How can the 19th century history of the Luddites help us understand contemporary resistance to workplace technology? What does New Luddism look like on the ground? As an analytic framework, what are its strengths and weaknesses for understanding the current state of labor, worker resistance, and the tech industry?
This one-day conference will bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars from sociology, economics, history, and other disciplines, as well as journalists, organizers, and workers with firsthand knowledge of the implementation of new technologies in the workplace. Through a series of themed panels and workshops, the conference will provide a forum for these groups to discuss the utility of the New Luddism framework, its drawbacks, and its implications in research and in practice.
Conference speakers include Dr. Donald MacKenzie, Dr. Veena Dubal, Dr. Jathan Sadowski, Dr. Gavin Mueller, Dr. Chris Wiggins, Brian Merchant, and other researchers, workers, and critics.
This conference is sponsored by ISERP (Columbia's Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy), The Columbia Trust Collaboratory, Columbia Labor Lab, the Columbia Law School Workers’ Rights Student Coalition (WRSC), and the Columbia Law and Political Economy Project.