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<nettime> CfP Special issue Krisis Dec. 2014: Pirates and Privateers |
Call for Papers: Pirates and Privateers http://krisiscall.wordpress.com *DEADLINE ABSTRACTS 15 JUNE* The idea that in an ever globalising world the sovereignty and centrality of the nation state is declining is so well established that it has become a truism. Yet state agencies such as the NSA are in the process of reestablishing their grip on todays network societies. So perhaps the proclaiming of the end of the state (not in terms of its national scope but as to the essence of its function) was premature. This raises the following questions: What is or will be the role of the state-function (national or international) in this globalised social-economic landscape? Will it be able to secure its de jure and de facto sovereignty by enforcing the distinction between pirates and privateers through law, i.e. by authorising neoliberal but restricting alternative appropriations of the commons? And is this state power a necessary condition for, or instead a limit to, the implementation of neoliberal principles? These questions are important because the distinction between pirate and privateer has substantial practical consequences in terms of the distribution of power. Neoliberal privatisation (e.g. the exodus of financial capital from the welfare state system) is sanctioned by state. It is in the process of realising its particular solutions to the crises of the nation state, creating the conditions of its own legitimacy, in the form of gated communities, tax havens and special economic zones protected by private security firms. Seemingly bypassing state sovereignty, whilst simultaneously sanctioned by it, they are contemporary privateers. Is this type of privatisation the destiny of this historical junction or are there alternatives? The institutionalised left does not seem to think so as it continues to defend the welfare system as a place of last resort against the powers of neoliberal globalisation. However, in the margins of the neoliberal project various different solutions are being experimented with. Insofar as these are not sanctioned by state, these are todays pirates. Think of: torrent sites (The Pirate Bay comes to mind), hacker communities tied to international criminal syndicates, new local and digital currencies (Bristol Pound, Bitcoin, Litecoin), new forms of digital activism (Anonymous), counter-banking (OccupyBank, Timebank), anonymising networks (TORs Hidden Wiki and Silk Road), freestates and micronations (Principality of Sealand), eco-communities or hacker colonies (calafou.org) and alternative internets (GNUnet). How can or should we think about and critically evaluate the distinction between privateers and pirates in political-philosophical terms? What is the utility, in this particular context, of the conceptual and normative schemas still operative in political philosophy today? If not a return to a Hobbesian state of nature, yet also short of being a Commonwealth; if not the emergence of a post-state, anarchist or libertarian utopia, nor a technologically updated 1984 in which the state function has become absolute; how to understand and conceptualise the ambiguous in-between? Krisis welcomes interdisciplinary answers to such questions, and encourages approaches that engage political-philosophical reflections on issues of state sovereignty, law and justice, to the above mentioned case-studies (or others). We also invite speculative approaches to future scenarios: will the conflict between neoliberal and alternative solutions take place in ever more deterritorialised, technocratic networks beyond state control? Will we witness the proliferation of large self-regulative parallel systems, of password-protected enclaves, local communication ecologies and gated communities? Will the state be reduced to one of the players in this game, or will strategic shifts in its constitution as an apparatus in conjunction with neoliberalism secure its function as a sovereign mediator? Contributions may be up to 7000 words (including references). If you would like to contribute, please send us a proposal of about 500 words. Abstracts are due 15 June. We will notify you before 1 July about acceptance of your proposal. The deadline for final contributions is 15 September. Editorial address: info@krisis.eu www.krisis.eu # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org