A very happy new year to you and best wishes for the year ahead.
I’d like to invite you to our new lunchtime seminar series (see list below). This new series will bring together a range of activists and academics, to explore experiences of work-related discrimination and corresponding categories of mobilisation. Keeping in step with our close ties with the labour movement, each session will also raise issues for trade unionists in Britain, as they attempt to organise marginalised workers and tackle inequalities.
We warmly welcome you all to come and listen to the views and theories of our prominent and diverse range of speakers. Please join us in debating contemporary issues of social justice on the first Wednesday of every month from 12.45 to 2pm over a sandwich lunch. These public seminars are open to all. However, since we will be providing a sandwich lunch, we would be grateful if you could inform us of your intention to attend by emailing Max Watson at
The lunchtime series kicks off at 12.45pm on Wednesday 6th February 2008 with Rahila Gupta talking about her new book Enslaved and articulating an argument for the abolition of all immigration controls.
The details for this first seminar in our series is as follows (others are listed below):
Date: Wednesday 6th February 2008
Time: Starting 12.45pm ending 2pm
Venue: London Metropolitan University, The Boardroom (JS1-41), 31 Jewry Street, London EC3N 2EY
The Talk: Modern Day Slavery
Campaigner and journalist, Rahila Gupta will talk about her new book 'Enslaved', an important insight into modern day slavery. Britain is once again home to hundreds of slaves – they reach our shores via unimaginably perilous crossings, are locked into hideous, back-breaking working lives, and remain hidden to the rest of us. Very few escape to talk about their appalling incarceration. Meet five who did here in this compelling, revealing book. In her book, Rahila tells the horrifying stories of people who have been trafficked, smuggled or duped into the UK, to find themselves stripped of their passports and money, locked in cramped rooms, shackled involuntarily to work as domestic servants, brothel workers, or construction workers, beaten, raped and psychologically abused, and who, if they seek their freedom, are threatened with unending violence. Rahila places these testimonies within a well-argued call to abolish all immigration controls.
Some reviews of Enslaved:
Tony Benn:
Rahila Gupta's book Enslaved which deals with modern slavery is very timely since it is coming out in the year when we are celebrating the bi-centenary of Wilberforce's Bill to abolish the slave trade. The example she gives should remind us all that the struggle for human rights has to be fought in every generation
Helena Kennedy:
This is one of the most shocking books you will read about contemporary Britain; that human beings should be treated with such degradation and cruelty is a disgrace we should find unbearable. I hope the author's passion ignites a new anti-slavery campaign. Sign me up
About the speaker:
Rahila Gupta is a campaigner and journalist. She has written radio drama and is the editor of From Homebreakers to Jailbreakers: Southall Black Sisters and co-author of Circle of Light, now released as a film called Provoked which she co-scripted. She is also a long-standing member of the Black feminist organisation, Southall Black Sisters.
The list of subsequent sessions is as follows. Please note that the timing and venue for all the seminars is as above.
Wednesday 5th March 2008: New Challenges in the Fight Against Racism
Speaker: Arun Kundnani is deputy editor of the journal Race & Class
Wednesday 2nd April 2008: Locating Migrant Workers in Debates about Racism
Speakers: Don Flynn is Director of the Migrant Rights Network, Wilf Sullivan is the Race Equality Officer at the TUC
Wednesday 7th May 2008: Belonging and the Politics of Belonging
Speaker: Professor Nira Yuval Davis is the Graduate Course Director in Gender, Sexualities and Ethnic Studies at the University of East London
Wednesday 4th June 2008: Leadership and Trade Union Militancy
Speaker: Dr. Ralph Darlington is a senior lecturer in Industrial Relations at Salford University
Wednesday 2nd July & Wednesday 6th August 2008: Summer recess
Wednesday 3rd September 2008: Multiple Discrimination - theory and method
Speakers: Dr Sian Moore is a Principle Research Fellow at Working Lives Research Institute
Sukhwant Dhaliwal is currently studying for a Phd in Sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London
Wednesday 1st October 2008: Sexuality in the workplace: the experience of lesbian, gay and bisexual workers and employer and trade union responses
Speaker: Tessa Wright works part-time at Working Lives Research Institute and is undertaking a PhD on the intersection of gender and sexuality in non-traditionally female work.
Wednesday 5th November 2008: Trafficking, Forced Labour and Domestic Servitude
Speakers: Poonam Joshi is the Gender Policy Advisor at Amnesty International UK and will talk about their campaign on trafficking
Bridget Anderson is author of 'Labour Exchange: Patterns of Migration in Asia' and 'Doing the dirty work? The global politics of domestic labour' and has worked with undocumented women migrants for numerous years
Wednesday 3rd December 2008: The Politics of Organising Sex Workers
Speaker: Branch secretary of the GMB Sex Workers Union
I look forward to seeing you at any or indeed ALL of these seminars.
Best wishes,
Professor Steve Jefferys
--
Steve Jefferys
Director
Working Lives Research Institute
31, Jewry St., London EC3N 2EY, UK
s.jefferys@londonmet.ac.uk
00 44 (O) 20 7320 3042
00 44 (0) 20 8883 6822 (home)
www.workinglives.org
www.workingagainstracism.org
--
Dr Jane Holgate
Working Lives Research Institute
London Metropolitan University
31 Jewry Street, London EC3N 2EY
Tel (w) + 44 (0) 20 7320 3029
Tel (h) 020 8802 0373.
Tel (m) 07960 798399
email: j.holgate@londonmet.ac.uk
www.workinglives.org/staff_jh.html
--
Dr Jane Holgate
Working Lives Research Institute
London Metropolitan University
31 Jewry Street, London EC3N 2EY
Tel (w) + 44 (0) 20 7320 3029
Tel (h) 020 8802 0373.
Tel (m) 07960 798399
email: j.holgate@londonmet.ac.uk
www.workinglives.org/staff_jh.html
Companies Act 2006 : www.londonmet.ac.uk/companyinfo
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