Witches 3: The Body & Labour Power

Workshop: The Body, Capitalist Accumulation And The Accumulation Of Labour Power – Silvia Federici

Long time feminist activist and teacher, Silvia is co-founder of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa and the RPA (Radical Philosophy Association) Anti-Death Penalty Project. She teaches International Studies and Political Philosophy at Hofstra University. Federici’s published work includes: Enduring Western Civilization: The Construction of the Concept of Western Civilization and its ‘Others’ (editor) and A Thousand Flowers: Social Struggles Against Structural Adjustment in African Universities and most recently the excellent Caliban and the Witch: Women the Body and Primitive Accumulaution. Silvia Federici is also speaking at Witches 2.

Drawing upon the history of medicine, biology, social policy and policing, Federici discusses the changing strategies capitalism has used to transform our bodily powers into labor-power, and the many forms which resistance to this process has taken. In particular, she discusses capitalism’s historic attempt to turn women’s bodies into instruments for the reproduction of the work-force, as well as its present drive to make procreation independent of women. She argues that the female body and women’s struggle to control our reproductive powers constitute the last frontier of capitalist accumulation and one of the main challenges to it.

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