Free

HM Online 2020: Disasters and Social Reproduction

Event Information

Share this event

Date and Time

Location

Location

Online Event

Event description
Book Launch: Peer Illner, “Disasters and Social Reproduction: Crisis Response between the State and Community” (Pluto Press)

About this Event

Many communities in the United States have been abandoned by the state. What happens when natural disasters add to their misery? This book looks at the broken relationship between the federal government and civil society in times of crises.

 Mutual aid has gained renewed importance in providing relief when hurricanes, floods and pandemics hit, as cuts to state spending put significant strain on communities struggling to survive. Harking back to the self-organised welfare programmes of the Black Panther Party, radical social movements from Occupy to Black Lives Matter are building autonomous aid networks within and against the state. However, as the federal responsibility for relief is lifted, mutual aid faces a profound dilemma: do ordinary people become complicit in their own exploitation?

 Reframing disaster relief through the lens of social reproduction, Peer Illner tracks the shifts in American emergency aid, from the economic crises of the 1970s to the COVID-19 pandemic, raising difficult questions about mutual aid’s double-edged role in cuts to social spending. Building on Marxist-Feminist elaborations of unwaged forms of labour, Disasters and Social Reproduction argues that social reproduction is best understood as a dynamic between the state, the market and civil society. Following the long economic crisis of the 1970s, disaster relief has become increasingly reliant on the unwaged reproductive labour of ordinary people, allowing the US state to cut back on social spending. This shift has fundamentally reconfigured the responsibilities of the state and civil society.

As sea levels rise, climate change worsens and new pandemics sweep the globe, Illner’s analysis of the interrelations between the state, the market and grassroots initiatives will prove indispensable.

At HM Online, Peer Illner will be in conversation with Emma Teitelman and Aaron Benanav.

Participants:

Peer Illner: Peer Illner is a sociologist and political theorist. He is currently a Research Fellow at the Centre for Normative Orders at Goethe University, Frankfurt and a Lecturer at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. Illner’s research interests include catastrophes and crises, political economy, disaster capitalism, and 20th century urbanism, art and architecture. His first monograph "Disaster and Social Reproduction" is forthcoming this year with Pluto Press. Before coming to Goethe University, Illner was a PhD Fellow in the University of Copenhagen’s “Changing Disasters” Research Project. He holds a an MA and a BA from Goldsmiths, University of London.

Aaron Benananv: Aaron Benanav is an economic historian and social theorist. Currently, he holds a postdoctoral researcher position at Humboldt University of Berlin and is the academic coordinator for the research unit “Re-Allocation” in the Cluster of Excellence “SCRIPTS: Contestations of the Liberal Script,” a seven-year project funded by the German Research Foundation. Benanav also serves as an editorial board member for the journal International Labor and Working Class History. Benanav’s research interests include nineteenth- and twentieth-century global economic history, economic development, labor market dynamics, unemployment, and inequality. His first book, Automation and the Future of Work, is forthcoming from Verso Books in fall 2020. He is  working on a second book project on the global history of unemployment since World War II. Before joining Humboldt, Benanav was a Harper-Schmidt Fellow in the Social Sciences  at the University of Chicago. He holds a PhD and an MA in History from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a BA in History from the University of Chicago.

Emma Teitelman: Emma is the Mellon Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in American History at the University of Cambridge. She specialises in nineteenth-century U.S. history with particular interests in labour, capitalism, and the state. She splits her time between Cambridge UK and Philadelphia.

PLEASE NOTE: All events for HM Online are free to register, however we would ask comrades who are able to please consider making a donation, which would help us enormously in covering the costs of putting of this programme of events. You can donate by selecting the 'donation' ticket type at registration.

Accessibility is important for us, and we are looking into using Live Captions, but availability will depend on our financial capacities and on your support. Thank you.

Once you have registered, a link to the live session will be emailed to you on the day of the event. For any technical queries please contact historicalmaterialism@soas.ac.uk

Please consider subscribing to the Historical Materialism journal, published by BRILL, who are currently offering a 25% discount on individual subscriptions, valid until the end of the year. To use the offer, quote the discount code 70997 when subscribing at: www.brill.com/hima

Share with friends

Date and Time

Location

Online Event

Save This Event

Event Saved