In this night school, we’ll examine four case studies of imperial exploits in the global south, tracing the construction of export-oriented and important-dependent economies. This comparative inquiry will take us from the Philippines to Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Ecuador to study the materials, the technologies, and the relationships that prop up our ways of living in Long Beach. Join us as we learn about these imperial exploits and how we might organize against them.

Lithium is in our cars. It’s in our smartphones, our laptops, our tablets. It’s also in our medicine. A chemical element, lithium collaborates with cobalt, nickel, manganese, and aluminum to carry the hope of a carbon-free world. It’s a connector. It connects the blood with the brain. It connects people with other people, with other places. It connects the present to a habitable future.

This session will study the violent disconnections that (have) occur(red) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in order to make these connections possible. We will pay special attention to the bodies of workers, asking questions about the role of labor resistance as an anti-imperialist practice in our climate crisis.