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Our petition to fight the agreement between the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the state of Israel (ITA)

Con le bravissime Paola Rivetti e Alessandra Algostino (e tant* altr*) promuoviamo questa lettera indirizzata al Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale (MAECI) riguardante la rinnovata cooperazione di ricerca tra istituzioni italiane e israeliane.

Come si puo’ vedere dal bando – https://www.esteri.it/it/diplomazia-culturale-e-diplomazia-scientifica/cooperscientificatecnologica/accordi_coop_indscietec/ – non ci sono indicazioni per escludere che tale cooperazione porti allo sviluppo di tecnologie dual use, anzi: la terza linea di finanziamento e’ chiaramente utilizzabile per lo sviluppo di tecnologie di sorveglianza e controllo.

Chiediamo la sospensione del bando non solo per ragioni morali, ma anche per proteggere le istituzioni italiane che hanno il dovere di prevenzione di genocidio secondo la convenzione del 1948 e che, quindi, collaborando con le istituzioni israeliane, si potrebbero esporre al rischio di complicita’ con quello che la ICJ ha definito ‘un rischio palusibile di genocidio

La nostra lettera: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q5uuXmdJeDEyi06Kv1VkLPXAeVkMbfl8gHxPh6JGLQM/edit

Il form per firmarla: https://forms.gle/FC6vSN1Z98mDEy75A

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Keynote at the RGS-IBG Urban Geography conference with Veda Popovici (18 Nov)

This Friday, with my beloved sister, comrade and friend Veda Popovici, we will give one of the keynotes at the 2021 RGS-IBG Urban Geography Research Group Annual Conference ‘Cities of Hope’.
I am thrilled to share the floor with the amazing Gautam Bhan, Loretta Lees, Verónica Gago and their partners.
With Veda we are going to talk on “The false symmetry of research-activism. Towards accomplicenship and undercommon praxis”.
Friday 19th, from 10am UTC.
Register to join us: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/rgs-ibg-urban-geography-research-groups-2021-annual-conference-tickets-162703160533

The false symmetry of research-activism. Towards accomplicenship and undercommon praxis, Michele Lancione in conversation with Veda Popovici.

Academia and activism have long been exploring their intersections, overlaps and tensions. Going beyond a reductive “make academia more activist” slogan, we propose to start by exploring the false symmetry of academia vs activism from epistemological, material and geopolitical perspectives. With these in mind, we raise the questions: what is the starting point of a shared space between organising and the academy? What kind of epistemological change is needed in academia to work with organising? How can we work with the academia’s privileges for political struggle? We propose the concepts of accomplicenship and undercommon praxis to anchor a politics of duplicity (as opposed to one of authenticity) committed to radical redistribution and movement sustainability.