[TheUWfarm] Antechamber Collective facilitated student organizing meeting TODAY @ 6 pm MGH 206

Hello lovely farmers,

I hope this email finds you all well. I am writing to let you all know about the wonderful opportunity for student activist group collaboration going on right now! If you didn't know already, over the past month there has been a group of enthusiastic student representatives from a huge array of student groups on campus meeting to plan a collective event in the spring. In the hopes of getting you all just as exctied about this as I am here is some background. Why is this so important and radical?

There is a huge number of student groups on campus. Each of these, however, has a very specific focus. The atmosphere of academia has traditionally been one of division. Our University is broken down into schools, which are broken down further into disciplines, majors, concentrations of study, etc. It is all about specialization. The ubiquity and convenience of specialization has also influenced student organizing. In many ways this is positive: a certain group has a lot of knowledge about a certain issue, or problem, and they gain specific skills and a specific community of support organizing around their issue. However, this also has its downfalls, because when we  sall work within "silos" of knowledge, meaning in isolation from one another, we lose because much of our strength is in our support and collaboration of one another. The purpose of the Summit that we are planning for the spring is begin to bridge the gaps between student groups, so that we can  see the interconnectivity of the issues we are addressing, share the knowledge and experience we have gained as student organizers, gain allies, and begin to work in collaboration to make some positive change. The kind of event is a social forum the history of which is below.

The social forum is still being figured out: what workshops will we have? lecturer? what format are will we use? What central themes? I invite all of you to come and be a part of the amazingly cool, collective planning process. Represent the UW Farm, another student group you are apart of, or your own thoughts, skills, and passions. The group has been meeting every other Monday @ 6 pm in Mary Gates Hall Room 206. The next meeting is today (sorry for the late notice). All are welcome to participate. So interesting! So much fun! Really great learning experience. If you want to get caught up with meeting notes you can email me (nina@uwfarm.org).

Happy organizing!
Nina

A little history on social forums: In his final and most political and radical speech against the Vietnam War Martin Luther King Jr. brought together 1960's organizers and activists in the labor movement, anti-war movement, and the civil rights movement, all in the 1960s. However, the real beginnings of thelsocial forum did not occur until 1971 with the world economic forum.This was one of the largest gatherings of corporate powers, and the purpose of the meeting was to move the corporate neoliberal agenda forward. This was the start of an implementation of neoliberal policy: to allow for the free movement of capital and goods, while simultaneously dismantling social welfare programs, effecting government deregulation. The effect of neoliberal policy was so widespread that many social movements began to respond on an individual level, however it was not until the 1999 WTO that the true nature of these neoliberal policies were exposed and that people began to collectivize in opposition to the "invisible hand" of capitalism. This was when social forums really began to take off. The first one was in 2002 in Brazil then there was one held in the US, in Atlanta. It was in the South to focus on racism, and slavery and its relationship with capitalism. Then there was another one in Detroit, to acknowledge the devastation of the auto industry in the wake of neoliberal politics.