talk on poor people movements and radical politics

Poor people movements and radical politics
Part I
The MTST (movement of the homeless workers in Brazil) is one
of the biggest and most interesting urban movement of poor people in the world.
In this workshop we will present the movement and look on their strategies for social struggle. We will discuss briefly Antonio Negri's concept of the city as "productive fabric in the
metropolitan territory" and its application to MTST. Also, the works of Jacques Ranciére on the crossing of politics and aesthetics and his appeals for a new, radical understanding of politics that criticizes and opposes the left-liberal concept
of politics will be examined.
We'll try to examine the MTST and their actions in relation to
Ranciere's form of politics, to develop a strategy that's based on poor peoples' movements and that surpasses liberal democracy.

Left politics in Germany – Parliamentary and Non-parliamentary
Part II
We will introduce briefly left politics in Germany. "Die Linke" gained 11.9 % of all votes in 2009 elections, that means more than 5 million voters selected a party that's in favour of democratic Socialism. We will briefly present this party and why it became such a success.
Next, we will present non-parliamentary left politics in Germany, which takes place outside of political parties.
We will then present the Antifascist movement of Germany and especially their youth branch "Jugendantifa", the antifascist youth alliance, where many thousands of youth get involved with radical politics. This movement enables young people all over Germany to engage in anti-capitalist as well as anti-fascist politics, and provides a critique of capitalism and a means for direct action.
Finally, we will look at movements like the hedonist international, that develops a form of resistance that interrelate more hedonistic 'party people' from the club scenes (in Berlin and Hamburg) with direct action and a critique of capitalism.