and because of the social determinants

24:30

of health

24:32

the outbreak outbreaks led to plant

24:34

closures creating enormous bottlenecks

24:36

in the profoundly industrial

24:39

family industrial and logistical meat

24:41

sector in the u.s and elsewhere the

24:43

infection

24:44

and premature death of processing plant

24:46

workers not only their labor

24:48

their extraordinary labor actions have

24:50

been a source of supply chain disruption

24:52

and the massive and not at all humane

24:54

cause of animal life

24:56

have been um sorry have been one of the

24:59

gruesome

25:00

costs millions of more than human lives

25:02

have been premature

25:03

prematurely extinguished sometimes by

25:05

disrupting air circulation

25:07

turning off ventilation systems the

25:09

critical infrastructures that supported

25:11

livestock breath

25:12

to produce slow mass inhumane

25:15

suffocation

25:17

as the crisis of corporate killing

25:18

deepened former the former u.s president

25:21

responded by issuing an executive order

25:23

that deemed meat packing plants to be

25:25

critical infrastructure under the

25:26

defense production act of 1950

25:28

the executive order prohibited their

25:30

closure by state health authorities

25:32

and provided meat packing companies with

25:35

a legal defense from liability claims by

25:37

their employees

25:38

perhaps predictably the order worked to

25:41

protect infrastructures of expanded

25:43

reproduction for corporations

25:45

while sacrificing the social

25:46

reproduction of essential workers

25:48

yet plants continue to close when

25:50

outbreaks cannot be discursively

25:52

contained

25:54

this crisis is horrific but logistics

25:56

does not simply come into play with the

25:57

movement of livestock from the farm

25:59

to the slaughterhouse but in the very

26:01

design of the pig or cow itself

26:04

the ikea flat pack has reshaped the

26:06

design of furniture to prioritize

26:08

movement

26:09

designed for the logic of cost

26:10

efficiency and transport and assembly

26:12

labor

26:13

and likewise the logistics of swine and

26:17

cattle production have reshaped the very

26:19

form

26:20

of the pig and cow to enhance the

26:23

efficiency of the supply chain towards

26:25

enhanced

26:25

enhanced expanded reproduction for

26:28

supply chain management

26:29

the pig is hardly a life form but at all

26:32

but one form

26:33

in the state one stage of pork as

26:36

commodity in the cycle of value

26:38

realization and profit maximization it's

26:41

been dramatically refigured as a life

26:42

form towards that

26:43

end swine hips are now standardized to

26:46

fit the machines of slaughter

26:49

in the corporate meat sector every

26:50

aspect of the cycle of life

26:52

has been reorganized by supply chain

26:54

management and its software

26:56

so that the animal fits the system of

26:58

motion as one industry textbook explains

27:01

logistics not science is the

27:03

underpinning of a successful breeding

27:05

policy

27:06

this includes everything from ovulation

27:08

synchronization

27:09

for reproductive efficiency to the

27:11

timing of insemination

27:13

and the weaning of sows and cows to fit

27:16

trucking schedules

27:17

themselves organized to maximize

27:18

efficiency at processing facilities

27:21

in the meat supply chain livestock is

27:23

subject to more and more logistical

27:25

refashioning

27:26

through this sector though the sector

27:28

was also a key innovator

27:30

in modern industrial logistics henry

27:33

ford first saw the conveyor belt in

27:35

action

27:36

in gustavus swift chicago

27:37

slaughterhouses a literal disassembly

27:40

line

27:40

carcasses were suspended from a trolley

27:42

system that accelerated the circulation

27:44

of meat

27:45

and capital before adapting them to the

27:47

auto plant

27:48

meat processing has long been at the

27:50

forefront of corporate logistical life

27:52

but with a corporate meat supply chain

27:54

now fully organized as a conveyor belt

27:56

not simply after animal death but for

27:58

the production of animal life

28:00

any significant disruption can quickly

28:02

become system failure

28:04

with this dreadful example i want to

28:06

emphasize that logistics

28:07

is about making forms of life and death

28:09

in motion

28:10

about managing movement into through and

28:13

beyond production

28:14

logistics is a management and martial

28:16

science that has the goal of maximizing

28:18

the circulation of capital through

28:19

materials movement

28:21

crisis in motion take shape not only in

28:23

the crucially important but more

28:24

narrowly defined sector of

28:26

distribution rather logistics produces

28:29

particular forms

28:30

of life in motion that are defined by

28:32

crisis

28:33

in arguing for a productive conception

28:35

of logistical power

28:36

i'm also inviting us to think about the

28:38

logistical crisis of the pandemic

28:40

differently

28:41

jennifer terry has argued that all wars

28:43

have their quote signature injury

28:45

the unintended but pattern damage to

28:47

soldiers bodies

28:48

that are common effects of particular

28:50

weapons technologies

28:51

similarly we might question how the

28:53

particular organization of motion

28:55

through logistics and its

28:57

infrastructures produces signature

28:59

injuries at a planetary scale

29:01

could this pandemic be a signature

29:03

injury of logistical life

29:04

through the novel coronavirus have its

29:07

genesis and habitat destruction

29:08

rapid global suburbanization industrial

29:11

agro-business

29:12

and supply chain infrastructures that

29:14

constitute racial capitalism today

29:16

in order to question consider this

29:18

question more carefully

29:19

and to attend to the profoundly colonial

29:21

contours of crises in motion

29:23

i'll look to a look at infrastructures

29:24

infrastructure's imperial afterlives

29:27

the second story of crisis also starts

29:29

in the summer of 2020.

29:34

on august 29 2020 the head of canada's

29:37

first prime minister sir johnny

29:38

macdonald hit the ground

29:40

montreal activists toppled and

29:42

decapitated the statue

29:44

statue during an action calling on

29:45

police leaders to defund

29:47

sorry calling on political leaders to

29:49

defund police services

29:50

a few weeks earlier black lives matter

29:52

activists in toronto

29:54

clearly covered their mcdonald in pink

29:56

paint eliciting a formal public thank

29:58

you from indigenous sovereignty movement

30:00

leaders

30:00

at idle no more in a show of

30:02

anti-colonial movement solidarity

30:04

local media reported that toronto's

30:06

mcdonald

30:07

had been quote covered up ever since and

30:09

inside this enclosure you can see a bag

30:11

over the father of canadian

30:13

confederation's head

30:14

end quote on the east coast

30:16

anti-colonial activists in charlottetown

30:18

doused their mcdonald and blood colored

30:20

paint as did organizers on the west

30:22

coast in victoria

30:24

while in ottawa and kingston mcdonald

30:25

was placed under heavy state

30:27

surveillance

30:28

with cctv cameras and police patrols

30:30

added to monitor him around the clock

30:32

to protect his body and perhaps the

30:34

settler colonial body politic from any

30:36

kind

30:36

of disfiguration as monuments to

30:39

colonial racial capitalist violence came

30:41

crashing down around the world

30:42

entangled movements for indigenous land

30:44

back and black lives matter on this

30:46

territory too had had enough

30:48

they insisted that canada's first prime

30:50

minister could no longer be allowed to

30:52

stand

30:52

neither physically a statue in the city

30:55

nor symbolically as heroic figure in

30:56

history

30:57

in official pedagogy mcdonald is

30:59

remembered as the nation's founding

31:01

father

31:02

but the patriarch's decapitation

31:03

announces another story

31:05

of an engineer of genocide these

31:07

competing accounts

31:08

collide on the transcontinental railway

31:11

tracks

31:12

mcdonald's insisted that a

31:14

transcontinental railroad would be the

31:16

spine of his new colonial state

31:18

the skeleton for a new body politic and

31:20

i'll just highlight for those of you who

31:22

may not be familiar with canadian

31:23

political history

31:24

the big sort of figure here in the

31:26

center um is mcdonald's

31:28

wearing a police uniform with this kind

31:30

of big phallic baton

31:32

and you can see um both this horrific

31:34

scene of kind of a forced

31:36

jump over the edge of a clip echoing the

31:38

kind of buffalo jump

31:39

the comments about the westward movement

31:41

on in the sunrise on the left

31:44

and then the railway itself as kind of

31:47

standing in for a civilization

31:49

fueling this movement of settlers

31:52

so at the height of what manu kuruka

31:54

calls 19th century railroad colonialism

31:56

mcdonald took to build an iron road from

31:58

coast to coast

31:59

connecting scattered british colonies of

32:01

north america and mirroring the westward

32:03

expansion underway in the united states

32:05

this rail was first envisioned as a key

32:07

link in british imperial circulatory

32:09

systems to the far east

32:10

to compete with the growing westward

32:12

reach of the rising u.s empire

32:14

to unload surplus population and to

32:16

maintain imperial

32:17

hegemony more than metaphor the

32:20

socio-technical spine

32:22

would support a vast continental reach

32:24

of colonial settlement in circulation

32:26

while it would become the vital physical

32:28

backbone to uphold settler economy

32:31

and legal jurisdiction mcdonald's iron

32:33

spine indeed became the backbone of a

32:35

new settler colonial body politic

32:37

but what kind of beast did it build rail

32:40

infrastructure

32:41

literally materially made the settler

32:43

state possible

32:44

and it did so through an imperial

32:46

logistics of creative destruction

32:48

anchored in dispossession displacement

32:50

and hyper-exploitation

32:52

in this era of the railway barons

32:54

infrastructure expansion became an

32:56

extraordinarily lucrative means of

32:58

expanding reproduction

32:59

a massive public-private partnership the

33:02

railroad was financed first and more

33:04

first and foremost by land theft and

33:06

sale

33:08

enormous tracks of indigenous land were

33:10

granted by the dominion government to

33:11

the railroad companies

33:13

in canada the railways recruited

33:15

settlers and settlements through their

33:16

own department of colonization

33:19

as well as by and you can see just some

33:21

of the um their brochures and

33:22

advertisements

33:24

here on the screen that were circulated

33:27

in

33:27

[Music]

33:29

western and northern europe and to the

33:30

united states

33:33

they also were involved in selling land

33:35

from transnational colonization

33:37

companies

33:38

and this just shows you quickly um some

33:40

of the scale of land transfer but also

33:42

that it was being transferred to

33:44

companies

33:45

headquartered in different parts of

33:47

north america and

33:48

especially london britain

33:52

so white settlers were encouraged and

33:54

incentivized to settle with proximity to

33:56

whiteness the means for sorting racial

33:58

settler hierarchies black migration was

34:01

specifically and actively discouraged by

34:02

both formal

34:03

and informal means at every scale banks

34:07

and bankers feasted on this

34:08

infrastructure of enclosure

34:10

through it they circulated capital

34:12

extracted from theft of bodies

34:14

labor and lands throughout the colonized

34:16

worlds

34:17

banks like bearings with capital accrued

34:19

through slavery and colonialism

34:21

provided critical capital for the cpr

34:24

the canadian pacific railroad

34:25

in its final stages of construction and

34:28

to this day

34:28

are commemorated in the name of one of

34:31

its premier locations

34:32

revelstoke station which today marks a

34:35

world famous ski resort

34:36

was named after lord revelstoke also

34:39

known as edward bering

34:40

the image on the bottom left to

34:42

acknowledge the bank's crucial capital

34:44

injection into the infrastructure

34:46

in a strange but i think delicious

34:48

coincidence revelstoke ski resort

34:50

features a famous hill one of their top

34:52

hills um which is called

34:54

kill the banker the railroads were often

34:58

that were

34:58

sorry were also bound up in complex

35:01

racialized labor regimes

35:02

that particularly impacted chinese and

35:04

black workers

35:06

as in the united states the most

35:07

dangerous parts of construction were

35:09

assigned

35:10

to chinese workers underpaid and relying

35:13

on their own provisions and medical care

35:15

chinese workers died at a rate of two

35:17

for every kilometer

35:18

of track laid in the treacherous rocky

35:20

mountains

35:22

black workers were recruited as porters

35:24

with conditions of work that rivaled

35:26

slavery

35:27

the rail carried white passengers into

35:28

intimate fantasies of racial

35:30

subservience

35:31

and it carried racialized workers to

35:32

premature deaths

35:34

across turtle island railroads became

35:36

the key infrastructure

35:38

in the colonial war against first

35:39

peoples through it

35:41

a vast set of indigenous territories

35:43

were forcibly consolidated

35:45

under the jurisdiction of settler states

35:48

on both sides of the medicine line

35:50

the railroads prompted an enabled land

35:52

theft on the great plains

35:53

and they did so through a logistical war

35:56

on indigenous peoples food supplies

35:58

indeed a key rationale for the canadian

36:00

railroad was its role

36:02

in asserting the border against american

36:04

invasion

36:05

lands were cleared for the coming

36:07

railroad while the railroad also became

36:09

a colonial weapon to clear the land

36:11

they were critical in the extermination

36:13

of the buffalo that had roamed turtle

36:15

island central plains

36:16

reaching north to alaska and the yukon

36:18

territories and south

36:20

through the state now known as georgia

36:22

in just a few decades the buffalo herds

36:24

were hunted to near extinction

36:26

with devastating consequences for

36:28

indigenous peoples

36:29

whose life ways were profoundly

36:30

entangled with the buffalo

36:32

settler states saw the buffalo slaughter

36:35

as a logistical warfare to clear the

36:37

plains of indigenous peoples

36:39

through extermination of their food

36:42

supply

36:43

this is painfully clear in u.s general

36:45

custer's directive to quote kill every

36:47

buffalo you can

36:48

every buffalo dead is an indian gone

36:51

dashak

36:52

has documented how with the

36:54

disappearance of the buffalo

36:56

canadian officials use food or rather

36:57

denied food as a means to ethnically

36:59

cleanse a vast region from regina to

37:01

alberta

37:02

as the canadian pacific railway took

37:04

shape deliberate starvation was used to

37:07

force indigenous peoples off their

37:08

territories and into reserves

37:10

when organized resistance to colonial

37:12

dispossession took shape in the 1885

37:14

uprising for instance

37:15

the transcontinental railroad

37:17

transported canadian militia forces to

37:19

the front lines of colonial wars

37:21

against korean metis people providing

37:23

the definitive logistical advantage

37:26

if this wasn't enough the construction

37:28

of this massive colonial infrastructure

37:30

demanded assembly of another

37:32

colonial circulatory infrastructure

37:34

required colonial security

37:36

infrastructure

37:37

what is now the royal canadian mounted

37:39

police was created in 1873

37:43

then as the northwest mounted police as

37:45

a paramilitary force to protect the

37:47

colonial order

37:49

both internally where settler

37:50

jurisdiction had already been asserted

37:52

and externally where it remained in

37:54

ambition jasker and dylan argues that

37:57

the mounties have carried out quote

37:58

genocidal extermination

38:00

subjugation and physical containment of

38:02

indigenous communities

38:04

they were deployed on the canadian

38:05

frontier to facilitate indigenous

38:08

people's subjection

38:09

to colonial law the force was also

38:12

specifically created to clear the way

38:13

for the railroad

38:14

and to protect the infrastructure as it

38:16

was built recall the ways in which the

38:18

railroad figures as both a means and

38:20

metaphor of colonization

38:22

protecting the infrastructures of

38:23

colonization was a critical means of

38:25

conquest

38:26

in 1885 mounties saw their jurisdiction

38:29

expanded at the direct

38:30

request of the president of the cpr to

38:32

protect the infrastructure as

38:34

it laid new tracks west of the rockies

38:37

mounties were also deployed to break

38:38

strikes of rail workers laying tracks

38:40

through the mountains

38:42

later in 1920 when mcdonald's genocidal

38:44

residential school system became

38:46

compulsory

38:47

mount mounties were charged with

38:49

ensuring attendance or kidnapping

38:51

children

38:53

mounted police were also part of a

38:54

global imperial struggle

38:57

precisely because of their expertise in

38:58

counter-insurgency warfare against

39:00

indigenous peoples on the plains

39:02

they were deployed to fight the boers in

39:04

the 1899-1903 south african war

39:08

colonial infrastructure required the

39:11

protection of martial force

39:12

and as man insists martial force

39:15

requires infrastructure to extend

39:17

and enhance that force today

39:20

over 150 years later these same railroad

39:22

tracks remain a site of acute struggle

39:24

over colonial violence

39:26

just a few months prior to mcdonald's

39:27

decapitation the railroad

39:29

became the stage for a momentous

39:31

standoff between the settler state and

39:33

indigenous peoples

39:34

on february 6 2020 this the same mounted

39:38

police force formed to protect the

39:40

infrastructures of settler

39:42

civilization were still on that very

39:44

same project

39:45

not for the first time the mounties

39:47

violently raided the uns

39:49

seated territories of what whatsoever

39:51

nation to clear the way for

39:53

corporate construction of a natural gas

39:56

pipeline

39:57

arresting land offenders and leadership

40:00

destroying community infrastructures and

40:02

interrupting ceremony the raid went on

40:03

for days

40:05

under what soweton law authority over

40:07

the nation's 22 000 square kilometers of

40:10

unseated territory lies with hereditary

40:12

chiefs from five clans

40:13

in a system of governance that long

40:15

predates colonization

40:17

all five hereditary chiefs rejected the

40:19

construction of the pipeline on their

40:20

territory

40:21

in direct response to their calls for

40:23

support and solidarity

40:25

dramatic and sustained actions

40:27

proliferated

40:28

indigenous people and their allies

40:30

blockaded the national rail network

40:32

launching the shut canada down movement

40:34

or shut down canada movement

40:36

this is a map that appeared in the globe

40:38

and male newspaper and i'm using it to

40:39

give us

40:40

to because it's nice and clear but it

40:42

also i think like many

40:43

uh mainstream and corporate media um

40:46

representations kind of alights the

40:47

transnational nature of the resistance

40:49

and

40:50

and the protests that emerged which were

40:53

as this map shows like an activist map

40:56

certainly in the u.s but if you were to

40:58

zoom out on the actual google map you

41:00

can see actions taking shape all over

41:02

the world in response to these calls

41:07

so flows of commuters and commodities

41:09

that had come to rely on rapid

41:10

circulation ground to a halt

41:12

standing in solidarity with the wet

41:14

soweton and standing immediately atop

41:16

the transcontinental railroad tracks

41:18

mohawk land protectors offered teachings

41:21

about the original treaties that past

41:22

and present infrastructures trespass

41:25

materially invoking the infrastructural

41:27

violence at the heart of canada's

41:28

colonial problem

41:29

mohawk land protectors created the space

41:31

an opportunity for moving forward

41:33

differently

41:34

if the contemporary crisis of colonial

41:36

violence circulates

41:38

through imperial infrastructures how

41:40

might a reckoning

41:41

with this infrastructural injustice lay

41:43

the tracks for a different road forward

41:45

and how might we draw out the wider

41:47

imperial ecologies in these accounts of

41:49

crisis

41:53

in the summer of 2020 a city streets

41:55

were a light with demands for a racial

41:57

reckoning and as the pandemic continued

41:59

to devastate and mutate

42:00

the amazon burns at an unprecedented

42:02

rate

42:04

as part of our deepening climate crisis

42:06

the extraordinary ecosystem had been in

42:08

the

42:08

unmaking for many years and is now

42:10

projected to collapse later this century

42:13

yet summer 2020 marked dramatically

42:15

increased rates of destruction

42:17

protection of the amazon 60 of which

42:19

stands in territory claimed by brazil

42:22

is crucial to the continued existence of

42:24

life on earth as we know it

42:26

home to indigenous and african

42:28

descendant peoples who are fiercely

42:29

defending their homelands

42:31

the amazon is the source of a fifth of

42:32

the world's oxygen supply

42:34

the lungs of the earth as it's sometimes

42:36

called the moisture that evaporates from

42:38

the amazon

42:39

rains on farmlands across south america

42:42

and all the way up into the u.s midwest

42:44

the species diversity within the amazon

42:46

is unparalleled on the planet

42:48

it's this extraordinary scale complexity

42:51

sorry extraordinary scale ecological

42:54

complexity and abundance of the rain

42:56

forest and its main river

42:57

that led jeff bezos in 1994 to rename

43:01

his fledgling distribution platform

43:03

at the time called cadabra to to be now

43:06

called amazon

43:07

you can find untold riches and resources

43:10

in the amazon

43:11

or at least you could but it's not just

43:13

the rest of us earthlings that rely on

43:15

the critical

43:16

amazon ecosystem amazon the corporation

43:18

does

43:19

too in the amazon a geopolitics of

43:22

infrastructure

43:23

is remaking critical planetary ecologies

43:26

the fire the

43:27

fires themselves have garnered global

43:28

media attention but less prominent

43:30

is the way that deforestation is taking

43:32

shape to make way for an extractive

43:34

industrial economy

43:35

financed and underpinned by

43:37

infrastructure development deforestation

43:39

closely follows the development of new

43:41

road and rail infrastructure

43:43

satellite images show how clearly the

43:45

roads themselves cut into and fragment

43:47

forest canopy and intensify circulation

43:49

in the amazon

43:51

infrastructure serves as a vector for

43:53

deforestation with 95 percent of it

43:55

taking place within five

43:57

kilometers of roadways infrastructure

44:00

furthermore enables development of more

44:02

infrastructure

44:03

energy industrial infrastructure and

44:04

attract extractive systems

44:06

become possible when transportation

44:08

makes new lands accessible

44:10

transport infrastructure makes

44:12

industrial agriculture viable

44:13

in the amazon cattle ranching has become

44:16

the largest land use driving

44:18

deforestation in every county country

44:21

with jurisdiction

44:22

in the amazon accounting for eighty

44:23

percent of current desport station rates

44:26

but it's transport infrastructure that

44:27

underpins this industrial transfer

44:29

transformation amazonian infrastructure

44:32

expansion is a linchpin in bolsonaro's

44:34

broader economic plans

44:36

and if all the components of bolsonaro's

44:38

current plans are completed

44:39

40 of the amazon could be deforested

44:43

brazil is arguably a key stage for

44:45

imperial competition

44:46

over and through infrastructure between

44:49

the u.s

44:50

and china brazil recently signed on as a

44:52

member of the

44:53

the asian infrastructure investment bank

44:56

and chinese banks are already heavily

44:58

invested in brazilian infrastructure

45:00

projects

45:01

china's presence is growing while it is

45:03

quote also shifting from a focus on

45:05

extracting raw materials

45:06

towards financing infrastructure

45:08

necessary to produce and transport them

45:10

end quote key plans and deals for

45:13

infrastructure expansion

45:14

brazilian amazon have also been

45:16

unfolding in the united states

45:18

new trade deals were established in 2019

45:22

between the american and brazilian

45:23

governments

45:24

and infrastructure investment is the

45:25

vehicle for economic cooperation

45:28

in september 2019 brazil's

45:30

infrastructure minister reported

45:32

on talks with the u.s saying quote we

45:34

have major programs of concessions in

45:35

all areas that will transform our

45:37

infrastructure

45:38

logistics and competitiveness a little

45:40

over a year later

45:42

in october 2020 a one billion dollar

45:46

memorandum of understanding was signed

45:47

between the two countries

45:49

an interim report from march 2020

45:51

specifically described a key goal of the

45:53

agreement being to

45:54

close the gap between china and u.s

45:56

investment in brazil's quote growing

45:58

infrastructure construction

46:00

of which china accounts for seven

46:01

percent and us only two percent

46:04

u.s finance is heavily implicated in the

46:06

development of amazonian infrastructure

46:08

um grim writing in um the intercept goes

46:11

so far as to name blackstone ceo as the

46:13

quote driving force behind amazon

46:15

deforestation

46:17

us-based blackstone the world's largest

46:19

asset management firm

46:20

has major stakes in an enormous terminal

46:22

and highway project to support

46:24

industrial

46:25

agricultural expansion blackrock another

46:28

enormous u.s investment firm and an

46:29

offshoot of blackstone

46:31

manages more than six trillion dollars

46:33

in investments and it hasn't has to

46:35

invested heavily in the industrial

46:36

cattle sector through one of the largest

46:38

and most notorious brazilian firms

46:41

jbs which bills itself is quote the

46:43

largest animal protein producer in the

46:45

world

46:46

and after nestle is the largest the

46:49

world's largest food corporation

46:51

is implicated in both the destruction of

46:53

the amazon and working conditions

46:55

that are akin to slavery blackrock

46:57

increased its stake in jbs in 2016

47:02

by 41 million dollars and again in 2018

47:05

despite claims despite blackrock's

47:07

claims to building

47:09

sustainable supply chains the

47:11

infrastructural incursion into the

47:12

brazilian amazon

47:14

is fueling the displacement and

47:15

dispossession of indigenous peoples and

47:18

amazonian afro-brazilians

47:19

and provoking widespread resistance

47:22

cordoba and pereira da silva write

47:24

quote the strategy of bolsonaro's

47:26

government and its allies in congress is

47:28

very clear

47:29

to take 9.8 million hectares from

47:31

indigenous and traditional territories

47:33

in the amazon

47:34

to seize more land for agribusiness diaz

47:37

writes that quote for more than a

47:39

century a series of brazilian

47:40

governments have sought to move into the

47:41

country's interior

47:43

developing or to be more precise

47:45

colonizing the amazon

47:47

in 2019 while the fires burned

47:50

indigenous peoples

47:51

sorry in 2019 while the while the fires

47:54

burned

47:55

bolsonaro's presidential spokesperson

47:57

tried to allay concerns about indigenous

47:59

peoples of the amazon

48:01

while re-centering the focus on national

48:03

interests when he was

48:04

when he explained that quote the indians

48:06

will be consulted

48:08

but national interests must prevail

48:10

perhaps more surprising than the

48:12

colonial continuities within brazil

48:14

is the extraordinary convergence and

48:16

colonial discourse between a place like

48:18

brazil

48:19

in canada while canada's justin trudeau

48:22

is often cast

48:23

as the progressive boy toy of leaders of

48:26

the world stage

48:27

his words here are almost

48:28

interchangeable with the bolsonaro

48:30

regime

48:31

and should give pause at the height of

48:33

the indigenous led resistance to the

48:35

trans mountain pipeline which is again

48:37

very much in the news these days trudeau

48:39

insisted

48:40

quote the trans mountain pipeline is in

48:42

the national interest and it will get

48:43

built

48:45

these transnational ties forged by

48:47

colonial infrastructure and its

48:48

protection

48:49

are precisely what prompts this circuit

48:51

in the south

48:52

today in brazil bovine life is implanted

48:54

in the amazon landscape

48:56

in a process of agro-industrial

48:57

colonization underpinned by

48:59

infrastructure

49:00

but we have been here before this is not

49:03

the first time such a massive incursion

49:05

of colonial infrastructure has served to

49:07

implant settlers

49:08

and extractive bovine industry in a

49:10

place of ind

49:11

in place of indigenous people's lives

49:13

and indigenous ecosystems

49:15

it's not even the first time in this

49:17

talk as in the amazon

49:19

colonization of the central plains

49:21

transformed vital and complex more than

49:23

human ecologies

49:29

into landscapes of capitalist

49:31

agribusiness and as

49:32

in the amazon this colonial

49:35

transformation relied on infrastructure

49:38

winona leduc emphasizes the scale of

49:40

19th century colonial ecological

49:42

destruction

49:43

when she notes that there were more than

49:44

250 types of grass

49:47

along with profusions of prairie dogs

49:49

purple corn flour prairie turnips

49:51

mushrooms and a host of other species

49:53

listed today as endangered or protected

49:56

those 50 million buffalo have been

49:57

replaced by farms and 45 million cattle

50:00

end quote

50:01

karuka describes how railroad

50:04

colonialism transformed bountiful

50:05

prairie lands into massive monocrop

50:07

areas for beef pork and grain production

50:10

the railroads were critical here

50:12

but so were logistical innovations in

50:14

their use

50:15

gustavus swift may have inspired ford

50:17

with his disassembly line

50:19

but it was his refrigerated rail car

50:21

that allowed

50:22

uh processed beef rather than live

50:24

cattle to be shipped east

50:26

linking the industrial cities of the

50:27

east with increased increased efficiency

50:30

to the farms of the western frontier

50:32

the deep entanglements between these

50:34

stories of crisis continue to unfold

50:37

in 2007 jbs the brazilian global meat

50:41

giant

50:42

already financed by u.s investment firms

50:45

entered the uf

50:46

us livestock market through a buyout of

50:48

swift and co

50:49

the firm founded by gustavus swift in

50:52

another extraordinary convergence

50:54

kovid 19 outbreaks at their greeley

50:57

facility

50:58

greeley colorado facility have been

51:01

along among the largest in the united

51:03

states

51:05

ruth gilmore argues that all life is

51:07

geographical and perhaps so too

51:09

is all death the geography of covet

51:11

outbreaks in the meat supply chain

51:12

points to a much longer and larger

51:14

crisis of sovereignty and food systems

51:16

in the imperial logistics of social

51:18

reproduction

51:19

the plant which employs more than 3 000

51:22

workers

51:23

is located in the northeast corner of

51:24

the colorado on indigenous land that

51:26

remain deeply contested

51:28

to this day so in 1803 in what estes

51:32

describes as the largest real estate

51:34

transaction in history end quote

51:36

known today as the louisiana purchase

51:38

the united states bought

51:40

an enormous tract of land from france it

51:42

was in fact the behrings bank that we

51:44

heard about earlier

51:45

in through cpr fame through the canadian

51:47

railroad

51:48

that financed this deal the sioux nation

51:51

or sheri sakhon

51:52

eventually signed peace treaties with

51:54

the invading american settler state

51:56

to bring an end to the wars against them

51:59

um

51:59

that's kind of basically where a line

52:02

where the treaty of

52:03

fort laramie of 1868 would be and that

52:06

pink dot there is is the greely plant

52:10

greely um is on the edge of the lands of

52:13

the fort laramie treaties which provided

52:15

this

52:15

temporary reprieve and a 25 million acre

52:18

territory for the oceanic

52:20

owen with the buffalo slaughter and

52:22

settler invasion

52:23

estes describes how this vast land base

52:25

was steadily diminished

52:27

by 1876 congress abolished treaty making

52:29

with native nations

52:30

and in 1877 illegally seeded the black

52:33

hills and created the present-day

52:34

reservation system

52:36

foregrounding the invasion of rail and

52:38

hydro dams historically in pipelines

52:40

oil pipelines more recently estes traces

52:43

how

52:43

settler violations of the fort laramie

52:45

treaties provide context for the

52:47

extraordinary standing rock uprising

52:49

and the ongoing legal action to restore

52:51

these indigenous lands

52:53

indeed the fort laramie treaty remains

52:55

at the center of a land dispute

52:57

that the smithsonian argues quote brings

53:00

into question the very meaning of

53:02

international agreements

53:03

and who has the right to adjudicate them

53:05

when they break down

53:07

they report on the 1890 supreme court

53:09

ruling sorry 1980 supreme court ruling

53:12

that awarded more than 100 million

53:13

dollars in reparations to the sioux

53:15

nation

53:15

on the grounds that the u.s had

53:17

illegally appropriated the black hills

53:19

the payment was refused however and

53:22

chief john spotted tail

53:23

instead insisted we'd like to see the

53:26

land back

53:27

these specific lands figured in all

53:30

three stories of crisis

53:32

as the site of covet outbreaks and

53:33

processing plants as indigenous

53:35

homelands subject to violent

53:37

dispossession of railroads and police

53:39

force

53:39

and as a vital complex ecology that's

53:41

been devastated and remade into a zone

53:43

of extractive corporate agriculture

53:46

it also we also referenced it in terms

53:48

of where the amazon

53:50

rain falls the beef the bankers and the

53:53

borders also repeat

53:55

multiple threads of entanglement in fact

53:57

make it impossible to pull these crises

53:59

apart

53:59

the borders of these stories of crisis

54:01

in motion deliberately give way

54:03

they wind through and into each other as

54:05

part of a wider crisis of expanded

54:07

reproduction

54:08

imperial logistics may be able to manage

54:10

more circumscribed crises of

54:12

distribution

54:13

with ready access to disposable

54:15

essential workers and to indigenous and

54:17

afro-amazonian people's lands

54:19

the sector can even thrive in a context

54:21

of quarantine

54:22

as jeff bezos trillions suggest but

54:25

logistics can't manage the crisis of

54:27

life that its own logics and

54:29

infrastructures produce

54:30

anti-colonial movements are organizing

54:33

to interrupt

54:34

empires lethal circulation and to

54:36

organize motion other words

54:38

otherwise for the last section of my

54:40

talk today i'll turn briefly to explore

54:43

how they are regenerating reproduction

54:45

through refusal

54:48

barbadian poet kamal bradford describes

54:51

quote that moment of utter disaster the

54:54

very moment when it seems almost

54:55

hopeless

54:56

too difficult to proceed you begin to

54:59

glimpse

54:59

a kind of radiance at the other end of

55:02

the maelstrom

55:03

and you might want to you know conjure

55:06

your chosen form of motion to to think

55:08

about or to listen to

55:09

um at this point his capacity to see

55:12

possibility through the depths of

55:13

catastrophe

55:14

and to do so from a place of investment

55:17

humbling is exquisite

55:18

humbling and necessary nick estes crafts

55:21

a similar path through the crisis of

55:23

settler colonial infrastructure

55:25

in the conclusion to his beautiful book

55:26

our history is the future

55:28

estes writes new pipelines are creeping

55:30

across the continent like a spider web

55:32

with frightening speed but in the

55:34

process they're also connecting

55:35

and inciting to action disparate

55:37

communities of the exploited

55:38

and dispossessed the catastrophe of

55:41

current times

55:42

is clear across these three entangled

55:44

stories of expanded reproduction i've

55:46

lingered in the violence the

55:48

necropolitics of contemporary supply

55:49

chains

55:50

the colonial afterlives of its

55:52

infrastructures and the destruction of

55:53

planetary ecologies that have us

55:55

hurtling towards apocalypse

55:57

but what marks this moment is not just

55:59

crisis but also the

56:01

movements creating possibility for

56:02

substantial and sustained transformation

56:05

at each of the many sites we've

56:07

encountered today fear struggle

56:08

confronts efforts to expand imperial

56:10

reproduction

56:11

from amazon workers to the amazon from

56:14

the streets of montreal to the central

56:16

plains these disparate communities quote

56:18

of the exploited and dispossessed

56:20

are saying no and investing instead in

56:22

motion's fugitive forms

56:24

in the refusal of the status quo these

56:26

movements make other forms

56:28

of motion possible mohawk scholar audra

56:31

simpson pursues the concept of refusal

56:33

in the context of colonial dispossession

56:36

suggesting that it is distinct from

56:37

resistance in that it rejects

56:39

outright the entire paradigm of colonial

56:42

thought

56:42

value in action refusal is the rejection

56:45

of settler state legitimacy and

56:47

authority she argues

56:49

and it opens up quote a possibility for

56:51

doing things differently

56:53

tina campt also receives refusal as a

56:56

rejection of the status quo as livable

56:58

and the creation of possibility in the

57:00

face of negation for camp it is

57:02

quote a refusal to recognize a system

57:04

that renders you fundamentally eligible

57:06

illegible

57:07

and unintelligible using negation as a

57:10

generative and creative source

57:12

of disorderly power to embrace the

57:13

possibility of living otherwise

57:16

the blockade is a counter logistical

57:18

practice of refusal

57:20

blockades have long been mobilized

57:22

against colonial infrastructure

57:24

and are in wide use on this territory in

57:26

this very moment

57:28

at a recent forum with leaders in the

57:30

land back movement

57:32

kanahoe's manual a member of the

57:33

sequettemec women's warrior society

57:35

explains

57:36

quote blockades have been one of our

57:38

go-tos as indigenous people

57:39

when we're talking about direct action

57:42

manual situates the power of the

57:43

blockade in the context of extractive

57:45

logistics

57:46

quote i think about the resources

57:48

extracted without consent

57:50

it's always about getting these raw

57:51

resources from indigenous territories

57:53

out to the global market

57:54

end quote manual further suggests that

57:57

the blockade isn't only about

57:58

blocking but also about building she

58:01

continues the blockade is a place

58:04

where we as indigenous people our

58:05

sovereignty our jurisdiction and our

58:07

territorial authority

58:09

confront the assumed colonial authority

58:11

and jurisdiction

58:12

they think they own the land but we know

58:14

we own the land and the blockade is

58:16

where we meet

58:17

and i'll mention that sherry pasternak

58:19

and spice have both written beautifully

58:21

on this exact topic

58:23

at the same forum molly wickham spoke

58:26

spokesperson for the contemptum clan of

58:28

the wet soweton people

58:29

spoke to the creative capacity of

58:30

blockades she says it started as a

58:33

blockade we set up a blockade

58:35

the rcmp came in and raided got an

58:37

injunction against us

58:39

but we're still living out on the

58:40

territory and it's a resurgence that

58:42

spread from coast to coast

58:44

she continues quote when we shut down

58:46

the road as soon as what soweton people

58:48

had control over their territory

58:50

the raw waters run clear again the

58:52

animals return

58:53

and you can actually live as a free

58:54

person i don't know how many people have

58:56

experienced what that feels like

58:58

we've felt it manuel contributed to this

59:01

extraordinary discussion

59:03

from the front lines of a blockade in a

59:05

kind of mobius strip

59:06

of theory in action the block this

59:09

blockade in particular is one

59:11

installation of the tiny house warriors

59:13

a group that

59:14

manuel was involved in founding they

59:17

build very small

59:18

homes quote directly in the path of the

59:20

trans mountain pipeline expansion

59:21

project

59:22

strategically placing them next to

59:24

proposed man camps to challenge the

59:26

rampant violence they concentrate on

59:27

indigenous women

59:29

these tiny houses are also being

59:30

equipped with solar panel systems built

59:32

by

59:33

indigenous women village sites quote

59:36

operate under the authority of sequentic

59:38

law

59:39

to reassert collective jurisdiction and

59:41

title over

59:42

our unseated territory dakota scholar

59:46

tim

59:47

sorry dakota scholar kim talbear has

59:49

noted the leadership of women and gender

59:51

non-conforming folks in indigenous

59:53

resurgence

59:54

and has theorized the tight relations of

59:56

care and courage

59:57

that fuel its feminism winona leduc and

60:00

i have termed this kind of feminist

60:01

assemblage

60:02

of systems to sustain the colonial life

60:05

elementary infrastructure

60:07

elementary infrastructure is life-giving

60:09

in its design finance and effects

60:11

it refuses expanded reproduction and

60:13

supports the regeneration and becoming

60:15

of ecologies

60:16

metis scholar jordan kinder recently in

60:20

2021 describes an enriched sense of

60:23

quote embodied infrastructure in the

60:25

work of the tiny house warriors

60:26

kinder describes their practice as quote

60:30

a return to harnessing flows in ways

60:32

that foreground indigenous

60:33

epistemologies and ways of being

60:35

and which disrupt resource logics and

60:38

their operations

60:40

refusal also animates the contemporary

60:42

abolition movement

60:43

oh sorry and i just point out um as you

60:45

know if we had days we could go through

60:47

all these these deep connections but um

60:49

revelstoke the

60:51

the yellow here is the lands of this

60:52

equipment nation the red is the

60:54

pipeline's path revelstoke which was um

60:57

that famed station

60:58

um that marks the history of the

61:00

bering's bank investment

61:01

is actually right on the cusp here of of

61:04

sequentic lands

61:07

so refusal also animates the

61:09

contemporary abolition movement

61:11

in fact if movements for land back

61:12

through blockade are about building as

61:14

much as breaking

61:15

we might consider movements for

61:16

abolitionists plotting radical

61:18

reproduction abolition is not simply a

61:21

resistance

61:21

to the violence of policing or an effort

61:24

to reform cultural systems

61:26

it's a rejection of the infrastructures

61:27

of coloniality the infrastructures of

61:30

feeling on

61:30

ruth gilmour's terms of white supremacy

61:33

and the physical infrastructure

61:35

on which they are built that produce

61:36

premature death

61:38

dismantling violent infrastructures that

61:40

terrorize some as a means of protecting

61:42

the reproduction of others remains a key

61:44

to abolition

61:46

and today we've repeatedly encountered

61:48

one particular exceptional police force

61:50

the royal canadian mounted police i've

61:53

suggested the mounties genesis and the

61:54

protection of

61:55

primitive accumulation through

61:57

infrastructure expansion persists to

61:58

this day

62:00

black lives matter toronto co-founder

62:02

sandy hudson

62:03

provocatively questions precisely when

62:05

in the rcmp's history did they depart

62:07

from their quote literal original

62:09

purpose

62:10

of terrorizing black and indigenous

62:11

communities abolition demands that

62:14

reckoning

62:15

at the same time as movement leaders

62:16

regularly repeat abolition is not simply

62:19

about dismantling cultural

62:20

infrastructures but cultivating its

62:22

alternatives

62:23

what if abolition is something that

62:25

grows ass guns in a

62:27

in critical resistance's 2009 collection

62:30

ruthie gilmore insists that the abu that

62:32

abolition is not absence it

62:34

is presence what the world will become

62:36

already exists in fragments and pieces

62:38

experiments and possibilities abolition

62:41

is building

62:41

the future from the present in all the

62:43

ways that we can

62:45

end quote this positive vision of

62:47

abolition is already in existence

62:48

becomes clear in an example that

62:50

black lives matter toronto other

62:52

co-founder janae khan

62:54

offers in a response to community met to

62:57

a community member's question

62:58

about existing examples of

63:00

transformative justice that do not rely

63:02

on police

63:04

khan suggests first and foremost that we

63:06

need to look at models that already

63:08

exist

63:09

specifically citing the experience of

63:10

elders khan then explains that there is

63:13

much to learn from the survivants of

63:15

black

63:16

trans sex workers and their creative

63:18

work in assembling alternative

63:19

infrastructures of community safety

63:22

khan explains when a client is violent

63:24

or dangerous

63:25

they can't call the cops sex work is

63:27

heavily criminalized

63:29

and so black black trans sex workers

63:31

have invested and implemented safety

63:34

strategies

63:35

in order to keep each other safe because

63:37

it's not an option to call the police

63:40

movements that are making and marking

63:42

our movement are working to build a

63:44

future

63:45

from the fragments and pieces

63:46

experiments and possibilities

63:48

that survive the violence of imperial

63:50

motions they are diagnosing the crisis

63:52

of expanded reproduction

63:54

of racial capitalism and settler

63:55

colonialism and refusing to seek

63:58

inclusion on a sinking ship instead

64:00

they're working as octavia butler

64:02

encouraged to shape change leanne

64:05

simpson writes that decolonization is

64:07

something

64:08

something that her ancestors quote set

64:10

in motion only in that motion

64:12

and then the alimentary infrastructures

64:14

that support and sustain it

64:16

may we move towards the radiance beyond

64:18

the maelstrom

64:19

thank you very much

64:30

thanks so much deb uh this is the moment

64:32

where there should be thunderous

64:33

applause

64:34

um but i think yeah i can imagine that

64:36

most people are sending virtual applause

64:38

from home because that was truly um

64:40

inspiring and really rich and fantastic

64:42

to talk thanks so much

64:44

um yeah as i said it was extremely rich

64:47

there were so many points we could start

64:49

from but um

64:50

maybe while people are sending in

64:52

questions i'll just open with a set of

64:53

remarks or we can kind of make a few

64:55

brief exchanges to start off

64:57

um so i i was kind of

65:01

struck by the overall um

65:04

articulation of different kinds of

65:07

motion

65:08

and that you articulate particularly in

65:10

the conclusion and also on the

65:11

introduction

65:12

and i guess this kind of relates to kind

65:15

of tactics

65:16

of reviews on the presence or even kind

65:18

of revolutionary imagination in the

65:19

presence because the whole

65:20

literature and logistics that you've

65:22

been involved in over the past decade

65:23

and more

65:24

and at the beginning of this there was a

65:27

lot of discussion around the black aids

65:29

and people like or groups like the

65:31

invisible committee with kind of slogans

65:33

like you know

65:34

power as logistical block everything um

65:37

and in general it seems that

65:38

revolutionary imagination was oriented

65:40

towards

65:40

correcting the idea of marx's revolution

65:43

being kind of locomotions of history

65:45

and instead thinking about revolutionary

65:47

thought as a

65:48

pulling the emergency brake as walter

65:50

benjamin said

65:52

so what i loved about what you spoke

65:53

about today was to think about how well

65:55

actually a complete stop of motion is

65:57

neither completely possible or entirely

65:59

desirable and instead to think about

66:01

different

66:02

levels of motion that are generated by

66:04

um organizing and

66:06

and revolutionary thought so you made

66:09

some connections between

66:12

the opening talk you made some

66:13

connections from cedar hartman about

66:16

imagination

66:17

and how motion generates kind of

66:19

futurity

66:20

and that you know motion generates you

66:23

know the thought of that which might be

66:24

possible

66:26

and i was fascinated then how you built

66:28

on this at the end with kind of

66:30

ruth wilson gilmore's thought of

66:32

abolition how abolition is not kind of

66:34

just

66:35

simplistic um saying no that it's also

66:37

carries a creative impulse within it

66:40

and similarly with them i love that

66:42

quote you kind of developed from uh

66:44

audra simpson on the idea of refusal

66:46

beyond recognition

66:48

um which kind of makes me think of glenn

66:50

coulthard's um

66:52

critique of the colonial politics of

66:53

recognition um

66:55

but yeah i think what kind of brings

66:57

this all home i guess maybe for a lot of

66:59

people to think of it but intuitively is

67:00

the pandemic and i hate to bring

67:01

everything back to the pandemic because

67:03

well god knows we're sick of thinking

67:04

about it at this point

67:06

but people have probably felt

67:07

intuitively that actually

67:09

um you know in situations there's no

67:11

static

67:13

um situation that actually situations of

67:16

social reproduction remains necessary

67:18

other modes of survival emotion remain

67:20

possible

67:21

so i guess my question then to

67:24

synthesize all that is

67:26

um firstly if you'd like to say

67:30

anything further about what helps you

67:33

kind of theorize these different levels

67:35

of motion you could have named some kind

67:37

of brilliant ideas from abolition and

67:38

refusal

67:39

and i'm wondering if social reproduction

67:41

theory plays a big role

67:43

in thinking about motion and circulation

67:45

as well

67:46

and secondly um i suppose to say a bit

67:49

further about how maybe the pandemic has

67:51

changed or furthered your thinking about

67:53

working through all that in order to an

67:55

expansive set considerations if

67:57

you want to take up any of those threads

68:00

thanks so much eugene i'll i'll say

68:02

something briefly because i spoke for a

68:03

long time i realize already

68:05

and i'd love to hear from others as well

68:07

but um it is such a

68:08

such a thoughtful question and as i

68:11

think yours always are

68:12

and i will say something brief about it

68:14

there was a lot there and i could

68:15

probably um talk for way too long but i

68:18

guess one thing i'll say

68:20

is that i i for some time i think that

68:23

just

68:24

the debates that have been happening um

68:26

around what gets called counter

68:27

logistics

68:28

and sometimes um specifically focused on

68:31

debates about the effectiveness of

68:34

blockades and

68:34

as disruption um i i they're they're

68:38

important debates and i think there's

68:39

been a lot of rich

68:40

exchange happening around those

68:42

questions but i think

68:44

some of my gut feeling which i tried to

68:46

kind of develop a little bit today and i

68:47

which i see in the world uh in the

68:49

worlds i travel

68:51

has been anchored and i'm certainly a

68:54

more feminist and anti-colonial

68:56

kind of understanding of what a blockade

68:58

is it might be doing or can be doing

69:01

um and and i and i see that not just in

69:03

the blockade but in

69:04

in the kinds of actions um around

69:07

abolition

69:09

and i guess um at the core of that you

69:12

know is

69:13

this idea that it's not just about

69:14

stopping it's not just about disrupting

69:17

and i think

69:18

um the fundamental shift that that

69:20

requires is to think about multiplicity

69:22

right to think about multiplicity of

69:25

forms of movement

69:26

um obviously that you know like when i

69:29

when i invoke leanne simpson early

69:31

in the talk um describing the ways in

69:34

which

69:35

the kinds of infrastructures that allow

69:36

for settler expansion and mobility like

69:39

a dam

69:39

or the railways themselves interrupt

69:42

like literally interrupt the kinds of

69:44

mobilities of human and more than human

69:47

life that sustained her people's

69:49

movements and motions um we're already

69:51

multiplying

69:52

motion there it's you know so you know

69:54

taking that very basic step of not

69:56

assuming

69:57

uh a universal subject or universal

69:59

situation

70:00

i think is crucial but then also

70:02

thinking carefully about what's possible

70:04

in terms of the transformations that

70:05

happen

70:06

through relationships through the action

70:09

itself you know for anyone who's

70:10

participated in whether it's a strike or

70:12

an occupation or you know there is it's

70:14

not just the act of disruption even as

70:16

that can be very important

70:18

um it can be very important on the terms

70:20

that i think the debates around counter

70:21

logistics have suggested

70:23

but there's always something in the

70:25

making there um and like

70:26

like you've you've already connected us

70:28

um to you know what ruthie gilmore

70:30

suggests it's not a hypothetical it's an

70:33

it's an actual and it's an actual that

70:35

might be battered that might be

70:36

provisional that might be experimental

70:38

but it's actual and it exists

70:40

um and so you know likewise with this

70:43

question of of crisis i didn't want to

70:45

i mean that there's there's there's no

70:47

way to get around the fact that the

70:49

crisis of our moment and the christ the

70:51

multiple

70:51

kind of cascade of crisis in our moment

70:54

are

70:54

are are just so profoundly encompassing

70:57

in terms of

70:58

you know geographical space but also

71:01

every kind of emotional state bodily

71:04

state that

71:05

that affects so many of us although

71:07

dramatically unevenly

71:10

at the same time you know i think so

71:12

many scholars especially black and

71:14

indigenous scholars

71:15

and writers more broadly have had to

71:17

continually

71:18

uh point out that this is not the first

71:21

crisis this is not even the first

71:22

apocalypse

71:23

um uh you know as um

71:27

as horn suggested in the text that i

71:30

quoted earlier as or i cited earlier

71:32

so i think um the idea of multiplicity

71:35

is crucial here

71:36

um uh what gets disrupted and thinking

71:39

carefully not just about

71:40

a kind of reckless disruption because

71:43

disruption is also like

71:45

disruption of someone's access to fresh

71:47

water like i work with

71:48

you know some amazing communities up in

71:50

the north here like folks in the

71:51

skandaga first nation

71:52

who've had their water source disrupted

71:54

for 26 years they've never had access to

71:57

clean piped water that's not the kind of

72:00

disruption i'm interested in cultivating

72:01

right and i think that's obvious but

72:03

but actually thinking through what that

72:04

means when we're when we're talking

72:06

about disruption and its politics as

72:07

well as the kind of

72:09

um to me very feminist ways of thinking

72:11

about what is actually created

72:12

in those actions in those relations and

72:15

in those sites and

72:16

and and moments

72:20

thanks that's really helpful i think um

72:23

that both feminist and indigenous

72:25

perspectives really help kind of counter

72:27

as you say this kind of slightly

72:29

uh uh simplistic or reckless conception

72:32

of um

72:32

what disruption means um but we've got

72:35

some

72:36

good few questions coming in so i'm

72:37

going to start reading some comments to

72:38

you now

72:39

okay and i'll try and maybe i'll group

72:41

together two or three if

72:43

i can if that's okay for you um and

72:46

yeah okay so aisa asks a question which

72:51

uh you've kind of responded to um

72:53

talking about how strikes and blockades

72:55

historically have been the forms to

72:56

counter the circulation of capital

72:58

um asked to celebrate the notion of

73:01

counter logistics

73:02

is it a similar mode or can be imagined

73:03

in another proactive mode as well so you

73:05

kind of that's what you just developed a

73:06

little bit

73:07

um but relatedly susan um

73:10

thanks for a great talk could you

73:12

describe the relationship between

73:13

logistics

73:14

and infrastructure using your

73:15

definitions in the talk and then finally

73:18

maybe a longer comment slash

73:20

question from ben uh ben hirsch hello

73:22

from texas

73:24

what set of strategies do you suggest to

73:26

both understand and confronts

73:28

the simultaneous infrastructure creation

73:31

such as pipelines as a way of states and

73:33

companies doing primitive accumulation

73:36

and the consistent denial of protective

73:38

infrastructure

73:39

levees flood mitigation ponds bioswales

73:42

etc

73:43

as a way to speed up this possession of

73:45

black and brown families

73:47

um after major hurricanes is there a way

73:50

you would suggest to connect these

73:51

struggles both through theory

73:53

and through coalitions um

73:58

eugene could you just repeat the second

74:01

form

74:02

yeah um so the longer comments from ben

74:06

um to ask about what set of strategies

74:10

do you suggest to both

74:11

understands and confronts the

74:13

simultaneous

74:14

infrastructure creation such as

74:16

pipelines

74:18

as the way states and companies do

74:19

primitive accumulation

74:22

and the consistent denial of protective

74:24

infrastructure

74:26

um is there a way that we could think

74:28

further about

74:29

connecting these struggles both through

74:31

theory and through coalitions

74:34

okay great thanks um so the first

74:37

question which asks about

74:39

uh logistics and infrastructure it's

74:41

something i think a lot about and

74:43

and i've been doing kind of slowly i

74:45

learned very slowly

74:47

and in my kind of transition from a

74:50

project that was

74:51

very clearly focused on logistics to

74:54

my work now which is maybe uses

74:56

infrastructure

74:57

more frequently as a keyword but is also

74:59

very much about

75:01

um logistics um and i guess

75:04

um that you know it's a it's a it's a

75:06

huge terrain and

75:08

in fact some of my very earliest work my

75:10

my doctoral work and my first book which

75:12

does is sometimes hard to see is

75:14

connected to this conversation

75:16

which was about soldier welfare and the

75:18

some of the

75:19

genesis of the welfare state especially

75:21

in canada but in across kind of um

75:24

advanced capitalist states more broadly

75:27

um civilian welfare emerging kind of out

75:30

of the military

75:31

that was actually profoundly a question

75:33

of logistics

75:35

in the sense that logistics has its kind

75:37

of emergence in

75:38

supplying and sustaining the forces of

75:41

war so

75:42

um i think these are questions i've been

75:44

thinking about for a long time and i

75:45

don't have

75:46

i wouldn't say i have one stable answer

75:48

to you but what i tried to explore

75:50

in this talk today and what i would i

75:51

would say is that you know at least in

75:53

so far as we think about

75:54

um infrastructures let's say maybe first

75:57

in terms of physical infrastructures

75:59

because it's it's

76:00

it may be a little simpler to imagine um

76:02

infrastructures are the kind of

76:04

fixed in fixed material structures the

76:07

build

76:08

environments um the built systems

76:11

um in the ways that david harvey and

76:12

ruthie gilmore talked about them

76:14

that i invoked that in a sense allow for

76:18

the circulatory calculations

76:23

and efficiencies of the field of

76:25

logistics

76:26

to be practiced the way they do so it's

76:28

the kind of build out

76:30

of that logistical power but

76:33

infrastructure

76:33

isn't necessarily just those physical

76:36

built physical systems either like

76:37

there's

76:38

all kinds of ways of thinking about

76:39

infrastructure and i i'm just

76:41

hopefully it was clear i'm very deeply

76:43

inspired by someone like lauren berlant

76:45

as well as

76:46

ruthie gilmore when she talks about

76:47

infrastructures of feeling you know

76:49

maybe just a quick note on a side note

76:51

on that um front you know there's a way

76:53

in which

76:53

um in some of the literature on

76:55

infrastructure there's a sort of

76:57

saying that um infrastructure it kind of

77:00

goes unnoticed until it fails

77:03

and i think that's that's a way of

77:05

thinking that has been

77:07

critiqued in the literature already but

77:08

one connection i was

77:10

thinking about is you know ruthie talks

77:12

about the infrastructures of white

77:13

supremacy the infrastructure the feeling

77:15

of white supremacy it's this way in

77:16

which

77:17

it's really only for privileged

77:19

populations that infrastructure can go

77:21

undetected until it fails

77:22

because for most populations on the

77:25

planet

77:26

they're either their lands are being

77:27

trespassed

77:29

their water is not safe you know we can

77:30

go on and on most peoples

77:32

are not um subject to the kind of

77:34

privilege of ignoring infrastructure and

77:35

likewise i think we could

77:37

uh make up you know a very direct

77:38

parallel in in the ways in which

77:40

it's only white people who don't have to

77:42

think about white supremacy

77:44

you know there's an infrastructural

77:45

dimension to white supremacy as

77:47

as ruthie gilmore helps us to think

77:49

about

77:50

so um you know in terms of

77:52

infrastructure and logistics

77:54

um they are really hung to hang together

77:56

through this notion of movement in

77:58

motion which has

77:59

multiple forms from its most literal

78:01

like driving down a highway or

78:04

flowing through a pipe um to its uh

78:06

maybe

78:07

um more ethereal and effective

78:10

and imagined um in terms of

78:13

the second question on political

78:17

approaches coalitions and strategies i

78:20

mean i think

78:22

when i when i think about who i learn

78:25

most from

78:26

um i'm thinking about people like winona

78:28

leduc

78:29

and and movements that are actually

78:31

already doing both of those things

78:33

so part of what um what you know drew me

78:36

to

78:37

winona's work both her applied work i

78:39

guess we could say like she's literally

78:41

um blockading um efforts to build the

78:43

line three pipeline right now and was

78:45

arrested last week so like this is not

78:47

you know just um someone writing their

78:50

ideas it's

78:51

she's doing that as well um but but you

78:54

know

78:54

if you look to the work that uh people

78:56

at white earth are doing and honor the

78:58

earth

78:59

um an organization she works with are

79:01

doing

79:02

uh and many other communities that we

79:03

could learn from they're simultaneously

79:06

trying to block pipelines across their

79:09

territories

79:10

these toxic infrastructures and very

79:13

involved i mean

79:15

i think most of what what she enjoys

79:16

doing is building

79:18

these alternative infrastructures so we

79:19

could think about food systems energy

79:21

systems

79:22

housing systems and um

79:25

the kind of multitude of ways of

79:28

restoring

79:29

and and building a new various

79:32

infrastructures for survivants

79:34

um and you can sort of see that we talk

79:36

a little bit about that in this paper

79:38

that we

79:38

we co-wrote in south atlantic quarterly

79:40

so that might be one place but i

79:41

i think there's probably already a lot

79:44

of

79:45

um in many places at least and maybe it

79:47

needs to be deepened

79:48

but those kinds of coalitions are or

79:52

you know groups and movements that are

79:55

seeing

79:56

multiple fronts you know um are already

79:59

are already working in that way and ann

80:00

spice also has a really fabulous paper

80:03

uh looking at the whitsoetin

80:05

and sort of trying to re-figure what

80:07

critical infrastructure means

80:09

um to the withsoatin people you know in

80:11

terms of their lifeways

80:13

and their enviro environment and and

80:15

more than human relations

80:17

as they try and block this coastal gas

80:19

link pipeline so

80:21

i think there's some really good

80:22

examples that we can learn from both in

80:23

the literatures

80:24

and in by following these movements

80:28

thanks for the questions

80:37

thanks ted um i'll read through a few

80:39

more again

80:40

and zekran asks um this is a question at

80:43

the top but i feel like you've covered

80:45

it quite well already

80:46

but i'll just read it anyway and what

80:48

are some fundamental ideas and concepts

80:49

we could adopt

80:50

to reverse the motion of globalization

80:53

to a more sustainable means of

80:55

production regionally and locally

80:57

and it feels like some of the examples

80:58

you pointed towards in terms of

80:59

indigenous organizing how environmental

81:02

environmental concerns indigenous

81:03

communities go hand-in-hand

81:05

with um the kind of chemical logistical

81:08

uh actions you you already mentioned

81:10

um but i'll make you read two more on

81:12

dev i don't know if you can see the q a

81:14

box

81:14

because it might be helpful for you to

81:16

read along at the same time

81:18

and i think you can see sorry i'm to

81:21

everyone out there i'm so new to

81:22

microsoft teams so

81:24

i don't even know what i'm doing okay i

81:25

think i can see

81:27

no i don't i okay yeah they're published

81:31

yes yeah exactly okay got him thanks

81:33

sorry okay

81:35

no problem um so i might read out two

81:38

for you

81:38

um so if you go down to maybe the fourth

81:42

comment from

81:43

uh lorena nattal who says here in brazil

81:46

we've been under a crazy government's

81:48

we've been facing

81:49

threats for decades to the amazon

81:51

indigenous peoples because of big

81:52

international corporations

81:54

do you believe in any theory that is not

81:56

anti-capitalist to deal with these

81:57

problems

81:59

um and then maybe to jump on to a second

82:02

question then

82:04

um and this is a longer one so it might

82:08

be helpful for you to read along with me

82:10

um at the end the second last comment

82:12

from claire launchbury

82:14

who says thank you deborah for an

82:15

absolutely brilliant talk which has left

82:17

me with so much to think about

82:19

i'm just wondering and thinking of your

82:21

last quote from um

82:22

janaya khan and the ways black trans sex

82:25

workers are developing their own modes

82:26

of safety

82:27

in the face of the vectorization of our

82:29

existence

82:30

and this makes me think of recent work

82:32

by mackenzie work which is deeply

82:34

pessimistic about what

82:35

follows the end of capitalism and its

82:37

derivatives

82:38

but explore spaces that might be beyond

82:40

the maelstrom particularly

82:41

trans cultures which are also generative

82:45

refusal of cis heterox orthodoxies

82:47

is there a way to join this together uh

82:49

sorry for the rambling

82:51

um yeah some kind of related questions

82:53

on

82:54

um uh post capitalist imaginaries as

82:58

well

83:00

thank you so much those are all really

83:02

fascinating questions as are the

83:03

comments they probably shouldn't have

83:05

looked because now i'm

83:06

i know i'm buzzing on all these

83:07

different comments but i'll i'll try and

83:09

stay focused um

83:11

okay so for the first question was about

83:13

um

83:14

are do these do this does this work have

83:16

to remain anti-capitalist is that

83:18

does this have to be was that the first

83:20

one you okay

83:22

from the brazilian case and yeah about

83:23

whether anti-capital or

83:25

uh is it necessary not necessarily

83:27

anti-capitalist yeah

83:29

thanks so much for the question um first

83:31

of all um

83:33

i i i don't always know if it matters

83:35

what i mean i think words do matter and

83:37

i think it matters to name things but um

83:39

uh i absolutely think that um that the

83:43

you know i think maybe with glenn

83:44

coulthard who's so helpful on this point

83:47

in red skin white masks um who talks

83:50

very much about how

83:52

anti-capitalism isn't enough but there's

83:55

but but it has to be anti-capitalist um

83:58

that

83:58

the forces of and he wants to center

84:01

these conversations

84:02

um in uh an analysis of colonialism

84:05

which i find really helpful and i think

84:07

i've

84:07

i've you know in various ways tried to

84:09

do that today by understanding

84:11

capitalism as a central

84:12

uh engine of of coloniality but um

84:16

but theories of movements around

84:20

colonialism center the

84:24

questions of of course extractivism

84:26

exploitation

84:28

and dispossession but also within an

84:30

explicitly

84:31

um anti-racist lens and with a racial

84:34

analysis so

84:35

a kind of racial capitalist analysis so

84:38

um

84:38

yeah i think absolutely i don't think we

84:41

can

84:42

i don't think there is um you know

84:44

that's partly why i try to

84:45

work through some of the very basic uh

84:47

mechanics of

84:49

expanded reproduction um because it's in

84:51

that

84:52

in that exact moment um when

84:55

reproduction becomes expanded in marxist

84:57

terms moves from simple or subsistence

84:59

to expanded

85:01

uh reproduction the only way that can

85:03

happen

85:04

the only way that accumulation can

85:06

happen rather than having

85:08

um value value redistributed

85:12

for reproduction more generally is

85:15

the only so that's that accumulation

85:17

happens

85:18

through concentration of resources um

85:21

through theft of land or labor that's

85:23

um you know i think i'm very committed

85:26

to that

85:26

approach and so um i think that the

85:30

attempts to you know whether we see it

85:32

in the academy we see it

85:34

in um you know efforts right now to have

85:37

um uh indigenous peoples take over

85:40

um pipeline infrastructure um you know

85:42

which many indigenous

85:44

writers have been very critical of in

85:45

terms of um you know

85:47

the the debt that will probably accrue

85:50

to those nations and so forth

85:52

um yeah i absolutely think it has to be

85:53

anti-capitalist um

85:55

in terms of the second question which

85:57

was um

85:59

i'm not sure if it was the pessimism or

86:02

um thinking with

86:03

with mackenzie work and about trans

86:05

cultures

86:06

maybe i'll focus on that um

86:09

yeah in in some ways i wanted to make

86:12

some of that

86:13

that question of the trans much more

86:15

central here

86:16

um i ran out of time

86:20

in my preparations it felt like i was

86:22

writing up to the talk i wanted to

86:23

actually give today and

86:24

and sometimes that just happened so i

86:26

had to i had to stop

86:28

but um i'll say a couple words about

86:30

that first i think that the example that

86:32

janaya khan gives is

86:33

is is so helpful and so um

86:36

it's i mean it's it's in some sense it's

86:38

very really brilliant

86:39

but it's also just very practical and i

86:41

think it illustrates what ruthie gilmore

86:43

is saying so beautifully because what

86:45

ruthie gilmore is saying in

86:46

in the quote that i had prior to that

86:48

was that this isn't like

86:50

a this isn't just like a hypothetical

86:51

exercise you know i think a lot of

86:53

people

86:53

belittle and diminish and make

86:56

abolitionists feel like they're you know

86:57

idealistic um little smurfs or something

87:00

um

87:01

it's actually a defense and a desire to

87:03

expand what already exists right and so

87:05

i think when

87:06

when khan looks to um a community

87:09

in a sense you could ask well where is

87:11

this happening already where is it

87:12

impossible to

87:13

to to call the police like like they

87:16

point out

87:17

or where is it um you know that that

87:19

some some kind of

87:20

reliance on something that we think of

87:22

or that

87:23

we meaning you or i may think about as

87:26

essential

87:27

um and like we can't even imagine a

87:29

world without it like there's people

87:30

living without it so or there's people

87:32

living

87:33

otherwise so who are those people and

87:34

how are they doing it in a sense is what

87:36

khan asks us to think about and she you

87:38

know they point very much to

87:40

elders and there's a kind of nice

87:42

dialogue in that in

87:43

the in the discussion that um i pulled

87:46

that quote from

87:47

with an elder about about that approach

87:50

so i think there's a way in which um in

87:53

the in that kind of example

87:54

um trans communities in this case black

87:57

trans sex workers

87:58

are living already in ways that require

88:01

alternative

88:03

systems of social reproduction

88:04

alternative systems of safety

88:06

um that rely on kind of community

88:08

infrastructure and like i think you know

88:09

so

88:09

you know going back to one of the

88:11

earlier questions that's one of the ways

88:12

that winona leduc

88:14

talks about the difference between

88:15

extractive or capitalist infrastructures

88:18

or corporate infrastructures and

88:19

community infrastructures let's

88:20

you know what we we suggest elementary

88:23

as a as a key word

88:25

um uh in terms of you know there was a

88:28

very short interview i did with john

88:30

grayson um

88:31

in society and space like years ago

88:34

because they john grayson's a canadian

88:36

queer filmmaker

88:37

who um does a lot of amazing things but

88:39

one thing

88:40

um that he did was this this um

88:43

on this i can't even describe it it

88:45

would take too long but it's online so

88:47

you can look at it it's

88:48

uh trans motion transgender murder

88:51

mystery it's like

88:52

these thir a film in 30 second segments

88:55

that actually screened on the toronto

88:56

subway system

88:57

so imagine that and operatic it's quite

89:00

extraordinary

89:01

and it kind of blew me away because the

89:03

whole production

89:04

um thinks through transportation

89:08

uh transgender uh politics trans

89:11

politics and this question of motion

89:13

quite

89:13

centrally and i think that trans

89:15

politics has that capacity it doesn't

89:17

always but i think there are

89:19

um you know various thinkers and

89:21

certainly movements that

89:22

center questions of transition um and

89:25

transformation

89:26

um very much in their work there's one

89:29

more place i was going to go with that

89:31

and i've

89:32

oh i don't know where it was but it was

89:34

somewhere

89:36

earlier i wanted to just say something

89:38

about um

89:40

in a lot of in really all the examples

89:42

i've explored today

89:44

this question of um food

89:47

has returned and i didn't really kind of

89:50

highlight that although it's

89:51

i think it's hopefully a bit obvious um

89:54

but it it brings i think it brings us

89:56

back to a number of different questions

89:57

around social reproduction and

89:58

infrastructure and logistics

90:00

um but it also i think points out that

90:02

there are

90:03

um forms of provisioning you know

90:05

there's maybe it's maybe it's in

90:07

response to the pessimism

90:08

that um that claire that you've um

90:11

shared with us today which is palpable

90:13

and real and it's

90:15

almost hard to avoid in this moment it's

90:18

partly why i wanted you all to have like

90:19

a nice form of motion that you could

90:21

be comforted by in case um seeing um

90:25

pig slaughter was was really disturbing

90:28

i think

90:28

um i was given some instruction by my

90:31

partner not to show certain images that

90:33

initially i was going to

90:34

um because of because of that but

90:37

anyways the

90:38

idea of um protecting

90:42

you know the very basics of food and

90:44

water supply of

90:46

of cultivating you know there's huge

90:48

food movements that are already doing

90:49

this and i think maybe the food justice

90:51

movement

90:52

is probably one of the best examples um

90:55

of how we can simultaneously work on

90:57

multiple fronts i think maybe that was

90:58

part of it

90:59

was thinking about like even in the work

91:01

of the black panthers

91:02

you know they're often known for their

91:04

survival programs um the food the

91:06

breakfast programs and other kinds of

91:08

um you know immediately programs and

91:11

approaches oriented in survival

91:13

but some of the key leaders of the black

91:15

panthers movement were also

91:16

very involved in building alternative

91:18

food systems and

91:19

the legacies of that work is so critical

91:21

in the whole kind of

91:22

oakland area alternative food movement

91:25

food markets food gardens

91:27

and which ties in also to movements

91:30

abolition movements

91:31

um you know in terms of the garden um

91:35

labor programs that they have um

91:37

organized so

91:38

um i guess uh pessimism is

91:43

inevitable right now and i think um

91:45

bradford you know really helps me to

91:47

think about

91:48

you know the maelstrom um but i i

91:52

when when you know just coming back to

91:55

gilmore's point

91:56

um and the examples that we were just

91:57

talking about um

91:59

when those examples are not abstract

92:03

you know when there are people that you

92:04

love and care about when they're

92:05

communities that you feel

92:07

either attached to or responsible to

92:10

um i think that the there's just really

92:13

no time for pessimism

92:16

thanks pass it back to you eugene

92:21

thanks for these really um generous

92:23

responses that

92:25

um i'm gonna read two shorter questions

92:27

that are

92:28

towards the ends of the q a section

92:31

the first is from vk preston who says

92:34

thanks for the brilliant talk

92:36

have you been thinking further about the

92:37

recent cancellation of keystone

92:39

in light of your current work um

92:42

thank you oh sorry go ahead and then

92:45

just so you have a second one

92:46

if you want it's from um engine and

92:48

guiness thanks so much for this

92:50

inspiring talk

92:51

uh you spoke about multiple

92:52

dispossessions connected through

92:54

infrastructures pointedly represented

92:56

with their triple map of northern

92:58

america

92:59

how do we similarly visualize connected

93:01

struggles

93:02

is the map you mentioned of the black

93:04

eyes um not the one you showed from

93:06

cnm an example of that

93:11

thank you both great questions um so

93:14

first vk thank you for your question um

93:18

yeah i've been thinking about it so for

93:19

those of you who aren't aware

93:22

this politics is is

93:25

very very difficult in this moment but

93:27

it's also sometimes very surprising

93:30

so um with i think one of biden's first

93:34

presidential actions was to cancel the

93:37

permissions for the

93:38

for the keystone xl pipeline um this

93:41

just happened a few days ago right

93:43

um just yesterday i believe it was

93:45

yesterday there was a

93:46

pretty hilarious picture that the onion

93:49

had circulated

93:50

and i think it connects very well to

93:53

what we're talking about today um it was

93:55

a picture of trudeau

93:56

prime minister trudeau who had chained

93:59

himself

94:00

to a piece of pipeline infrastructure to

94:03

protest

94:04

um the destruction of his pipeline

94:07

so um it's there's a there's a lot to

94:09

think about um

94:10

you know there's really complicated

94:11

politics of course

94:13

um in in these moments um uh

94:17

you know between um states and movements

94:21

um i haven't had enough time to really

94:23

think through how this is unfolding in

94:25

detail because it's really

94:26

is just happening now but i will just

94:28

echo the voices of so many others who

94:30

remind us that it's um over a decade of

94:33

movement work

94:34

that has led to that canceled pipeline

94:37

it's not like

94:38

the magic of a presidential action in

94:40

itself um

94:42

so that pressure is extraordinary and i

94:44

think that that pressure um

94:46

uh in a sense reminds us like how

94:49

um even as these movements can in some

94:52

ways be

94:53

just sort of dismissed um you know like

94:55

oh it's a

94:56

this small blockade or that kind of

94:59

idealistic

95:00

ambitious movement um how extraordinary

95:04

long-term sustained work

95:06

can be um and i'll just i'll highlight

95:09

that and the fact that you know um

95:11

the uneven geographies of of the

95:15

pipeline support are really crucial here

95:17

and their histories

95:18

in um these very um

95:21

processes of colonialism are crucial we

95:25

winona and i kind of get at that in our

95:26

paper too talking about

95:28

that truck convoy for those of you who

95:29

are familiar with this convoy that

95:31

happened

95:32

from alberta to ottawa to protest

95:35

both restrictions on pipelines

95:39

but also immigrants and immigration to

95:41

the countries

95:42

and and also was wrapped up in very

95:44

colonial politics

95:46

um so those entanglements i think are

95:49

are really crucial

95:50

um and that

95:53

as as um you know as

95:57

as provocative and bold as these

96:00

movements

96:01

have been um at the height of of the

96:04

shutdown canada movement

96:05

um the even the mainstream media was

96:08

reporting

96:08

that there was about fifty percent

96:11

support uh

96:12

maybe even a little bit more among the

96:14

wider canadian public for those

96:15

movements even as they were

96:17

you know creating inconveniences uh for

96:20

for

96:20

mainstream people um so that's i think

96:23

significant

96:24

um in terms and i and i'm sort of

96:27

leading to angen's question i was trying

96:28

to

96:28

maybe buy a little bit of time to think

96:30

and thank you for the question and thank

96:32

you for everything always

96:34

um i i think there's probably all kinds

96:38

of ways to answer your question that i

96:39

can't yet imagine and

96:41

and are probably not thinking about just

96:42

for um

96:44

you know lack of um lack of

96:48

facility in this in this immediate

96:50

moment and i think that the

96:52

the map not like you said not the globe

96:55

and mail map but the other one is is

96:57

potentially one way to do that um i

96:59

think sometime

97:00

like to literally map um actions and

97:04

movements is

97:04

is interesting um i think you know

97:08

there's

97:08

there's probably a lot of other ways to

97:11

do that

97:12

where um the border itself maybe

97:15

doesn't doesn't anchor um all this

97:18

motion there's and you know an

97:20

initiative i haven't spoken about which

97:22

is probably really obvious to those of

97:23

you who are more attuned

97:25

to uh uh indigenous uh politics

97:29

on turtle island which is the kind of

97:31

efforts to rebuild the bison or the

97:32

buffalo herds themselves

97:35

and the buffalo treaties that have

97:36

emerged over the last

97:38

few decades part of what's i think so

97:40

fascinating about

97:42

that work where they're trying to

97:43

literally use existing indigenous lands

97:46

and to expand um uh

97:50

and regenerate the bison who were kind

97:52

of known

97:53

as not just um a food supply as

97:56

you know settlers and and settlers

97:59

military saw them but

98:00

as environmental custodians and that

98:03

create

98:04

one of the largest ecologies in the

98:06

world the the great plains

98:07

with their movements um but the if you

98:10

look at the

98:11

you know i have maps and stuff here but

98:12

you can find them online if you go to

98:14

buffalo treaty

98:15

the the kinds of maps that they

98:19

show of their work it's anchored in the

98:22

movements of the buffalo it's not

98:23

anchored in settler states

98:25

so we see very different kinds of

98:27

jurisdictions

98:28

that emerge and i think there's probably

98:31

you know as many ways to show

98:33

the overlap in these territories and

98:36

these movements as there are

98:38

movements themselves um but i think it's

98:40

a great question and i would totally

98:42

welcome if anyone in the in the in our

98:44

big dispersed room wants to

98:46

chime in on this he's probably thinking

98:47

more clearly than i am in this time

98:55

deb is it okay if we put two more

98:57

questions to you to finish off

98:58

sure yeah okay um

99:02

towards the end of the thread dt

99:04

cochrane writes

99:06

given that canadian governments are

99:08

inherently colonial

99:09

but also have degrees of democratic

99:11

responsiveness and control important

99:13

resources

99:15

how should settler allies approach

99:17

working with in

99:18

and through governments and

99:21

so that's the first question and then

99:24

secondly there's a comment from anna

99:26

louise

99:27

saying i don't know your piece from the

99:28

south atlantic quarterly but i'm going

99:30

to

99:30

go and read it and i'm really interested

99:32

in the way your talk

99:35

draws our attention so well to the

99:36

deeply varied velocities we need to

99:38

attend to

99:39

but i want to ask you about how you read

99:41

lauren berlant on the idea of

99:42

infrastructure as also what

99:45

binds us to the world and movements what

99:48

sort of place does the imaginary of

99:49

binding

99:50

wrapping around ourselves and things

99:52

have as a type of movement i suppose or

99:55

a type of holding

99:57

um that comment if you want to read it

99:59

deb it's the third last one and

100:03

okay and the one before that was at the

100:06

very end about kind of settler allies

100:08

um thanks these are all i mean they're

100:12

really generative questions i'm hoping

100:13

we

100:14

will have a chance to um save them so i

100:17

can

100:17

learn from them and think about them

100:19

more carefully later there's always this

100:20

you know

100:21

i mean both because it's just such a

100:22

hard time and just i wanted to say

100:24

something at the beginning but i was

100:25

hesitant to take up any more time that

100:27

you know my i just wanted to kind of

100:28

send out a sense of solidarity because

100:31

it is

100:31

such a painful time and i know probably

100:33

many of many people who

100:35

are here with us today are dealing with

100:37

all kinds of untold hardships that you

100:39

know are just

100:40

it's difficult and it's hard to think

100:42

clearly at the best of times especially

100:44

now

100:44

um but i will try and answer briefly

100:46

those two questions

100:48

the first one is really important i'm a

100:49

settler um and i have

100:51

um i learned many lessons constantly

100:55

about

100:55

um how to try and be a a good um

100:59

not just ally but i think um as many

101:01

have written co-conspirator

101:03

i would say maybe one of the first

101:07

the first things is

101:10

relationship building and listening

101:13

of course and not speaking all the time

101:16

putting in your work um coming back

101:18

and putting in your work again and again

101:20

and again

101:22

i think you know ruthie's comments about

101:24

solidarity being made and remade and

101:26

remade and remade

101:28

i think that in general is a really good

101:31

indication of uh the labors that are

101:34

involved in the time and commitment that

101:36

are involved

101:37

i've also had many times where i've had

101:39

to learn really really hard lessons you

101:41

know about my own practice and behavior

101:44

one thing i try and do is put in more

101:47

work

101:48

um than i ever speak about so i don't

101:51

tend to write about everything i'm doing

101:54

unless it's at the

101:55

request of or would be helpful to

101:57

communities and movements i'm involved

101:59

with so that's one

102:00

kind of rule of thumb is don't go in to

102:03

write a paper

102:04

don't go into you know extract

102:08

that i don't know if there's um you know

102:11

a whole lot of

102:12

general things i can say on the spot but

102:14

there is a lot of good good things to

102:15

read out there i would say do your

102:17

homework

102:18

you know learn your lessons read the

102:20

work of

102:22

scholars coming out of those communities

102:24

and movements because that's one of the

102:26

extraordinary gifts that we have is to

102:28

learn

102:29

from people who are implicated much more

102:31

directly than you might be or than i

102:33

might be

102:34

and also to remember that i guess part

102:38

of what i'm trying to do in

102:39

the talk today and in work that i could

102:41

not even begin to talk about today like

102:42

a part of the research i'm doing right

102:44

now is looking at

102:45

some of the history of jewish

102:46

colonization and jewish colonization

102:48

companies and the jewish colonization

102:50

um at a global scale which

102:53

is so fascinating in so many ways but

102:56

trying to think about

102:57

how we are entangled you know how we are

102:59

related how we are implicated so it's

103:01

not some kind of like

103:03

politics of you know charitable action

103:05

or something

103:06

um you know even in my own family and i

103:08

can think about you know we have members

103:09

of my family that are

103:10

black chinese uh jewish you know we can

103:13

think about

103:14

how did we all come to be here together

103:16

you know even that question

103:18

um is a you know would require a kind of

103:21

following of infrastructure like i've

103:23

tried to do a bit of today so

103:25

i guess that would be some of the

103:26

different ways i would begin to answer

103:28

that first question about

103:30

settler allyship and what does it mean

103:32

to try and be

103:33

um useful and and maybe even more in

103:38

in these movements for change um and

103:40

then the second

103:42

question sort of oh i'm lauren berlant

103:44

um

103:46

i like the idea of being bound to

103:49

movement

103:50

and part of the reason i like that idea

103:52

um is

103:54

it displaces um the entire emphasis on

103:57

not it doesn't entirely displace but it

104:00

embraces what is sometimes an emphasis

104:02

on choice

104:04

in kind of um not just you know

104:07

western and colonial ways of thought but

104:10

in

104:10

i would say um uh

104:14

euro western critical thought as well um

104:17

uh including like even queer and trans

104:19

thought that i

104:20

sometimes i find so um helpful and and

104:23

inspiring um

104:25

the idea that we are implicated and have

104:28

responsibilities

104:29

um uh is partly what i like about the

104:32

idea of being bound being

104:34

being bound to something um it's not

104:36

like you're just choosing to

104:39

attach that there is there's

104:41

implicatedness and so

104:42

responsibility which brings in i think a

104:45

whole realm of politics which is around

104:47

ethics

104:48

um the spiritual and moral dimensions of

104:50

our political work

104:52

which i find to be incredibly rich

104:55

in um indigenous and black radical

104:58

thought

104:59

so maybe i'll i'll leave it there so i

105:02

don't just ramble on

105:04

but thank you so much for all the rich

105:07

questions and

105:08

comments which i will continue to learn

105:10

from as i study them in a different

105:14

moment

105:17

thanks so much deb thanks for as i said

105:19

a really inspiring talk

105:20

and for being so generous with your time

105:24

and your

105:24

extensive responses and really

105:25

thoughtful responses to all these um

105:27

challenging and interesting questions um

105:31

just like this briefly say thanks as

105:32

well to eric erdogle on technical

105:34

support for

105:36

setting up and helping out with this

105:38

whole event and just to let people know

105:40

that we'll be continuing on a monthly

105:41

basis with this seminar series until the

105:42

end of the academic

105:43

year continuing next month with the talk

105:45

from etienne valley bar

105:47

on friday the 19th of february so we'll

105:50

be sending out information about that

105:51

shortly

105:52

um okay i'll leave it there for today

105:55

and um

105:56

just to say thanks to that once more and

105:58

sending out a lot of virtual applause

106:00

thanks deb

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