International Conference
February 23rd and 24th, 2012
“Models and their Effects on Development paths: an
Ethnographic and comparative Approach to knowledge
transmission and livelihood strategies (MEDEA)”
Organization: Universitat de Barcelona
Prof. Susana Narotzky
Dept. Antropologia Cultural, Història d'Amèrica i Àfrica
Universitat de Barcelona
C/ Montealegre 6-8
08001 Barcelona, Spain
Thursday 23 February 2012
9h30: Presentation. Victoria Goddard & Susana Narotzky
10h-11h: Keynote speech.
“Company and contract labour in an Indian public sector steel plant”
Prof. Jonathan Parry (London School of Economics)
11h-11h15: Coffee Break
11h15-14h [2h45]: Session 1: Critical events: restructuring, privatisation,
globalisation
Crucial transformations of hegemonic economic models have spread around the globe
in the last decades, following critical events (economic crises, political transitions).
Their impact on people’s everyday economic practices needs to be tackled both in terms
of changes and continuities, in order to understand how they promote adaptation,
resistance or creativity.
3 papers + 1 respondent + debate:
 Don Kalb (Central European University, Budapest) “Critical junctions:
spaces and places for project-making”
 Laura Perelman (Instituto de Desarrollo Económico y Social, Buenos
Aires) “Continuities and discontinuities of economic models and
workers’ perception of model changes in Argentina”
 Ubaldo Martínez Veiga (Universidad Nacional de Educación a
Distancia) “A reassessment of Spain’s integration in the EEC:
restructuring, privatization and democratic governance”
 David Ost (respondent) (Hobart and William Smith Colleges) “From
Class to Culture, or Class As Culture?”
 Chair: Paz Benito del Pozo (Universidad de León)
14h- 16h: Lunch
16h-18h45 [2h45]: Session 2: Work and collective action
Labour claims and struggles change over time as a result of the transformation of
production structures and of capital-labour relations. Collective action adopts many
different forms according to previous memories of struggle and actual conditions of
possibility in each regional context.
3 papers + 1 respondent + debate:
 Gonzalo Díaz Corvetto (Universidaded de Brasilia) Paper title missing
 Juraj Buzalka / Michaela Ferencova (Comenius University – Bratislava)
“Populist mobilisations in central and eastern Europe”
 Sharyn Kasmir (Hoftra University – New York) “The Saturn Automobile
Corporation and the disorganization of labor”
 Enrico Gibellieri (respondent) (European Steel Technology Platform)
“European stakeholders and industrial transformation”
 Chair: Vera Trappmann (Universitat Magdeburg)
19-20h: Welcome Cocktail
Friday 24 Februrary 2012
9h30-1145 [2h15]: Session 3: Memory and knowledge transmission
Continuities and discontinuities need to be addressed in the transmission of skills,
memories and values across generations, including professional skills and training, the
use of technologies (not only machines but also management and work organisation
strategies), representations of work (and of what a worker is), and memories and
abilities for collective mobilisation.
3 papers + 1 respondent + debate:
 Patricia Vargas (Instituto de Desarrollo Económico y Social, Buenos
Aires) “Learning to work and struggle through the generations of
SOMISA steel plant”
 Elena González-Polledo (Goldsmiths College – University of London &
Universitat de Barcelona - FBG) “New models of work organization and
tensions in knowledge transmission patterns in Arcelor-Mittal plant,
Asturias”
 Manos Spyridakis (University of Peloponnese) “Work and Social
Reproduction in the shipbuilding industry of Piraeus”
 Kazimiera Wódz - Sphere project (Respondent) (Univeristy of Silesia –
Katowice) “Post-industrial landscapes and memories. The Silesian
Case” (co- author Dr. Monika Gnieciak)
 Chair: Lydia Morris (University of Essex)
11h45-12h: Coffee Break
12h-14h [2h]: Session 4: Reconfiguring livelihoods
Ethnographic accounts of industrial work need to be complemented with
household strategies aimed at earning a living. The impact of changing models
and restructuring will reconfigure individual, firm and family practices, within
and outside the specific spaces of work and income provisioning.
2 papers + 1 respondent + debate:
 Irene Sabaté (Universitat de Barcelona) “Getting by beyond work, or the
multiplicity of livelihood strategies among heavy industry workers and
their families in Ferrol, Spain”
 Fulvia d’Aloisio – Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli “Postfordist work


organization and daily life in a gender perspective: the case of FIAT-SATA in
Melfi (Southern Italy)”
Carmen Bueno (Universidad Iberoamericana, México, DF) (Respondent)
“Global dynamics, local responses to industrial innovation and livelihood
transformations”
Chair: Rosana Guber (Instituto de Desarrollo Económico y Social,
Buenos Aires)
13h45-15h30: Lunch
15h45-17h45 [2h]: Session 5: Models circulation
Local, regional and national development paths are exposed to the influence of
economic models that circulate as knowledge artefacts together with
international flows of commodities, capital and people. Models are both
productive of actions and effects, while being themselves the outcome of specific
negotiations of meanings and relationships, as they are formalized.
2 papers + 1 respondent + debate :
 Flávia Lessa de Barros/ Gustavo Lins Ribeiro (Universidade de Brasilia)
“Capital, global governance and the circulation of models”
 Edoardo Mollona / Arianna dal Forno (Università di Bologna)
“Experimental models of privatization”
 Douglas Holmes (Respondent) (University of New York - Binghampton)
“Performative models: an economy of words”
 Chair: Andrea Fumagalli (Università di Pavia)
18h-19h15: Roundtable: Models and their Effects on Development Paths
 Victoria Goddard (Goldsmiths College – University of London)
 Luis Reygadas (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana – Iztapalapa)
 Costis Hadjimichalis (Harokopio University – Athens)
 Susana Narotzky (Universitat de Barcelona)
 Chair: Frances Pine (Goldsmiths College – University of London)
19h15-19h30: Closing Words
* Each session: 20min per paper + 10min specific questions + respondent 15mn + 30 min debate