Publisher Octavo Publications invites activists and thinkers to participate in a workshop with Isabell Lorey, one of the most important thinkers on current precarity, on collective organization and resistance at the intersection of insecurity, housing and social struggle.

The Bond Precaire Woonvorm participates in the workshop and invites its members, donors and sympathizers to participate as well. The language of instruction is English.

Precarity, or insecurity, is increasingly a reality for diverse groups of people, from the low-skilled to students and from small creatives to refugees and domestic workers. Increasingly, this uncertainty not only affects our work, but also permeates our everyday lives. Even outside working hours, in our relationships with others, our lives are becoming increasingly mobile, flexible and vulnerable. For example in the area of housing.

Due to neoliberal reforms, the housing market has increasingly become the site of far-reaching precarization. Rents rise; temporary leases supplant the permanent contract; and large lots of social rented homes are auctioned off to investment funds – and thus withdrawn from the public housing stock. This housing policy, especially in Amsterdam, is a catalyst for the growing gap between rich and poor, which increases segregation and exclusion in our society.

Is there a way out? In this workshop we want to explore, based on the theme of living together, how we can jointly formulate answers to the crisis in which life and work have ended up as a result of neoliberal policy. The aim is to exchange experiences and knowledge and to map connections between social realities and personal situations that seem far apart at first sight. How can we stop the advance of precarious living situations? How is exploitation in the housing market related to other forms of vulnerability, both social and subjective, for example under the influence of gender, ethnicity, origin and/or sexuality? How can we connect the struggle for affordable housing with other forms of social struggle, such as feminism, anti-racism, and the right to good, affordable care for everyone? These and more questions will be discussed in an informal setting.

About the workshop

Isabell Lorey is a political scientist. She is affiliated with the European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies (eipcp) and also teaches at various universities and institutions in Europe.

This workshop on precarious living and social struggle is partly inspired by her book The reign of precariousness, which will be published by Octavo Publications in October. The English translation (State of Insecurity) of the German original (Die Regierung der Prekaren, 2012) was published by Verso last year.

The workshop is led by Femke Kaulingfreks.

Because space is limited, please register by email: info@octavopublicaties.nl

In the evening at 20:00 the official presentation of the book will take place in Spui25, with a lecture by Isabell Lorey, and presentations by We Are Here/Here to Support, the collective of and for undocumented refugees in Amsterdam, and Robin Celikates.

WORKSHOP 19 OCTOBER
Location: OT301, 2nd floor
Overtoom 301, Amsterdam
Start: 16:30
Hall open from 16:00

Facebook event:  https://www.facebook.com/events/513978412141767/?notif_t=plan_user_invited&notif_id=1474974450636472