“Into the Black Box” – Logistics and Labor Movements – Dialogue (11/5)

For our events in the Social Movements Lab on “Into the Black Box,” a collective research project about logistics, spaces, and labor struggles, we will have a ‘mapping’ session on Wed., 10/31, 12pm, and a ‘dialogue’ session on Mon., 11/5, 12pm.

Into the Black Box is a project of multidisciplinary and collective research that adopts logistics as a point of view on contemporary political, economic and social transformations. It started with a research project by some PhD scholars of the University of Bologna on supply chain development and conflicts in North Italy; the output of this work has been presented during the Berlin summer school “Teaching the Crisis” in September 2013. We conceive logistics not simply as commodities circulation, but rather as a whole biopolitical apparatus that performs spaces, subjects and powers. The black box is the symbol of contemporary management techniques and devices that hide the whole logic of the system to external viewers. Similar boxes are all around us: in platform capitalism, in urban planning, in labour organisation, in State governance. A way to penetrate the opacity of the system is to analyse inputs and outputs, operations and consequences, procedures and resistances. So, a multidisciplinary approach that combines sociology and anthropology of labour, political theory, ethnographic inquires and historical perspective could be a flexible tool to shape a logistics understanding of contemporary world. Into the Black Box is now a blog which hosts materials (events, articles, conferences) that contribute to carry this research on. More info: http://www.intotheblackbox.com/ 

In preparation for our ‘mapping’ session on Wed., 10/31, 12pm-1pm, you can read the following suggested texts:

1)“Platform Urbanism and Conflicts in Northern Italy: ‘Traditional’ Logistics, Amazon, and the Food -Delivery Platforms” –

2) (optional – if you can read Spanish or Italian): “A Manifesto of Critical Logistics”

For our ‘dialogue’ session on Mon. 11/5, 12pm-1pm, we will be joined via video-call by three members of the Into the Black Box editorial & research board:

Niccolò Cuppini is post-doc fellow in social research at University of Supsi (Swiss) and has a PhD in Politics, Institutions, History at University of Bologna. His interests concern history of political thought, city and urbanization, urban studies. He is author of several articles in Italian and English.

Mattia Frapporti has just obtained his PhD in History and Cultures at the University of Bologna with a research thesis entitled “The logistics space of the United Europe. On Jean Monnet and the rationality of integration”. His focuses are on the process of European Integration, the politics of infrastructures, logistics and the role of State.

Maurilio Pirone has a PhD in Politics, Institutions, History (University of Bologna). He is freelance researcher for the Haus der Kulturen der Welt of Berlin and contributes to Euronomade collective. His research looks at social and labour movements, new forms of unionism, platform capitalism and Europeanization.

Lunch will be provided for participants at both sessions.

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1563487700418139/Location:
Social Movements Lab, Franklin Humanities Institute, Smith Warehouse, Bay 5, Duke University, 114 S. Buchanan Blvd., Durham, NC
For Parking and Accessibility info, see: https://fhi.duke.edu/contact-us