ox4 - Version 1.2.1

Free Software and Beyond
The World of Peer Production

Speakers
Martin Pedersen
Schedule
Day 3
Room Humanities Bridgeford G6
Start time 09:00
Duration 01:30
Info
ID 20
Event type Workshop
Track Social movements
Language English

Reflections from the Rain Forest

Can movements indigenous to land and movements indigenous to cyberspace find common tactical grounds?

This workshop aims to expand the participants' understanding of certain parallels and differences between those challenges faced by the Free Software movement and those faced by indigenous movements all around the globe. The objective is to discuss the ways in which both movements might benefit from dialoguing and/or joining forces, and how necessary links might be forged.

The struggles for collective (land) rights in which indigenous peoples all over the world find themselves are reflecting issues that often share philosophical, political and cultural foundations with what informs challenges faced by movements indigenous to cyberspace. There is a lot of FUD in the rain forest as well as there is violent repression of anarchist hacker groups. However, there are various disagreements when it comes to questions of "secret knowledge" and collective versus private ownership in the material realm.

This presentation and invitation to discussion builds on practical and theoretical engagements with indigenous peoples in the Amazon and the Andes in particular, but in general with the global indigenous movements, as well as with the Free Software movement and various (other?) anti-capitalist movements. We will present our work on the "protection" of traditional medicinal knowledge in the Amazon and the problems it raises, XXXXX

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We recently (International Congress of Ethnobiology, Cusco, 2008) presented, in relation to indigenous conceptions of plants and plant spirits, the basic workings and concepts of Free Software to a forum of indigenous peoples and researchers.

At Free Software and Beyond: The World of Peer Production we would like to present some ideas and initiatives gathered from these other cosmovisions, with a specific view to exchange ideas about resisting the ever-increasing privatisation of all forms of creativity, collectivity, cooperation, production and, in the end, life itself; and to build stronger links between social movements fighting for the right to self-organise and create structured commons.