Intro

The WebRing for Communication and Militant Research on Precarity is an open platform and an evolving network connecting militant research on precarity and activism already involved in the EuroMayDay mobilisations. The Precarity WebRing brings together web sites and blogs on labour conflicts in order to outline a space for debate, research and political action. The aim is to construct common practices, concepts and notions, and to develop militant research projects “with” (instead of “on”) precarious subjects and their/our struggles.

The project will produce and share knowledge, experiences and materials, will collect information and practices about collectives and conflicts, and will spread news, analyses and investigations. It attempts to establish militant co-research projects in a different way to academic or traditional workers’ movement's research. Militant co-research is simultaneously the production of knowledge, subjectivity, cooperation and political self-organization. It is an investigation “for” and “inside” political actions and social conflicts.

In this regard PWR will construct a cartography of precarious living and working conditions in Europe in order to visualize the density of militant groups, struggles and political actions. The cartography -- which will be presented through the graphic interface of the Precarity WebRing -- is a multilayer map where each particular layer depicts different processes and actors participating in the social conflict around precarity. These overlapping layers establish links between each of the different processes and the overall political networking actions.

The first step

The first step for the implementation of this multilayer map will consist of the visualization of the EuroMayDay networks, i.e. of all those groups linked to the building of a precarious 1st May as a process of European political recomposition from below that takes precarity as the terrain of battle: activist initiatives, militant research groups, social centres, blogs etc. Here, the EuroMayDay galaxy is understood in its broader sense, including those groups and social initiatives which locate themselves on its edges. Each group/initiative will be a node on the map, linking to its website or activities, situated on its geographical localization, connected to other groups with which it collaborates.

At the same time, this first cartography doesn't aim to "represent" the EuroMayDay (for this we already have www.euromayday.org), nor to be exhaustive, but to allow a visualization of different subjects involved, their practices, their discourses and imagination, their demands and ongoing battles so that linkages among them (we should say: among us) can be intensified and self-analyses of the internal dynamics and challenges can be promoted. In this sense, this map is conceived as an open on-line process, built gradually through the involvement of different networks and connectors.

The main device for the construction of such a map is a "node card" (see below) which will be passed-by through the EuroMayDay networks and filled-in by as many groups as possible. This process of passing-by and filling-in should not only rely on e-lists but also on face-to-face contact (especially in the case of territorialized networks). It should serve as a tool for increasing the density of connections and getting to know the networks in which we inscribe ourselves.

The second step

While the first step in the construction of the graphic interface of the PWR attempts to bring together and visualize various activist and militant research groups on precarity, the target of the second phase is to visualise the social conflict around precarity itself. In this second phase the virtual network of activists and militant researchers will develop and instigate four additional layers on our maps of precarious work, life and struggles. In this second step the maps of the PWR interface will become more and more virtual. And by this they will become more and more real because they will deliver a close and self-organized look into the sites, spaces, articulations and multiplicities of everyday struggles on precarity. The target of the second step is to create a socio-wiki of precarity.

The four layers which will be added to the PWR map during the second step are:

1. Precarious subjectivities

This layer will visualize various groupings and social actors which oppose precarity and neoliberal socioeconomic policies across Europe. The formation of precarious subjectivities is not only emerging on the sites of labour struggles in different sectors and groups, such as intermittent, affective, part-time, temporary, freelance, casual, immaterial, contract, seasonal, informal workers but also traverses the whole constitution of the European social space: migration and mobility, gender politics, queer politics, politics of embodiment and health.

2. The European regime of power on precarity

This layer attempts to picture the regime of power across Europe and the different political actors participating in controlling social movement and political initiatives against precarity, such as the various governmental organisations on national and European level, traditional trade unions, corporate agents of neoliberal globalization and MNCs, employment agencies and institutions of public policies.

3. Collective public spaces

This layer attempts to create new visions and new versions of conventional city maps and public spaces from the perspective of the collectives involved in the social conflict of precarity. It attempts to picture alternative possibilities to live and move in urban environments. This layer will deliver maps of collaborative engagements and practices which re-appropriate the publics in the city, its streets, its institutions, communal spaces, workplaces, neighbourhoods.

4. Theoretical discourse

This last layer attempts to map the various theoretical discourses on precarity. The target of this layer is to primarily multiply, invigorate, and publicise theory production of militant research and activism. But it also attempts to picture dominant discourses on precarity which contribute to the proliferation of control and oppression. This layer will forge a complex conceptual system which sustains the contemporary discourse on precarity.

The third step

Departing from the previous visualization of the social conflict around precarity on the layer of the militant research and activist initiatives (step one) and on the layers of subjectivity, power, publics, theory (step two) this third step will elaborate common strategies, concepts, projects, and actions of militant political struggles. The PWR wants to be more than a virtual platform for content-sharing around activism and research. It wants to become a tool for amplifying the impact of social struggles, for maximizing the interconnectedness of various precarious subjectivities, for initiating self-managed transnational social spaces beyond neoliberal integration and nationalist or eurocentric governmentalities. This third step wants to contribute to the wider EuroMayDay mobilisations and to our everyday confrontations in order to bring the social conflict around living labour and precarity into the heart of the political struggles today.

Annex

PRECARITY WEBRING -- THE NODE CARD

Return your card to the Editorial Board of PWR:

[email protected]

*Group name (in original language):

*Short description (including brief history):

*Type of group (e.g. assembly of several groups, trade union, magazine/alter media, social centre, militant research group, immigrant support group, queer action group etc.):

*Issues addressed (e.g. migration, call centres, care, universities etc.):

*Repertoire of practices (e.g. direct action, information & assistance, support, performances etc.):

*Initiatives and open political processes:

*Struggles you are involved or you know in our city (if possible, including contact):

*Networks in which the group is participating and/or links with other groups:

*Brief explanation of involvement in the MayDay mobilizations:

*Researches developed (in case you have any, explain the issues and method):

*Contact e-mail:

*Website and/or weblog: