Mapping Labour : participatory practices as mode of inquiry in reconfiguring work

10-13 November 2015

TRADERS hosted its second International Autumn School in Genk from the 10th – 13th of November 2015. This AS explored the role of participatory art and design in the reconfiguration of labor in the post-Fordist era. The workgroup in Performative Mapping (lead my myself) discussed art and design practices as potentially interesting modes of inquiry, analysis, and debate – ones that are more interested in the underlying and hidden data, than data derived from sterile inquiries in which a rational response is given. We will do this by sharing our own practices in participatory and performative mapping and related socio-spatial approaches, and apply it to the context of Genk.

Brief for this working group:

Immaterial, affective and intellectual labor are increasingly important for producing value in the post-Fordist system (Lazzarato, 1996; Hardt and Negri, 2000). As example many of today’s workers are expected to constantly improve their technological knowledge, they are judged on their affective qualities, and new forms of unpaid labor and practices that produce diverse forms of knowledge are valued. Because of the geographically diffused and temporally fluid nature of these kinds of labor, cartographic practices are needed to politically put them on the map; recognising the significant role that they can play in the overall economy.

The participants of this workgroup are invited to share their own participatory practices or ones that they are particularly interested in. We will discuss their value for data collection and visualisation as a mode of inquiry that allows for a ‘thick description’ and we will look at the role that visual/other forms of representations can play in putting new forms of labor on the map.

The full progamme for this AS can be viewed HERE