… scholarship and public attention on fair trade. However, this paper concentrates on fair trade banana production, particularly in St. Vincent (based on fieldwork conducted in November 2006). St. Vincent and the Windward Islands are small island economies that have been dependent on bananas as their main export crop since the middle of the 20th century when they started producing bananas for …

Comment by Jack Reynolds: … attending King Edwards VI …

Tags: capitalism, Caribbean, community, economy, environment, fair trade, global justice, globalization, liberalization, politics, regulation, trade

… a wave of worker protests against factory closures is grabbing both public imagination and media attention.
Their story begins with a sign hanging from a factory gate: OUT OF BUSINESS. LOOK FOR WORK ELSEWHERE. Or else it begins with a letter in the mailbox: WILL NOT PAY FINAL MONTH’S SALARY OR PROCESS REQUESTS FOR SEVERANCE PACKAGES.
Or rather, their story begins earlier, with an …

Tags: Argentina, capital, community, democracy, liberalization, privatization, protest, resistance

… The 5 th World Water Forum, named Bridging Divides for Water, kicks off on March 16 th and ends on March 22 nd, 2009 in Istanbul, Turkey. At first glance, the 5 th Forum is an international event for water experts, activists, government officials and water organizations to exchange ideas and develop policies on these and other water issues. Panelists and participants will …

… upheavals in the global financial markets have revived interest in the political economic analysis of Karl Marx.  Sales of Marx’s opus Capital - which English media insists on calling by its untranslated German title, Das Kapital - have reportedly skyrocketed.  The UK Times published a lengthy commentary asking, “ did he get it right? “  This turn to Marx makes sense, as he is …

Tags: autonomy, banking, capital, capitalism, crisis, finance, history, industry, marx, materialism, production

… universally legitimate value in the political life of our time” (Anderson, 3). The existence of that nation, according to those who belong to it, is unquestionable. The nation is immutable, it has always existed and its members must impede its violation and ensure its future existence by putting it at the top of their priorities. But what is a nation exactly? This paper will to touch on some …

… This paper will first provide an overview of the Canada Pension Plan Disability (CPPD) benefits program. CPPD ostensibly serves to provide income security to pension-contributors who find themselves incapable of work due to chronic health conditions. Rising CPPD caseloads during the 1980s and early 1990s coupled with growing debt aversion in Canada led to predictions that the pension …

Tags: Canada, Canada Pension Plan, citizenship, disability, labour, neoliberalism, policy, welfare state, women

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFcdgBbbbAc
…

… Labour, Welfare, and Workplace

Periodizing our Current Moment: Work-Well-Fare As a New Mode of Social Regulation
( view paper )
Matthew Lymburner, Political Economy
From Disabled to Dispossessed: CPP Disability Benefits and the Decline of Social Citizenship Rights in Canada
( view paper )
Mary Rita Holland, Public Policy
Gazing Back Into the Closet: Theorizing about Queer …

… This paper will first provide an overview of the Canada Pension Plan Disability (CPPD) benefits program. CPPD ostensibly serves to provide income security to pension-contributors who find themselves incapable of work due to chronic health conditions. Rising CPPD caseloads during the 1980s and early 1990s coupled with growing debt aversion in Canada led to predictions that the pension …

Comment by ed turon: … things, once a recipient of …

Tags: Canada, Canada Pension Plan, citizenship, disability, labour, neoliberalism, policy, welfare state, women

… and Reinforcing the ‘Entrepreneurial City’: Labour’s Contradictory Role in the Upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver 
As Vancouver prepares for the upcoming Winter Olympics in 2010, the bid process has dominated urban discourse with its aim to transform Vancouver into a ‘world-class,’ competitive global-city. This essay will use the Olympic Games as an empirical case …

Tags: Canada, capitalism, geography, labour, Olympics, resistance, scale, trade, unions

… it is to step out of that suffocating Closet only to find yourself in a hall of two-way mirrors—undoubtedly, a common experience for queer women who “come out” in the workplace. This paper will attempt to tease out some of the regulatory forces that inform the coming out process for queer women in western states. Access to resources in the workplace takes on specific gendered and …

…

Tags: art, copyright, graffiti, mural, style

… – networks, struggle, unions – but one word, or more aptly, one concept, will certainly stand out as peculiar: work-well-fare. What is this concept? What does it mean? I argue that work-well-fare is a tendency towards a renewed class compromise for America; a meeting point for capital and labor to renegotiate balance in politics, in the economy and in social discourse. Coupled with …

… in the global geographies of local marginality
( view abstract )
Michael A. Lithgow, Mass Communication
Travelling third class: regulating the transport of farm animals in Canada
( view abstract )
Michelle Barrett, Political Economy
National Identity Examined: A Study of the Quebec Nation
( view abstract  | view paper )
Rachel Ariey-Jouglard, Political Science
A …

… Suffering
A public lecture by Fuyuki Kurasawa, given on March 28, 2008 at the Institute of Political Economy, Carleton University.

How is visuality — understood here as the mutual constitution of the visual and the social (W. J. T. Mitchell) — implicated in the mediated construction of instances of distant suffering in various parts of the world, and what are the …

Comment by Matthew Lymburner: … intentions of scholars of all …