March 28th

Decolonising the WSF : A critical discussion of the production of
knowledges within and about the social forum process

13h00-15h30
Faculté de Science, Stragiés Tactiques des Forums
Bloc G – Géologie, Room G 109

Speakers:

Romdhane Ben Amor (Organising Comittee, Tunisia)

Rose Brewer (Gender Justice Working Group, USA)

Ashok Chowdhury (National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers &
New Trade Union Initiative, India) & Roma (National Forum of Forest
People and Forest Workers & Women’s Forest Rights Action Committee,
India)

Janet Conway (Brock University, Canada)

Rita Freire (Ciranda, Brazil)

Madhuresh Kumar (National Alliance of Peoples’ Movements & CACIM, India)

Christian Schröder (University Hildesheim, Germany)

Who produces knowledge about the WSF ? And for whom ? This workshop
seeks to intervene in current debates about the future of the WSF by
putting decolonisation on the agenda, and coming up with proposals -
and perhaps actions - for shifting the balance of power. While the WSF
has enabled an unprecedented diversity of movements to come together
and learn from one another, and to a significant extent succeeded in
giving voice to marginalised groups, it also suffers from its own
hierarchies and exclusions which reflect the colonial, capitalist and
patriarchal power relations that structure the world as a whole. The
aim of this workshop is to bring together participants who in various
ways are involved in producing and/or disseminating knowledge about
the WSF and the world of movement – including researchers, organisers,
educators, communicators, publishers, ordinary movement members, and
members of official WSF bodies – for a critical discussion of
knowledge and power, and to consider how we can construct more
sustainable, inclusive, and reflexive processes of knowledge
production that can contribute to decolonising the WSF.

The workshop will be participatory and organised in two parts :

The first session will critically interrogate the formations of power
that currently structure the production of knowledges within and about
the WSF, asking whose knowledges ‘count’ and whose knowledges are
marginalised. Participants will critically and self-reflexively
discuss how different knowledge producers are positioned – in relation
to popular movements and within geopolitical hierarchies –, how they
produce knowledge from these positions, and the consequences this has
for knowledge production. This will involve, among others, exploring
the meaning of categories such as ‘activists’ and the relationship
between ‘academic’ and ‘other’ knowledges.

The second session will look more specifically at the production and
dissemination of knowledges within and about the WSF, and the value of
such knowledges for those about whom or in whose name/s such
knowledges are often produced, considering the possibilities for as
well as obstacles to co-production and sharing of knowledges.
Participants will examine the political economy of knowledge
production and -publication, including the role of academia and the
knowledge industry, and discuss possibilities for inclusive and
collaborative forms of knowledge production – of which communities and
movements can become the primary beneficiaries – offered by practices
of shared communication, popular education and open publishing.

Organised by : Ciranda International of Shared Communication (Brazil),
Centre for the Study of Global Media and Democracy (Goldsmiths,
University of London), CACIM – India Institute for Critical Action :
Centre in Movement, Institute of Social and Organizational Pedagogy
(University of Hildesheim in Germany), and NIGD (Network Institute for
Global Democratization)

16h - Zone E - Room I109
Alternative Media and the power of revolution - with an extended version to Quito/ Ecuador and Mexico City

In the first decade of the World Social Forum Process a network of alternative media established itself - over all in Latin America. The fight for communication rights and a transformation of the commercialized media sector was achieved in some countries and is still on the agenda of e.g. the Brazilian network. Since the revolutions in North Africa which were also initiated and maintained through media activists and now also with the threat of political backlash there is a widespread interest in communication rights. So time to network and exchange ideas! With presentations from Radio Sidi Bouzid (Tunesia); Radio Kayira (Mali), @ccun (Tunesia), Nomad 08 (Tunesia), Mosireen (Egypt),kazeboon (Egypt), bleech7es (Tunesia) and Doustourna (Tunesia), Radio/ TV de Mbanza Ngungu (DR Congo), Ciranda (Brazil), World Social Forum TV and Arco Iris TV (Italy).