TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2012 – 6:30pm
Auditorium (HA19) of the Dalhousie Architecture School
5410 Spring Garden Road, Halifax
Free and open to the public
Co-sponsored by:
Solidarity Halifax (http://solidarityhalifax.ca/)
The Halifax Media Co-Op (http://halifax.mediacoop.ca/)
It’s been one year since Occupy Wall Street (OWS) dramatically shifted the conversation about wealth, inequality, capitalism and the fate of the public sphere, and the movement is far from dead. OWS not only made headlines, it also inspired hundreds of other Occupy encampments around North America and the World, including here in Halifax. After being forcibly evicted from its encampment in Zuccotti Park (near Wall Street) OWS dispersed into dozens of different initiatives including rent strikes, activism against fracking and pipelines, alternative banking initiatives and anti-foreclosure direct action.
Based on a recent research trip to New York, Max Haiven (a co-director of the Radical Imagination Project) will talk about two initiatives in particular. (1) The OWS-led anti-debt campaign, including the “Rolling Jubilee” which raises money to buy up individuals’ “distressed” medical debt for pennies on the dollar and “forgive” it. (2) The emergence of #OccupySandy, which saw OWS organizers take a leading role in developing an extremely effective grassroots mutual-aid initiatives to get hurricane relief to some of New York’s hardest hit (and poorest) neighbourhoods.
This will be a 45 minute presentation, followed by a questions and discussion.
Max Haiven is a teacher, writer and activist based in Halifax. He is active in education and labour struggles and has worked as a union and a student organizer. He holds a PhD in cultural studies and is currently a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Art and Public Policy at New York University, and he teaches at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. He is the author of numerous articles, some of which have appeared courtesy of the Halifax Media Co-op. His first book, Crisis of the Imagination should appear in 2013. More information can be found at www.maxhaiven.com.