Micronomics seminar in Brussels on MayDay

[Michel Bauwens]

More info via Jim Segers at

Micronomics, which studies alternative economic forms, particularly suited for 'minipreneurs', is at
http://micronomics.citymined.org/spip.php?rubrique3

Text:

As part of the MICRONOMICS, City Mine(d) together with other micro-initiatives, researchers and policy makers organise the MICRONOMICS action-research.

The aim is to:

-define micro-initiatives,
-identify their contribution to urban and economic development and promote micro-initiatives towards researchers,
-policy makers and the wider public.

For MICRONOMICS, Mayday has become an occasion to bring creation together with showcasing and reflection. Around that day, micro-initiatives take the stage and the street to show what they do, why they do it, and how they try to do it. This year, as part of the multi-day festival, City Mine(d) organises a seminar: a series of workshops with micro-initiatives, policy makers and researchers.

The subject-matter micro-initiatives was divided over 5 subgroups, each investigating and approaching it from a different angle. A tandem of a researcher together with an initiative/activist are preparing a 2page position paper on the basis of which a wider subgroup will be involved. The invited group, consisting of 4 micro-initiatives, 3 researchers, and 3 people related to public or private governance, will come together in workshops in the shadow of the MICRONOMICS Festival on 30april and 1 May to discuss their opinion on the position paper. Results of this discussion will be summarized to the public by politicians on the evening of 1 May.

In the light of the regional elections of 7 June, the seminar aims also to impact upon the political agenda. From a very early stage, the seminar will involve politicians who will stand for election. They will be kept informed about the preperatory process, will be represented in the workshops, and will present the results to the wider public. This allows them an opportunity to give their impression of the work and publicly state their plans of supporting micro-initaitives when elected.


Provisional program:

micro-initiatives
It considers as micro-initiatives all small scale activities in social or informal economy, who make make things not necessarily for money, rely a lot on social capital and experiment in fields ranging from media, sport, catering, transport, fashion, design. Sustainability and emancipation are often very central in their work, and “unrelated to a captalist ethos.”

themes
The seminar will consist of 5 working groups, each of 10 people. The working groups are:
-THEORY: questioning and redefining key concepts in social and informal economy, in an attempt to take them back from the current dominant discourse
-TOOLS: looking at the institutional and informal instruments that exist (or lack) for the support of micro-initiatives
-GEOGRAPHY: considering the impact on urban and regional development of micro-initiatives
-ACTORS: a stakeholders analysis of who is active in the field of micro-initiatives
-CHANGE: translates findings to concrete policy advice

participants

The working group will be lead by a researcher, who currently drafts a 2page position paper on his part of the subject. This paper will function as a guiding instrument for 3 days of targeted work sessions, starting on 30 April, and ending on 2 May. Participants in the workshop are researchers, policy makers and practitioners in micro-initiatives from Brussels and other European countries.

agenda-setting

Politicians who stand for regional elections will also be represented in the workshop, and they will be asked to report results back to the wider audience, this in an attempt to have them commit to the subject in public.

programme
30 april:
1:30 pm introductory session 90min
5:30 pm 1st working session 90min
1 May
11:30 am 2nd working sesison 90 min
2 May
morning: Forum