Lefteast

(Post)pandemic Struggles in Social Reproduction: Who will pay for pandemic crises?

The coronavirus pandemic has revealed who our society depends on for survival. It was those working in logistics, health care, trade, the post office, and other ‘essential’ industries that saved many economies from collapse and ensured the functioning of entire societies. Yet, years of living in poor conditions, working in unsafe workplaces where our lives don't mean anything, years of alienation and marginalization of workers in public sphere have left quite a mark on working class abilities for mobilization. Those who managed to organize across the workplace’s walls and borders started to build transnatio ..

Questioning dominant accounts of Chinese investments in Eastern Europe and Eurasia

I am no expert of Chinese infrastructure investments in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. I have only been systematically going through existing research on the topic lately to find, much to my disappointment, that most of academic discourse on the topic (let alone media and political narratives) is devoid of critical approaches (exceptions apply, see: Gambino, 2019; Rogelja, 2020) . We can see how easily ‘the China threat’ narrative can be racialized, and how easily in turn such racialized narrative can be utilised to construct a phantom enemy in service of existing power structures. Therefore, I want to highlight ..

Palghar protests: ‘We won’t back down today ‘

Note from LeftEast editors: Millions of farmers and workers have been protesting across India against three farm laws. The protests, described by some as the biggest ever witnessed in history, have received little to no attention in mainstream media. The farmers have pointed out that the law related to the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs) will destroy the system of mandis which has worked reasonably for them. It will destroy the MSP (minimum support price) process and allow large agro-chains and corporations to control prices. We reprint this article by Shraddha Agarwal from the “People’s Arc ..

(Post)pandemic Struggles in Social Reproduction: Women & Migrants Maintaining Life during Pandemic in Turkey

Note of the LeftEast editors: The present text, which we co-publish together with TSS is part of a series of publications and webinars on the topics of social reproduction, (women’s) labour and migration in East-Central Europe and beyond. The video from the first webinar Responses to Covid19 and (post)pandemic: social reproduction, migrants and women in Central/Eastern Europe and beyond, where this text was first presented can be seen here. The aim of the series is to raise awareness about struggles for labour, reproduction and migrant rights, as well as of the condition of women in society and how these h ..

[INTERVIEW] From Internationalism to Postcolonialism: Literature & Cinema between the Second and the Third World

Note from LeftEast editors: A shortened version of Selim Nadi’s interview with Rossen Djagalov was published in Jacobin Magazine. Could there have been a Third World without the “Second”? Certainly, there could have been — but it would have looked very different. Most histories of these geopolitical blocs and their constituent societies and cultures are written in their relation to the West. Yet the interdependence of the Second and Third Worlds is evident not only from a common nomenclature but also from their near-simultaneous disappearance around 1990. Rossen Djagalov’s book From Internationa ..

#25N : Essential Struggles Against Patriarchal Violence

Note from LeftEast editors: we stand with this position shared by the Essential Autonomous Struggles Transnational network, first published on the website of Transnational Social Strike. November 25th is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. On this day women* stand together against patriarchal violence in all its different forms and shades. On Sunday November 29th we, Essential Autonomous Struggles Transnational (E.A.S.T.), invite everyone to discuss inan online public assemblyhow to connect transnationally struggles against patriarchal, racist, capitalist violence in the pandemic. ..

Part 2: The Power of ‘Weak Actors’ and Decolonizing Socialist Architectural Histories after 1989

Part 2 of a two-part interview with Łukasz Stanek by Zoltán Ginelli. Transcribed and edited by Zoltán Ginelli. Part 1 you can read HERE. Łukasz Stanek is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the Manchester School of Architecture, The University of Manchester, UK. Stanek authoredHenri Lefebvre on Space: Architecture, Urban Research, and the Production of Theory(2011) and edited Lefebvre’s book Toward an Architecture of Enjoyment (2014). His latest book, Architecture in Global Socialism: Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War was published by Princeton University Press in 2020. C ..

(Post)pandemic struggles in social reproduction: intersectional alliances between housing and essential workers’ struggles in Romania

Note of the LeftEast editors: The present text, which we co-publish together with TSS is part of a series of publications and webinars on the topics of social reproduction, (women’s) labour and migration in East-Central Europe and beyond. The video from the second webinar (Post)pandemic struggles on social reproduction, where this text was first presented can be seen here. The aim of the series is to raise awareness about struggles for labour, reproduction and migrant rights, as well as of the condition of women in society and how these have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. The publications and ..

INTERVIEW: Tamás Krausz: “Reconstructing Lenin” beyond the lies and distortions

Professor of Russian history at the University of Budapest, Tamás Krausz is the author of an intellectual biography of Lenin. In this interview, Krausz draws a portrait of the October Revolution and the beginning of the Soviet experience, rigorously showing the contemporary relevance of Lenin’s analyses, as well as their limits, without yielding to the simplifications and “superficial theories” that prevent us from understanding that founding event. Alex Anfruns: Your book “Reconstructing Lenin” defends the postulate that Lenin’s theoretical and political legacy continues to b ..

The Helpers of the Afghan Park

Text and photos by Szilárd Kalmár, translated by Arnold Velansits. First published in Mérce. In the spring of 2015, a wave of refugees reached Europe of a size that had not been seen before. The general public – including us – was not informed, or barely were, about this situation and only realized what we are facing when the quickest moving refugees, the relatively wealthier people had reached our borders. In these early stages, Hungary registered those coming via Serbia, then gave them free transit towards the two largest refugee camps, in Debrecen, or Vámosszabadi, near the town of Győr. At th ..