Calcutta Research Group will host a Workshop on Transit Labour on  Monday, 11 July 2011. The case chosen is the institution of New Town in Rajarhat. Three presentations will be made: by Ranabir Samaddar, Suhit K Sen and Ishita Dey, for twenty minutes each. This will be followed by a discussion lasting two-odd hours. The programme will start at 3 pm and end at 6 pm. The venue is  Seminar Room,  Calcutta Research Group ( GC 45, Salt Lake Sector III, Kolkata 700 106).

Changing Dynamics of Creative Labour and its Tributaries

It is only in the past few years that the economic conditions and social experiences of creative labour have emerged as a concern in academic and policy work. With frequently fragmented experiences and highly insecure forms of work, the circumstances and social divisions of creative labour require an analysis that locates them within a wider spectrum of labour processes and global transformations. It is particularly important to ask how changing regional configurations and patterns of transition affect the composition of the creative workforce, the mobility of creative workers and the testing of borders between creative and other forms of labour. This symposium will investigate the challenges - institutional, cultural, linguistic, etc. - that attend research that seeks to inform and facilitate a multi-dimensional comprehension of the conditions and dynamics of creative labour in the Asian region. It will also ask how Shanghai figures as an analytical device and set of practic  es to track and understand the tributaries of creative labour?

9 July, 6-8pm, Goethe Institute, Shanghai

101 Cross Tower, Fu Zhou Lu 318, crossroad Shandong Lu

New Media Workers across Asia and Europe: Research Platform for Interregional Collaborations

The central concept that frames this initiative concerns the conditions of labor and life among new media workers in Asia and Europe. Inviting new media practitioners from Asia and Europe to collectively analyze and discuss their work practices with artists and civil society organizers provides an innovative means of tracking transformations in the web-based industries and encouraging dialogue between the regions. In Europe, images of new media practitioners as either exploited precarious workers or free creative spirits abound, but have these same stereotypes proliferated in Asia? What are the cultures of creativity and work that frame these practices? Bringing together various actors whose intellectual, artistic and social expressions confront these questions is highly relevant to policy making that seeks to address the changing relations between culture and economy as well as the ongoing transformations of borders and regions.