AudienceUndergraduates

Dr Pedro de Niemeyer Cesarino
University of São Paulo

Title: Amazonian shamanic iconographies: a comparative study

Abstract: TBA

Join the Entrepreneurship Centre for our first ever Speaker Series session.

As we kickstart our Thursday evening Speaker Series, we are delighted to welcome Robert Gelb, CEO of HeySummit, the event marketing platform for creators and independent entrepreneurs.

We are thrilled to have Rob join us to tell us about his very own inspiring entrepreneurial journey.

Before leading HeySummit, Rob founded Kindaba, a privacy-conscious social network for families, and Bus 52, a non-profit documentary video series profiling inspiring people making a difference across America (run from a School Bus). He also helped start CodeYourFuture Scotland, a coding school for refugees and asylum seekers.

Rob is passionate about entrepreneurship that delivers social impact so if you share the same values as Rob be sure not to miss out on this fantastic opportunity to hear from him and connect to talk impact, summits, startups, school buses, or anything Star Trek related.

Please book your place for this event via StartUpTree.

Join fellow students at this networking event for the Economics Society to promote a friendly economics tutoring scheme and upcoming speakers events.

Targeted mainly for freshers taking Economics. We will be serving drinks and will most likely invite a live band.

Open to 35 guests.

Dr Alysa Ghose
University of Edinburgh

Title: Knowledge from feeling, action from advice – the collective hustle and erotic witnessing of spiritual development in Cuban Espiritismo

Abstract: TBA

Dr Lisa Davidson
York University

Title: Multiculturalism as the Work of Miracles – Christianity and Canadian Belonging Among Racialized Presbyterians in Toronto

Abstract: TBA

Dr Julienne Obadia
University of Cambridge

Title: Paying in Processing Time – The Contract Complex, Polyamory, and the Relational Production of Unrelationality in American Late Liberalism

Abstract: TBA

Dr Brian Alleyne
University of London, Goldsmiths

Title: Technological speculations and explorations in odd places, or, how to be a geek in the Global South

Abstract: Except for industrialising Asia, the Global South is not generally associated with deep innovation in digital technologies: research recognises Southern innovation in terms of improvisation around affordance considering material derivation, but fundamental tech development is seen as happening in the North. In this talk I challenge this construction by exploring geek culture outside global North centred national silos and ethnocentric frameworks. I offer first the outline of a surprising narrative history of computing in the Caribbean, before discussing two cases. The first case is built around a thematic ‘distant reading’ of speculative fiction written by authors identified with the English and Spanish Caribbean. The second case addresses efforts by geeks from Cuba and Trinidad-Tobago to enter the supposedly lucrative field of digital commodity production. Alongside the substantive presentation, I highlight several methodological issues around ‘fieldwork’ that I had to confront because travel was impossible owing to the pandemic.

Prof Jenny Huberman
University of Missouri, Kansas City

Title: Moments are Still the Elements of Profit – The App Economy and the Digital Extraction of Surplus-Value

Abstract: Over the last two decades, while the ranks of the under and unemployed have swelled, and as the commercial demand for more precise data has skyrocketed, the smartphone task and gaming app industry has exploded. Likened to a portable Mechanical Turk, or a veritable “data enrichment” industry, apps such as Spare5, Taps for Money, InboxDollars, Cash Karma, Mistplay, Bingo Box, Solitude Cube, Swagbucks, Survey Junkie, Lifepoints, PrizeRebel, and TreasureTrooper, to name just a few, are advertised to e-commerce and AI companies as a way to get the most direct access to potential consumers, and as way to gain a “cost-effective” leg up in the “arms race in training data.” They are also presented to consumers or users as a means to “win” or “earn some money by performing simple tasks irrespective of the place where you are.” Companies propose that by downloading these apps onto smartphones users can render their “free time” economically productive. In this talk, I explore how the smartphone app industry is facilitating the digitized extraction of surplus-value. I argue that it is precisely by blurring the boundaries between work and leisure, and in many cases, “gamifying” tasks, that the app economy, which is inextricably tied to the platform economy, is able to perpetuate and extend a classic form of capitalist expropriation into the most intimate reaches of daily life. Drawing upon an analysis of some of the most popular smartphone “earning” apps, I will demonstrate that although much has changed in the era of digital capitalism, moments, as Marx recognized long ago, are still the elements of profit.