[csaa-forum] Jack Qiu, 2 Sydney events, Thurs 30/3 & Fri 31/3

[Gerard Goggin]

Jack Linchuan Qiu, ‘Abolish Slavery in my Smartphone: Rethinking Capitalism, China, and Digital Labor’<http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2017/professor_jack_qui.shtml>
Sydney Ideas lecture, Thursday, 30 March, 2017, 6 to 7.30pm
New Law LT 026, Sydney Law School Annex, Eastern Avenue, The University of Sydney - Register online at this page<http://whatson.sydney.edu.au/events/published/sydney-ideas-professor-jack-qiu>.

In his new book Goodbye iSlave: A Manifesto for Digital Abolition ( 2016), Jack Qiu contends that features of enslavement have crept into the digital media industries, leading to the worsening of labour conditions along the assembly line and in the data mine, creating a generation of iSlaves trapped in a global economic system that relies upon and studiously ignores their oppression. How can people fight back, start a new abolition movement, using not only conventional tools of activism including body politics but also the same digital media instruments such as the smartphone? Drawing from his action research in China, lessons from history, and studies of contemporary labour campaigns globally, Qiu shall argue that the expansion of slave systems is always accompanied by endeavours of antislavery when the exploited resist the powers that be, when citizens join the struggle to set humanity free. Although digital abolition at its present stage is still inchoate, it is undoubtedly an important first step. Its long-term implication shall not be underestimated. iSlaves have nothing to lose but their chains; they have a world to win.

About the speaker: Professor Jack Linchuan Qiu is Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he serves as deputy director of the C-Centre (Centre for Chinese Media and Comparative Communication Research). His publications include Goodbye iSlave (2016), World’s Factory in the Information Age (2013), Working-Class Network Society (2009), Mobile Communication and Society (co-authored, 2006). He also works with grassroots NGOs and provides consultancy services for international organisations.

In Conversation with Jack Linchuan Qiu: Digital Technology, Social Justice, Rights & Democracy
Friday 31 March 2017, 2.30-4.00pm
MECO Seminar Room S226, John Woolley Building A20
Rvsp essential<https://tinyurl.com/jwka83j>

What are the frontiers of emergent media and communication today? What are the cultural, political, and justice issues arising from the heightened role that technology plays in social life, particularly among people who are marginalized and disenfranchised? What are the unfolding concerns for media, especially in relation to digital rights and governance, across different global societies, especially in the Asia-Pacific? How do we make sense and intervene into the central predicament of communication now – the great potential and opportunities that the diffusion and take-up of digital technologies offer, yet the lack of democracy in communication and media themselves? What are the possibilities of global initiatives to reform and reimagine media for social betterment, such as the International Panel on Social Progress, the Internet Social Forum, the Justnet Coalition, or other endeavours?

To explore and debate these issues, this event presents Professor Jack Qiu, a leading thinker on communication, social movements, and activism, in conversation with Sydney-based scholars, Professor Ariadne Vromen (USYD), Associate Professor Haiqing Yu (UNSW), Dr Benedetta Brevini (USYD) and and Professor Gerard Goggin (USYD), as well as attendees. Jack will open the conversation with his ongoing projects on digital capitalism, labour, and platform cooperativism in the contexts of Hong Kong, China, and Southeast Asia. He will also speak about his observations as a member of editorial teams for various academic journals such as Journal of Communication and Information, Communication & Society: the world needs a new praxis of digital media research. How can we all contribute to it?


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Gerard Goggin
ARC Future Fellow
Professor of Media and Communications
Department of Media and Communications
University of Sydney

e: gerard.goggin at sydney.edu.au<mailto:gerard.goggin at sydney.edu.au>
p:  +61 2 9114 1218
m: +61 428 66 88 24
w: http://sydney.edu.au/arts/media_communications/staff/gerard_goggin.shtml

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