MAJEURE : L’intermittence dans tous ses états
ILS ONT UNE PROPOSITION À FAIRE
By CIP-IDF.
Far from merely rejecting the ongoing political reform, the coordination of the « intermittents and précaires » proposes a reform project based on the reality of the discontinuity of labor. The aim is not a melancholy plea for the creation of some hypothetical « real jobs n, but rather, to demand the means which are required for the practices of intermittence to be placed on a solid, permanent basis. The model of unemployment compensation suggested here should enable these practices to be rendered permanent, thereby guaranteeing the linkage of various temporalities as a condition for acting on the meaning and content of activity, through forms of shared benefits which grant indemnities to those with lower income and sacrifice those with a higher income. This presupposes the creation of a real threshold of indemnities but also a minimum wage-type platform. What remains to be thought is other forms of financing which would do justice to the frequently unacknowledged production of wealth in intermittence.
LA CONSTITUTION INTERMITTENTE DE L’ACTIVITÉ
By PASCAL NICOLAS-LE STRAT.
The singular regimes of activities belonging to the three fields of society, science and art seem to meet on two noteworthy points: first, what I choose to call a « regime » of intermittence within which activity occurs, and second, in the existence of an « immaterial labor site » which can crystallize this activity and modulate its « dimensions » for future effects. Young scholars, social workers on a contract basis, artists of the Permanent Festival Off which post-Fordist capitalism requires; it is essential to keep sight of these « inner exiles » who oscillate between extreme precarity and access to social benefits. To deny the specificity of their situation amounts to wishing for the impossible return of stable employment which characterizes the Fordist regime, or accepting the disasters of precarious economic circumstances. Now, a politics of intermittence must begin with what the labor of intermittence « constitutes » in the strong sense of terms, as a mode of life.
LES COORDINATIONS, DES MÉTIERS AU TERRITOIRE DE LA VILLE
By THIERRY BAUDOUIN.
The city, in a centralised environment, is a main public space to manage for any control over globalisation when « coordinating groups » of workers allow citizens to politically invest its economic developement.
TRAVAIL INTERMITTENT ET PRODUCTION DE LA VILLE POST-FORDISTE
By ARNAUD LE MARCHAND.
Casual labor is between the temporal break and the fragmentation of cities. The urban sprawl, as much as the new constraints of production, create intervals, that temporary workers have to, fulfill. These casual workers from immaterial sectors as well as from production sectors, are networking the cities and compensating for their fragmentation. The social guaranted income is an acknowledgement of their roles and an alternative to a purely repressive governance of urban problems.
CONTRÔLE DES ENGAGEMENTS ET PRODUCTIVITÉ SOCIALE
By PHILIPPE ZARIFIAN.
Since the end of the 198os, we have been witnessing a shift in the type of control that is exerted on salaried labor. The disciplinary control of Taylorist provenance has been giving way to a modular control which introduces a new freedom, the freedom of the salaried employee to modulate his or her laboring activity, and, in part, mobility and usage of tithe. But this new type of control is above all a control of the subjective commitment of the employee, an evaluation of performance which tends to equate the employee with a form of micro-capital, entrusted with valorizing itself economically and justifying its continuing employment. But the positive aspect of this mutation should also be noted: the personal commitment of the employee is also a forma of initiative taken in real-life situations, a production of services for various audiences, which produce, in the strong sense of the term, an ethical investment in how labor activity is conducted, along with a new evaluation of productivity. The strictly personal perspective is not the whole picture, for it conceals the emergence – real or potential – of communities of commitment. It is in terms of this mutation that both the usage of time and the modalities of salaried wages need to be rethought.
L’INTERMITTENT DE LA RECHERCHE, UN CHERCHEUR D’EMPLOI QUI N’EXISTE PAS
By FRANK BEAU.
The scholarly and scientific professions are undergoing changes like any other profession, also due to the ongoing mutations of the labor market. Intermittent scholars and researchers in a situation of economic uncertainty (or « precariousness ») are increasingly numerous. These individuals are not just « deprived of status » as civil servants, but are also independent «free agents », with a different point view stemming partly from the necessity of remaining mobile, of leaving the familiar path in order to progress intellectually. Their independence in relation to the academic environment and the professional status of professors or researchers, can be the result of a voluntary decision, which puts them into the forefront of the transversality which does not yet fully exist between the disciplines, objects and professions of scholarship, science and research. Yet the violence of this economically precarious situation is not something one chooses; it forces us to ask new questions, which must be approached from a social and political standpoint. Tie following article tells the tale of an independent cognitive laborer: an ecosystemic mistake in the eyes of some, an obvious symptom of ongoing mutations for others.
DÉRIVER DANS LES CIRCUITS DE LA PRÉCARITÉ FÉMININE
By PRECARIAS A LA DERIVA.
What can the function or meaning of the term « strike » be today, when precarious economic conditions, far from being restricted to the sphere of labor, now affect the totality of our existence? This question is at the root of the women’s project Precarias a la Deriva. When precarity becomes a « tendency » and no longer a « condition », when the social bond and the modalities of struggle extend beyond the workplace and flow into all metropolitan territories, the strike must do away with its fixed «picket » to become a true « inquiry ». An investigative inquiry that wanders through urban territories can bring together that which no collective subject can unify, in the form of a question which can only be answered in singular fashion, every time: « what’s your strike? »
VIDÉOLAB
By VIDÉOLAB
VideoLab is a mechanism for the production of collective enunciation which has been regularly active within the CIPIDF (Coordination of the Intermittents and « Précaires » of the Greater Paris Region) since January 2004. Developed on the basis of itinerant activity, it is a video form which for recording self inquiry, producing images, sharing experiences, and creating audiences. Open to all, this mechanism is continuously enriched by the enquiries of all on the form of coordination, its practices, conditions of existence and of employment, which are our own.
IJ = OK
By LAURENT GUILLOTEAU.
After the adoption of the workfare plan (« PARE ») which followed the defeat of the unemployed movement in 1998, the jobless peoples’ struggle has found unexpected strength in the victory of those « recalculated » by the Unedic unemployment office. At the same time, a new movement of intermittents and precarious workers has built up a collective expertise to elaborate a « model of compensation for the unemployment of intermittent wage-earners. » The exchanges and ties gradually established between these struggling forces sketch the outlines of a viable reform, whose pivotal elements will include a minimum daily compensation.
L’INTERMITTENCE, LA RICHESSE ET L’IMPÔT : SUR LA CRISE DE L’UNEDIC ET AU-DELÀ
By YANN MOULIER BOUTANG.
The struggle of the part-time theater and audiovisual workers (« intermittents du spectacle ») is the response to the right-wing challenge to the third pillar of social benefits, namely, unemployment insurance, following the attacks upon the retirement system and health insurance. But since the Left has not chosen to focus squarely on the social construction of full employment of the resources of intelligence and invention, it remains unable to suggest a form of social protection appropriate to the requirements of « cognitive capitalism. » Instead of speaking of unemployment and the right to work, we should be speaking of the productive life-span for self-creation, and the right to the usage (or « employment ») of one’s intelligence, with a view to increasing collective wealth, which would then strengthen the right to,, lifelong training » and to unconditional income. The crisis of the Unedic unemployment fund is twofold, involving those « recalculated » under the general regimen and the « intermittents »; however, rather than seeking to finance its deficit and that of social benefits in general, by increased recourse to « social taxation », the author suggests the creation of a new tax on the wealth which circulates in financial transactions.
LA FORME POLITIQUE DE LA COORDINATION
By MAURIZIO LAZZARATO.
Founded on the mode of « coordination », the struggle of the « intermittents et précaires » of the Greater Paris area is a genuine laboratory which has the means to bring to light the invalidation of the political schema stemming front the socialist and communist tradition. Where the latter insists on a logic of contradiction, of the political representation of an injustice which stages remarkable identities, the political form of « coordination » is resolutely expressive, transformist, and attentive to the unstable dynamics of post-identity identities which weave together the reality of our world. Coordination does not aim at the constitution of a unitary collective which seeks to guarantee the equality of its members at any cost, but rather, at the emergence and « becoming » of singularities which it brings together in an unstable rmtltiplicity, a network, a form always close to the patchwork – exceeding any theoretical definition, but also any appropriation by union forces or State representations. A politics of experimentation which dismisses prior forms of knowledge and opens itself up to the unknown, without which no new form of life is imaginable.
INSERT : Mayotte
KOU S’NA KIRTASSI ? ANDRA BAHARI NI (TU N’AS PAS DE PAPIERS? FOUS LE CAMP DANS LA MER)
By MATSO NAYA MAKYO.
Matso’s letter was initially written in Miriju (Nioumakélé). It initially was intended as the words, for a song, and has ended up becoming something else. The letter tells the tale of those who nove from the Comoros Islands ta the French departmental possession of Mayotte, and tries to describe a certain posture of France that is often found in some corners of the Indian Ocean.
LA FRANCE ET L’UNION DES COMORES SABOTER ET PROTÉGER
By PIERRE CAMINADE
This article proposes a dissection of the double strategy of France on the archipelago of the Comoros. On the one hand, metropolitan France is in the position of an occupying power on the island of Mayotte (according to international law, the entire archipelago is considered to be decolonized by the UN, The article describes how France pushed the Mahorese to ask that they remain under colonial protection. On the other hand, the French secret services have never ceased to send mercenaries to destroy any political construction in the rest of the archipelago. In fact, the mercenaries are the hidden administrators of the archipelago. It appears that the goal here is (at least) a twofold one: to prevent the demand for independence of Mayotte from reemerging, and to give its citizens the feeling that being colonized is better than being de-colonized, despite their under developed situation. The people even must come to accept that the gendarmes hunt down their cousins: a series of crimes against humanity disguised as border patrols, by means of a visa developed since 1995, which is illegal under international law.
MINEURE : Villes : fractures et mouvements
LA VILLE, LA RUE ET LE COMMENCEMENT DE LA POLITIQUE : LE MONDE RÊVÉ DE CHLOÉ
By MICHEL AGIER.
This article approaches the city as it is lived in events rather than as it is defined by its material forms or by its standing institutions. In the plays staged in South-African townships, in Brazilian capoeira, or in a carnival parade, the constitution of « instant communities », or « communities of movement », depends upon situations that provide the initiating movement of politics. In all such cases, the city really exists and vibrates when it is attuned to the rhythm of its cultural self-invention.
LE TACHELES, HISTOIRE D’UN « SQUART » BERLINOIS
By BORIS GRÉSILLON.
This article analyses the emergence, development and decay of the political-artistic movement which carried the alternative cultural center Tacheles during the 1990s. This « squart », which grew through the first impulses of German reunification, found itself progressively reassimilated by the urban logic of capital, along a series of compromises which preserved its existence only to hollow it out of its creative energy – a trajectory shared by many alternative spaces in Berlin during the last decade of the 20th century.
AFRIQUE DU SUD À LA RECHERCHE DE LA VILLE PERDUE
By PHILIPPE GERVAIS-LAMBONY
This article studies the evolution of the urban space of Boksburg, a neighbour-town to Johannesburg. The forms of political activism developed to resist apartheid, as well as the very needs of the segregated economy, had tied a number of links which dissolved during the 1990s. Is a city like Boksburg condemned to fragmentation as the only alternative to segregation? Can this situation be remedied by policies of urbanism based on participative democracy? Or should we look for urbanity somewhere else, in a specific relation to time and space, as constitutive of the urban identity?
JÉRUSALEM-EST: LES SINISTRÉS DE LA VILLE-MONDE
By SYLVAINE BULLE.
The management of East-Jerusalem by the occupying power is dividing citizens between as many items as possible. It deprives them of the right to mobility, and of all rights linked with citizenship. It makes them live as strangers in their own birth place. Those status differences prevent inhabitants fron7 improving their urban conditions and oblige them to wait for a global solution to the Palestinian question. The Palestinians front East-Jerusalem stay apart from the Palestinian economic renewal as from the local municipal development.
PROMÉTHÉE CONTRE LA FRAGMENTATION URBAINE : UNE INSTALLATION THÉÂTRALE À BOGOTA
By THIERRY LULLE.
An « instal-action », by Rolf and Heidi Abderhalden, Prometeo Acto I, performed in 2002 in a Bogota neighborhood in process of « modernisation », provides a prism through which the social stakes of urban transformation are revisited. The interaction between the Promethean myth and personal trajectories marked by precariousness and degradation reveals a whole series of splits and areas of political interventions which currently shape the restructuration of a metropolis like Bogota.
HORS-CHAMPS
MALENTENDUS EN CHANTIER
By PETER FRIEDL / JEAN PIERRE REHM.
In the context of his projects (books, DVDs, and videos), the artist Peter Friedl, replying to questions by Jean-Pierre Rehm, provides a fresh approach to subjectivities, in two ways: he grants particular attention to children, and by rehabilitating the concept of gender, in the style of film theory.
LIENS
SPINOZISTI GIOIOSI.
By TONI NEGRI.
In his preface to the Italian edition of Laurent Bove’s book on Spinoza,Tôni Negri explains how this book should be seen as part of – and a completion of the thorough reconfiguration of Spinoza studies underway since 1968. In response to the crisis of Structuralism: and Marxism, the Spinoza-interpretations of Deleuze, Matheron, Baliba Macherey and Moreau present a position of philosophical renewal articulated around six points: (a) a positive ontology of immanence; (b) a constitutive logic of imagination; (c) an affirmative ethics of power. These three points are then supplemented as follows: (d) this ontology is a theory of the constitution of bodies and an active phenomenology of the incarnation of thought, (e) an ontological practice and a politics of cooperation of bodies and singularities; lastly, (f), a politics of the multitude can only emerge on these foundations. Negri then shows that Bove’s book, by following the guiding thread of the strategy of the conatus, rounds out this hermeneutical tradition by presenting Spinozism as a machine of essences and eternity, in which the activity of resistance plays a decisive role.
NOUS, LES ENFANTS DE L’ESPOIR
By UNION GÉNÉRALE DES ÉTUDIANTS DE PALESTINE (UNITÉ PARIS).
A new generation of Palestinian students speaks out urgently not to be another sacrificed generation. It calls for a people’s rights to be respected, in a language that seeks to represent a real hope for building a peace, « bridges beyond the walls, » bridges beyond national and religious borders… « The dream of another world. »