Down With The Fences!
The Struggle For The Global Commons
Thursday May 1st – Sunday May 11th 2008
To See The Full Programme Of Events Click Here
Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned ...
Marx and Engels: The Communist Manifesto 1848
This country has lost playing fields at the rate of one a day since 1998. What sort of a world do we live in where my kids go to schools that don't have grass playing fields? My old secondary school in Welwyn Garden City lost theirs to a private housing development. And where are kids supposed to exercise when the great outdoors is considered unsafe because of tabloids spinning fears about paedophiles, gangs and drug culture?
David James (England goalkeeper): The Observer Sunday October 8, 2006
Bristol Radical History Group present two weeks of events dedicated to the Commons then and now. The word ‘commons’ is derived from Latin "communis" and means the quality of sharing by all or many. The Commons are places, spaces or environments that are owned by no one but shared by all. As the world faces a wave of new enclosures spawned by neo-liberal globalisation we will be delving into the history of the commons, the enclosures and the resistance to them.
From Magna Carta to the enclosure rioters of the Forest of Dean; from the stripping of the oil commons of the 20th century to the enclosure of the peoples’ game in the Premier League; from the rise of the corporations to the massive gentrification programme launched in our cities, we will be examining the process of enclosure, the forces that drive it and some of the historical and current confrontations that have occurred as a result.
We will be trying to answer some of these questions over the two weeks of events. How do the struggles of yesteryear against enclosure relate to the present day? Were significant victories won or is it a one-way process as Marx described? Should we be defending our free spaces from our playing fields to the internet? If we want to encourage resistance, then how should we do this?
Programme
Most of the lectures are available as mp3 audio files. Click on the links below to listen to the lectures.
| Date | Time | Title | Details | Venue |
| Thu. 1st May | 7:30pm | The Magna Carta Manifesto | Peter Linebaugh - The Magna Carta Manifeto: Liberties And Commons For All | The Cube* |
| Fri. 2nd May | 4:00pm | Time, Tide & Money | George Caffentzis - Clipped Coins: John Locke's Philosophy of Money Steve Higginson - Dangerous Lasses & The Lumpen Classes |
Bridewell |
| Sat. 3rd May | 1:00pm | The Commons | Peter Linebaugh - The Incomplete, True, Authentic And Wonderful History Of May Day Steve Higginson - Partition And Prejudice: ‘The English Arrangements Of Place And Space’ Massimo De Angelis, Peter Linebaugh, George Caffentzis - The Commons Panel Debate |
Bridewell |
| Sun. 4th May | 7:30pm | New Enclosures | George Caffentzis - The New Enclosures Rich Grove - My Holiday Snaps: The Indian Enclosures |
The Cube* |
| Mon. 5th May | 11:00am | A Picnic In The Forest† | Join us in the forest for a picnic and "Warren James, Free Miners And The Forest Of Dean" with Ian Wright | Forest Of Dean |
| Tue. 6th May | 7:30pm | The Beautiful Game? | David Goldblatt - The Ball Is Round | The Cube* |
| Wed. 7th May | 2 to 4pm | Opening The Archives | Veiw primary source material from the archives with Dawn Dyer and Jane Bradley | CenRefLib |
| Wed. 7th May | 7:30pm | The Kett Rebellion | Peter Clark - The Kett Rebelion | Bridewell |
| Thu. 8th May | 7:30pm | The Battle For Bristol 2008 | Kevin Davis & Roger Ball - Packers Field: A Victory? Mary Bannerman - Castle Park: The Town Green Roger Ball - Stokes Croft & Old Market: Sanitising The Underground |
Bridewell |
| Fri. 9th May | 4:00pm | The 'Real England' | Paul Kingsnorth - The Real England | Bridewell |
| Sat. 10th May | 1:00pm | Kings, Commoners & Corporations | Steve Poole - The Crown And The Commons: Holding Monarchy To Account In 18th Century England Steve Mills - The Overnight House And The Kingswood Commons Dan Bennett - Corporations: A Brief History. |
Bridewell |
| Sun 11th May | 5:00pm | The Virtual Commons | Bristol Wireless - Open Source Software: Interactive Workshop. | St.W.Com |
| Sun 12th May | 7:30pm | Gentrification In New York | Juan - Gentrification In New York. | Bridewell |
Venues: Notes: |
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To download a copy of the pintables guide click the picture below (Adobe Acrobat File 300 KB). The guide prints on both sides of a piece of A4.
To download a copy of the DWTF poster click the picture below (Adobe Acrobat File 900 KB). The poster prints on A4 or A3.
Not A Penny Off The Pay, Not A Second On The Day
This event art event is happening during the same week as Down With The Fences. To find out more click here.
