Workshops
Most of the schedule at Living Without Borders / Viviendo Sin Fronteras is set aside for workshops where we can come together, start conversations, share our knowledge and our skills, and start conversations about borderless consciousness and grassroots social transformatio. Most workshops fall into four main categories:
- Group discussions: a facilitated discussion for working out specific issues, brainstorming strategies, sharing experiences, and so on.
- Presentation: an information-based lecture or panel, with a question-and-answer section afterward, for sharing information on particular issue or concept, introducing an organizing effort or political campaign, and so on.
- How-to or skill-share: a hands-on seminar teaching a skill
- Film screening or project exhibition: sharing an artistic or cultural project, film, or other project, possibly with discussion afterwards
Thank you to everyone who submitted workshop proposals for the 2009 Living Without Borders encuentro! We are no longer accepting new workshop proposals. A list of confirmed workshops will appear on this website over the course of this week. Scheduling information for the workshops will be made available as soon as it is confirmed.
Confirmed Workshops
Cracking Open the Corporate University: Rethinking Humanity through Ethnic Studies, Student Activism and Beyond
Over the past forty years students of color have been engaged in resistance and social upheaval to hold the University responsible to its humanistic call. While the University has largely been driven by corporate interests and a logic of education as a from of individual investment, there are a limited set of fields such as Ethnic Studies that have emerged through student struggle to empower marginalized communities and promote social justice theory and praxis. In this workshop we will learn about the history of student struggle which gave birth to Ethnic Studies as well as the contributions/contradictions of Ethnic Studies in promoting an epistemic revolution. This will then lead us into discussing the purpose of knowledge and the significance of scholar activism through the following questions: How do we begin to challenge the logic of the corporate university? What is the responsibility of the intellectual? How can scholar activists reconcile the divide between the University and the community? How can we promote scholarship that empowers communities and provides solutions for people whom are suffering?
Criminalization of People of Color and Prison Abolition
We will discuss the Prison Industrial Complex and how it is a money making system as well as an institution for modern day slavery. We will examine the statistics of the people imprisoned as well as the persecution and profiling of people of color. We will also view sentences served and punishment allocated. Lastly, we will run through actions being taken to abolish these racist, classist, xenophobic, citizenist, institutions.
Allies All
This will be a workshop on working as allies, open to all, especially for people not targeted by im/migrant status. The discussion will provide an opportunity for people who are not targeted by immigration-bashers to discuss multiple ways we can work as allies to people who are the targets. I would anticipate that Black, white, and Native conference participants, and potentially some Latinos/as and Asians (including East, South, and West Asians) who are not immigrants, could discuss reasons for being allies as well as practical suggestions, including ways of educating ourselves so we can speak out of knowledge, not ignorance, learning how to interrupt anti-immigrant racism, e.g., racist jokes, and role-playing particular situations.
Race, Gender, and Violence — engaging students across social boundaries
This workshop will explore intersectionality and the need for social service to reflect diverse populations they serve. Definitions of different kinds of violence, and how media shapes our perception of subcultural communties and gender, how to engage students across social identities.
Connecting Struggles: Sex Workers’ Rights
The sex workers’ rights movement is a diverse, vibrant movement both in the U.S. and across the world. This presentation will connect the oppression of sex workers with the struggles for im/migrant rights by identifying potential points of intersection and overlap.
This presentation will offer a
sex workers rights 101
that will cover:- why sex worker activists push for decriminalization of prostitution
- the diversity of sex workers
- the false promises of the TVPA (Trafficking Victims Protection Act)
- labeling of people as criminal categories (
prostitute
v.sex worker
) - state violence: fear of arrest, police harassment
- intersecting inequalities and the effects of whore stigma
No Borders, No State: Anarchism, Immigration Freedom, and the Interconnection of Struggles
This workshop will be focused on an introductory discussion of the ideas and activism of anarchism (meaning the abolition of all forms of government and opposition to all systems of domination, replacing government with peaceful social cooperation and domination with free social relationships based on mutuality and equality).
I will briefly introduce the basic ideals of Anarchism, discuss the meaning of Anarchy, and clarify some common misunderstandings about Anarchy and Anarchists -- why Anarchy means peace, not violence, and cooperation, not conflict. I will then discuss why Anarchists are opposed to all national boundaries, why Anarchists favor the abolition of all systems of coercive immigration control, and how we hope that autonomous communities, voluntary cooperation, and grassroots, people-powered social change can replace the violence of political borders. The talk will cover both theory and practice, including a presentation on historical and contemporary examples of anarchist work against government borders -- including No Borders camps in the U.S. and Europe, and international solidarity actions such as cross-border support for the Magonista uprising in Baja California during the Mexican Revolution.
Finally, we will also discuss the interconnection of struggles, and how anarchism supports the struggle against the state and its borders as part of a multidimensional struggle for social transformation, against all forms of oppression and domination.
The purpose of the workshop is to give an overview of the ideas of anarchism and some of the ways they have been put into practice in multidimensional cross-border struggles for freedom and social justice. Although I advocate Anarchism and will present my reasons for believing in it, my main purpose is to open up a conversation, about Anarchism and also particularly about the interconnection of struggles, the role that opposition to state violence, and the effort to build grassroots alternatives, play in all of our movements (whatever we might call them), and about whether or not a world without government borders must also be a world without governments. As such, I will plan to leave as much time as possible at the end of my formal presentation for discussion amongst all the participants.
Workers Without Borders: internationalism, immigrant labor organizing, and building working-class solidarity across political boundaries
A discussion of radical labor organizing and international working-class solidarity and radical labor organizing as part of building a borderless world and seeking freedom and dignity for all people, across all political boundaries, regardless of nations or migrations. The talk will consider the history of immigrant struggles within the labor movement, and will contrast the historic approaches of establishment business unionism, Leninism, and syndicalism on immigration and worker solidarity across borders.
Mujeres de Maiz — Harvesting Hope and Healing in your Community through the Arts
A dialogue on how you can delve into your creative side for the em- powerment of yourself, your peers, and the community. The workshop will focus on how women’s art collectives in the Los Angeles area have done groundbreaking work to educate, empower, politicize, and heal themselves and their community. A
docuwombyntary
and sample creations and art will be shared as well ashow to’s
to start a collective(s) and sample projects and activities including a short writing workshop. www.mujeresdemaiz.netNo Human Being is Illegal! Ending the Criminalization of Im/migrants
This workshop will discuss im/migration and human mobility as a human right. As well as how im/migrants are engaging in civil disobedience by crossing imposed borders. Finally, this workshop will discuss how state goverments and the federal government are criminalizing im/migrants further, and how communities can come together to resist.
Creating a Borderless and Envirolicious World: Visions of Autonomous Communities
Thousands of living beings around the world die crossing unjust, unsustainable and inhumane borders while empires (i.e., multinational corporations and powerful nation-states interests) move freely around the globe. They degrade the earth, exploit and displace our communities. By dismantling borders and detaching from the empire(s) that have enslaved our earth, bodies, spirits, minds, and communities we will begin healing ourselves and our ecosystems. Through a group discussion, we will envision creating a borderless and envirolicious world in which autonomous and sustainable communities are interconnected to the earth and each other. We will also map out concrete steps and plans of action to make our visions reality.
Activism through Lyrics and Music
This workshop will discuss how music and lyrics can be used as tools for activism. The panel will consist on a different music artist from Los Angeles and Las Vegas. If you are interested in getting to know the 2009 Living Without Borders performers more intimately please join us!
How to Defend Social Justice Through Language
This workshop will provide the rhetorical tools to defend social justice through language and arguments. Participants will discuss techniques and get hands-on practice with speaking and making concise and persuasive verbal arguments for social justice.
The Effects of Colonization/Healthism on Body Image
In this workshop we will review how healthism, racism, colonization and colorism have distorted our views of positive body image, beauty and health. We will also discuss how healthism has developed an ever growing discrimination of people of size, as well as people that are mentally ill, and people living with disease. We will examine how healthism has cultivated a blame-the-victim mentality without placing responsibility on the classist, racist, and sizeist institutions.
Joterí Resistances: Sustaining Our Communities Through Knowledge and Dialogue
Part presentation, discussion and Q&A, this workshop will explore issues of activism and jotería resistance. We will be dissecting Jotería identity and addressing multiple issues within our community. This space is intended to give voice to the queer Chicana/o Latina/o struggle but also to provide some tools for our communities in resistance through knowledge, healing and activism.