Background/Hopes/Her Stories

Solidarity Work:
An Organizing Retreat for Internationalist and Anti-Racist Women’s Human Rights
May 4-7, 2006

Solidarity Work. The organizing retreat will be held under the aegis of the University of California, Riverside Center for Ideas and Society (www.ideasandsociety.ucr.edu). However, it is not a traditional academic conference. By calling it an “organizing retreat,” we signal our  interest in bringing together activists/scholars who are not only interested in sharing their insights, experience and analysis around women’s human rights, but  who are also committed to building solidarities. We are not assuming that  “solidarity”  will be easy across diverse networks of organizing but it is what we would like to build towards: with coalitional campaigns, outreach, and institution-building.

In emphasizing “solidarity” and “work,” together, we underscore the labor it takes for us to build understanding across considerable differences and divisions of power and status between us. We believe that creating such an “understanding”—and building towards solidarities—takes careful empathetic work that is first, and foremost, constructive. We emphasize, as many others have done, the importance of coalition-building as central to this work. In that light we are particularly interested in people who work in policy, organizing , grassroots work and scholarship who are primarily  engaged in thinking about building alliances and coalitions in concrete ways.

A Welcome.We would like to welcome your ideas and thoughts as you read through our invitation, and the basic themes, structure and vision that we have imagined so far. We invite your suggestions, ideas and advice and will do our best to incorporate these within the limits of our own organizing capacity (of funding and labor). We wish to welcome you into the very process because we believe that “solidarity work” embraces plurality open-ness, and transparency. This is an “open-ness” that should be (ideally) worked through the process of organizing. It is an open-ness that calls for various forms of accountability. Even if you cannot join us at this gathering, we hope that you will connect us to folks who might---and that you will still offer us insights and advice that will help shape this event in ways that keep us accountable, to both method and substance, in the deepest sense.

Internationalist and Anti-Racist Perspectives. We bring together a sense of “internationalism” to emphasize our connections to older histories of anti-imperialist connections between women of the North and South. In inviting grassroots organizers from the global south and north to speak with each other about their struggles against state violence and by emphasizing the historically racist nature of that state violence against women and their families, we seek to build bridges across the deep chasms between “first” and “third.” We will learn that there are also extraordinary links (already made) in women’s work against racist imperial/state violence internationally. We seek to strengthen those links.

Themes. We are interested in bringing together organizers who work on militarization in the broadest sense. That is, we are particularly interested in the ways in which state (and non-state) violence, in our current historical moment,  has normalized militarized violence through various institutional forms. We know very well that such forms of institutionalized violence are often “routinized” into the daily lives of ordinary men and women. It is a routinization that is manifested through racist, classist and patriarchal forms of coercion and power.  It is a “normalization” that is historically marked. It is devastating for women and their families. 
           
In bringing together potential allies from North and South, we have created  four basic rubrics which will, hopefully, provide intersections that help us think through the process of militarization, and our own struggles against these processes, in intersecting and coalitional ways.

• Police and paramilitary forms of state violence inter/nationally.
• Prisons, political prisoners and incarceration in global and “national security” contexts.
• Current and historical legacies of occupation and conquest.
• Immigrant labor rights issues within contexts of “national security.”

Structure and Flexibility.  We are planning a careful balance  between structure and open-ness at this organizing retreat. An open-ended planning session will be structured into the first day of the event so that participants can decide on the specific sub-themes that they might want to pursue. We hope to have some panel discussions and open-workshops as well as some training workshops (e.g. on the contradictions of US civil rights laws and their intersections with international human rights protocols).

The UCLA Lake Arrowhead Center is a beautiful landscape that allows for long walks and informal kinds of addas (Bengali for long meandering conversations!). We would like to actually structure addas into our collective meditations and create a space for participants to enjoy a respite from hectic, stressed and even dangerous lives and commitments. We will ensure that food and laughter balances out our difficult ruminations.

Outcomes. The following is of interest to some of us. It is not programmatic and we welcome input. Different overlaps and variations of these should be considered.

• Possible Outcome 1: Create the foundations for a permanent organizing institute and board to work on these issues in the long term. See if people are interested in creating a Board, Steering Committee etc.
• Possible Outcome 2: Work on concrete campaigns across networks.
• Possible Outcome 3: Work collectively on a document (manual/book) that assists in campaign work.

Funding: Constraints and Transparency. We understand that there are many people who would like to join us. However, this is envisioned as a smaller more intimate retreat of a maximum of 50 people, including staff and some members of the Advisory Board. If you are interested in joining us, please do send detailed information on your work.
           

• Please be 100% committed to joining us in May 2006 if you are interested in applying as we will probably be turning away other interested people for you.

• We will cover all costs of your stay and will try to cover all costs of transportation and airfares. 

• If you are a middle-class academic/policy-maker or activist with other institutional sources of funding, and especially if you live in the global North, we will ask you to fund your own airfare to this gathering. This will free up our funds to assist grassroots women organizers from North and South to join us.

•  We are aware that there are many organizers who are careful about funding sources especially when these are tied to powerful foundations.  For the sake of transparency, our source of funding comes through the Ford Foundation. This funding is from an academic grant given to the Center for Ideas and Society, UC Riverside and UCHRI (University of California Humanities Research Institute, UC Irvine). The grant created a set of intellectual programs around a theoretical paradigm called Cloning Cultures. We understand and respect the political reasons why certain institutional funding sources cannot be accepted by many women who would otherwise join us.

• Even if you cannot join us, we hope that you can still send us suggestions and advice for campaigns and institution-building around these issues.

Selection Process.

• We are looking for a balance of participants between North and South with a special emphasis on grassroots organizing on anti-racist/internationalist issues.
• The Advisory Board and Members of the Organizing Team will consult together to make final selections.
• We will be contacting people by mid-January 2006 to get the process started.