UnderCurrents: Journal of Critical Environmental Studies (E-Journal - York University)

Living in Alberta for 25 years, I have travelled in and through the stunning Canadian Rockies countless times. Only recently did I learn that some of the infrastructure that helps us enjoy the mountain parks was built by the forced labour of Ukrainian Canadian men interned during WWI. A few years earlier, Canada had actively encouraged these immigrants (often referred to as “Galicians”) as muchneeded industrial workers, particularly in railway construction. However, in the face of war with the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914, the government decided that these “enemy aliens”, now unemployed by the pre-war recession, were a potential menace to the community and should be detained in remote camps. Food, clothing and living conditions were poor, and on top of their expected work time, the internees often had to march many hours from the camp to their place of work

Dunn, Maria

Living in Alberta for 25 years, I have travelled in and through thestunning Canadian Rockies countless times. Only recently did I learn
that some of  the infrastructure that helps us enjoy the mountain parks was
built by the forced labour of  Ukrainian Canadian men interned during
WWI. A few years earlier, Canada had actively encouraged these immigrants (often referred to as “Galicians”) as much-
needed industrial workers, particularly in railway construction. However, in the face of  war with the Austro-Hungarian
Empire in 1914, the government decided that these “enemy aliens”, now unemployed by the pre-war recession, were a
potential menace to the community and should be detained in remote camps. Food, clothing and living conditions were
poor, and on top of  their expected work time, the internees often had to march many hours from the camp to their
place of  work.
This song takes its name from a book written by B.S. Kordan & P. Melnycky entitled In the Shadow of  the Rockies: Diary of
the Castle Mountain Internment Camp, 1915-1917.
OTHER READING: Waiser, B. Park prisoners: The Untold Story of  Western Canada’s National Parks, 1915-1946. Calgary:
Fifth House, 1995.
Young stranger,
as you walk these trails of  beauty
And you feel the mountain air caress your face
As you stand in the shadow of  the Rockies
Remember who toiled in this place
Please, remember who toiled in this place
I.
They courted our labour and called us to settle
The Great Canadian Plains
But how fickle the love of  a fair young Alberta
For her “enemy aliens”
II.
Oh pity the young man in 1914
Who hadn’t a job or a trade
And doubly so the man from Galicia2
For he was soon detained
III.
Our invisible hands worked in nature’s cathedral
For the pleasure of  tourist and town
Six days a week at slavery’s wages
Still we were not wanted around
IV.
In a camp the lay beneath Castle Mountain
Rotten food and sodden tents
The most glorious place in the world is ugly
When seen through a barbed wire fence
V.
Our footsteps and voices have long since faded
From these pristine forest paths
Yet many’s the mile and the hour we trudged here
To our place of  labour and back
VII.
If  you listen, young stranger, the wind in the pines
Or the water over the stones
You may hear the songs we sang to each other
To remind us of  our homes
NOTES:
1. The title of  the song is taken from the title of  the following book:
Kordan, B.S. & Melnycky, P. In the Shadow of  the Rockies: Diary of  the Castle Mountain Internment
Camp, 1915-1917. Edmonton: University of  Alberta: Canadian Institute of  the Canadian
Studies Press, 1991.
2. Galicia was part of  the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time of  WWI.  Ukrainians were
often referred to as “Galicians” in the early 1900s in Canada.
Sources used for In the Shadow of  the Rockies:
In the Shadow of  the Rockies: Diary of  the Castle Mountain Internment Camp, 1915-1917.
Waiser, B. Park prisoners: The Untold Story of  Western Canada’s National Parks, 1915-1946. Calgary:
Fifth House, 1995.
Doskoch, W.H. Oral history interview by Alberta Labour History Institute. Unpublished, 2001.
Doskoch, W.H. Strait from the Heart: Biography of  W (Bill) Doskoch, 1893 – 1941. Self-published,
1993.
- description of  his father’s (Bill’s) experiences in internment camps in BC and Ontario,
1915-19.
by Maria Dunn
Shadow of  the Rockies1
Gmin F
Chorus: Young stran - ger as you walk these trails of
beau -
Cmin
ty and you feel the mountain air ca-
F Gmin
ress your face as you
tfbBr
B~ F
_§~I~I~J ~J ~-6- .(j '"it
iesshad - ow of the Rock re-play in the
member who toiled in this place Please, re-
Gmin
member Verse: Theywho
~ F
~§. ~~~I~~~~~J~
1. court - ed our lab - our and
2. pit y the young man in
called us
nine - teen
to
and
BI B~ BI
set - tie the great Can-
four - teen who hadn't a
BI Gmin Gmin
~j~ jJ J J Hd
a di an plains but how
job or a trade and
B B BI
..
fickle the love of a fair young AI-
doubl y so the man from Ga-
Gmin Gmin F
I,&b
~ J IJ r=~ J J l§---bert a for her en -e - my
Ii cia for he was
F Cmin
a
soon
Ii
de
ens
tained
oh
chorus: (Young)
Vol 12 Political Natures 1 9


English

Shadow of the Rockies

Wilkes, James

'captive'ating

Barndt, Deborah

Fenced-in World, Quebec City April 2001

Lousley, Cheryl

ment. In "Blind Spots in the
Rearview Mirrors," Ian Urquhart
picks up the long-standing 'jobs ver-
sus the environment' debate and sug-
gests that "environmentalists might
learn from the Wise Use movement's
attention to livelihood: not merely
work but the 'manner of life' lived by
people."
'"
~.-&ja..
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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•
Writing Off the Rural
West: Globalization,
Governments, and the
Transformation of Rural
Communities•
• Roger Epp and Dave Whitson(eds)
• University of Alberta Press and
Parkland Institute, 2001
•
Reviewed by Cheryl Lousley
•
• Globalization has been largelytreated as an urban phenome-
non, with "global cities" positioned as
financial, communication, and tech-
nological centres driving trade and
productivity, and protest movements
filling the city streets of Seattle,
Prague, Washington, Quebec City, and
Genoa. Epp and Whitson's timely
•
•
•
collection explores in depth the devas-
tating impacts of trade liberalization
on rural communities in Canada, par-
ticularly focussing on the western
provinces. From industrial hog farms
to sour-gas flaring, farm consolidation
to recreational development, rural
hospital closings to racial and immi-
gration tensions, the picture is not
pretty for either the people or the
ecology of rural Canada.
One of the strongest papers in Writing
Off the Rural is Darrin Qualman's
"Corporate Hog Farming: The View
from the Family Farm." Qualman
gives a concise and detailed explana-
tion of the policies and economies
which are driving the development of
industrial hog production facilities.
Until the 1990s, hogs were raised in
small numbers (from a few dozen to
few hundred animals) on diversified
farms across Canada. "These farms
avoided problems such as manure
leakage into groundwater," Qualman
explains, "because hog numbers were
small, production was dispersed, and
manure was kept dry."
The development of mega hog barn
complexes is a result of vertical inte-
gration where meat packers and dis-
tributors secure a cheap supply
through consolidation. Small, inde-
pendent producers are effectively cut
out of the market and face artificially
low commodity prices. And the
promised benefits for rural communi-
ties who attract-often with govern-
ment help-mega-barns never materi-
alize. ''A typical 2400-sow complex
employs about 15 people," Qualman
observes, and "each of these mega-
barns will drive as many as 50 tradi-
tional small farmers out of the hog
business." In effect, rural areas are
becoming the dumping grounds for
environmental contaminants, promot-
ed as economic development.
Of particular interest-and perhaps
discomfort-to environmentalists are
the chapters on recreational develop-
Urquhart analyzes the submissions of
the Alberta Wilderness Association
(AWA) to the joint federal-provincial
environmental assessment review
panel on the development of a open-
pit coal mine in Cheviot, Alberta, and
concludes that the environmentalists
share with the project proponents a
failure to imagine "more sustainable
visions of livelihood." Ecotourism
was the only alternative employment
and economic option the AWA
offered in place of the Cheviot mine,
neglecting to consider the skills, histo-
ries, and desires of the communities
which already inhabited this area of
the Rockies. Urquhart concedes the
AWA received no funding to do any
socio-economic research, but force-
fully argues that livelihood should take
a more prominent place in environ-
mental thinking.
All in all, the papers in this collection
are consistently well-written and well-
argued, grounded in extensive
research and/or personal experience.
The chapters frequently overlap in
content-the impact of the loss of
the Crow rates for shipping grain, for
example, is noted in several chap-
ters-but I found this contributed to
providing a comprehensive picture of
the current situation rather being rep-
etitious. The diversity of disciplinary
perspectives, ranging from sociology
and political science to gerontology
and theology, similarly fleshes out the
regional, historical, and demographic
specificities of a globalization all too
often discussed in overwhelmingly
general terms. This collection is well
worth reading as a whole. And it
should be necessary reading for anti-
36 UnderCurrentsVolume 11
corporate globalization and environ-
mental activists in Canada, offering
urban protestors a valuable grounding
in the political economy of their own
country.
But Writing Off the Rural West will be
most valuable for the rural audience.
In their introduction, Epp and
Whitson declare their commitment to
the survival of rural communities:
"An underlying argument of this book
is that rural communities should not
be 'written of[' in the language of
bankers and economists."
Instead of giving up on the rural, Epp
and Whitson have put together an
analysis of "nomad capitalism" which
rural communities can use to resist
further exploitation and to develop
policies and practices which support
rural livelihoods. The book diligently
exposes the contradictions between
many of the conservative governments
and policies rural voters sup-
port and the consequences of those
policies on rural lands and people. My
one disappointment was that the rea-
sons for this contradiction were insuf-
ficiently addressed, discussed only in a
final chapter, "The Political De-
Skilling of Rural Communities" by
Roger Epp, which presumes too much
familiarity with Albertan political his-
tory and moves too quickly from the
empirical to the theoretical. Epp does
better at outlining a theoretical "dem-
ocratic politics of place" than analyz-
ing why such a vision is not currently
popular in rural Alberta, or rural
Canada generally.
Adrian J tvakhlv
uates his study within the larger con-
text of cultural and economic global-
ization, in relation to which New Age
spirituality can be seen as one of
many competing narratives that
attempt to define the purpose and
direction of human existence in an
age of unprecedented complexity and
uncertainty. According to this New
Age narrative, we are in the midst of
an epochal shift that offers the possi-
bility of a renewed spiritual connec-
tion between human and non-human
beings; a re-enchantmenr of reality
that will allow us to recover the sense
of wonder, joy and reverence that has
allegedly been destroyed by the secu-
lar, rationalist worldview. Drawing
upon real or imagined traditions that
predate those of the modern age,
New Age spirituality aims to establish
a deeper connection with nature and
the non-human world, usually under-
stood as spiritual, supernatural or
extraterrestrial beings and forces that
transcend our everyday experience.
Often, this quest for personal trans-
formation is linked to particular places
and landscapes that are deemed to be
sacred or powerful. Claiming Sacred
Ground focuses on two of the most
well-known of these sacred sites,
exploring the ways in which meaning
is recreated and renegotiated by the
various actors, human and non-
human, which inhabit them.
•
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•
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•
The beginning of the book provides
an overview of the various concep-
tions of nature found within the New
Age and "earth spirituality" move-
ment and a brief history of various
theoretical approaches to the study of
sacred space. Ivakhiv describes his
own approach as a form of "critical
sympathy" that merges critical social
science with direct observation and
participation in the object of study; in
this case, the New Age communities
of Glastonbury and Sedona. This
implicitly phenomenological approach
emphasizes the cultural, social and
historical context of others' beliefs and
practices, attempting to under-
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
~IQrimsandPulitics
at61astonburv
and Sedona
•
Claiming Sacred Ground:
Pilgrims and Politics at
Glastonbury and Sedona
Adrian J. Ivakhiv
Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2001
Reviewed by Rich Oddie
Combining extensive historicalresearch with first-hand observa-
tions, Claiming Sacred Ground examines
how the towns of Glastonbury,
England, and Sedona, Arizona, have
come to be regarded as "sacred sites"
or "power places" by adherents of the
New Age movement. The author sit-
UnderCurrents Volume 11 37


"Writing Off the Rural West: Globalization, Governments, and the Transformation of Rural Communities" by Roger Epp and Dave Whitson (Eds.)

Sarick, Tema

Untitled

Bose, Pablo

by Pablo Bose and Cheryl Lousley 
trans/ formations 
editorial essay 
"to speak a true word is to transform the world" 
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed 
How to write about trans/formations and not mention September 11th 
and the events that apparently 'changed the world'? How to write 
about/in the aftermath of 9-11 given the media deluge, given the ten-
dency towards sentimentalism, to ideological grandstanding, to the banal 
repetition of hollow words? 
Back when the UnderCurrents Editorial Collective first sat down to decide a theme for its 11th issue-on the cusp of a 
new millennium-the idea of exploring the word 'transformations' seemed only too suitable for a journal of creative and 
critical environmental studies. It still does, suggesting transitions, transience, transgenders, trance, trends, new forms (or 
military formations?) ... But the word 'transformation' has taken on a new significance and weight-or vacuity, depend-
ing upon one's perspective. 
Many of us find that the 'new world order' is all too familiar. National powers-super or otherwise-still commit atroc-
ities against neighbours near and far, and repress internal dissent using brutal means. Poverty, injustice, and inequity still 
hold the vast majority of the world's population in an unyielding grip. The various leaders of the 'free world' continue to 
prostrate themselves before the gods of the marketplace. Neo-liberal economic and political agendas are still simply 
'common-sense' and capitalism is still the choice of champions (or so we are told). 
Is trans/formation but a word game, busywork for activists and artists and all of us dreamers who won't make a differ 
ence in the world? 
We argue that there is a need for such dreaming and art and criticism and creativity-now, especially, as the possibility for 
dialogue is increasingly reduced, not only because of the legislative threats to civil liberties, but also due to the disturb-
ing consensus on security. When space is not open to public debate, when minds are not open to argument, art can often 
find a way in. And that is why UnderCurrents, since its inception in 1988, has uniquely pursued a mandate of environ-
mental thought which encompasses multiple forms of writing and art, bringing together the creative and the critical. 
Environmentalists have been particularly guilty of relying on a few stock-and problematic-narratives to make our 
arguments: the terror of environmental apocalypse being one of the most common. This is a good time to reconsider 
that strategy. 
The writers and artists in this issue not only discuss, present and reflect environmental and social transformations through 
prose, poetry, artwork, photography and critical essays, they demonstrate a transformation of the discourse of environ-
mentalism. They intervene in environmentalist approaches, they intervene in the world-some in quite material ways, 
such as the therapeutic touch intimately photographed by Pariss Garramone. These brief reflections on and moments of 
transformation that fill the following pages remind us of why we do continue to engage in the clumsy, beautiful, never-
ending attempt to trans/form the world we live in. 
Transcomposition: the future is fungal, by Melinda Zytaruk UnderCurrents Volume 11 3 


Trans/formations Editorial Essay

Oddie, Rich

"Claiming Sacred Ground: Pilgrims and Politics at Glastonbury and Sedona" by Adrian J. Ivakhiv

The meaning of work is once again on the social agenda and gaining increasing relevance for contemporary political struggles

Shantz, Jeff

productivist, arguing that a shortened
work-week could be beneficial for
capital in allowing for a doubling or
tripling of productivity. Rifkin never
questions the legitimacy or the desir-
ability of capitalist relations. Indeed a
major reason for his concern over
"vanishing jobs" is that the transfor-
mation threatens a capitalist collapse
through a weakening of consumer
demand. Rifkin's main desire is to see
an increase in the "purchasing power"
of workers so that "[ejrnployers,
workers, the economy, and the gov-
ernment all benefit."8 Like the "struc-
tural-functionalist" sociologists of
old, Rifkin's primary concern is with
the possibility of "strain" in the sys-
tem and the alleviation of any such
strain. He worries that the decline of
jobs could threaten the foundations of
the modern state by destabilizing
social relations which previously rest-
ed on a shared valuing of labour-
what he calls the heart of the social
contract. Rifkin even fears that a cri-
sis in jobs will open the door to
renewed militancy and to extralegal
political action.9
The meaning of work is once againon the social agenda and gaining
increasing relevance for contemporary
political struggles. There are perhaps
two principal,
but very differ-
ent, impulses
for an emergent
transformation
of work. First,
radical social
by Jeff Shantz
Abolish
Work!
movements-
most signifi-
cantly ecology-raise concerns about
productivism and the coercive charac-
ter of capitalist jobs. These social
activists are rethinking the very char-
acter of work, some going so far as to
advocate the end of jobs altogether.
Second, the cybernetized restructur-
ing of global capital seems to be
bringing about a "jobless recovery"
with high levels of institutionalized
unemployment. Anxiety, desperation,
and reactionary politics are increasing-
ly becoming the most common
responses to this transformation of
work.
I argue that the radical approach of
work abolitionism provides an impor-
tant impetus for rethinking social rela-
tions more broadly in this age of glob-
al injustice and ecological collapse.
Struggles against the imposition of
work, whether against workfare,
sweatshops or telework, are insepara-
ble from struggles for a world without
exploitation. By seeking less rather
than more work in our lives, we can
offer a defiant alternative to the des-
peration of futurists who bemoan
"the end of work" while never daring
to dream the end of capital.
From Work to Jobs to
Leisure?
The job is a social artefact,although it is so deeply embedded
in our consciousness that most of us
have forgotten its artificiality or the
fact that, through history, most soci-
eties havdone fine without jobs.!
Through industrialism, work-the act
of engaging in specific tasks to meet
direct needs-became transformed
into jobs, i.e. "to work for wages."2
Numerous authors have discussed the
historic emergence of "jobs," relating
this transformation to enclosure of
common lands and the separation of
home life and work life as people left
villages to work in urban factories.3
They argue the new job-work gradual-
ly contributed to the destruction of
traditional social relations and served
to undermine prior ways of living.
According to futurists such as William
Bridges and Jeremy Rifkin, we have
recently entered a new period in the
transformation of work. Rifkin
claims that "the global economy is in
the midst of a transformation as sig-
nificant as the Industrial Revolution."4
He suggests that we have entered a
"new economic era" marked by a
declining need for "mass human
labour" due to cybernatization. As
computers, robots, and telecommuni-
cations nerworks and other cybernetic
technologies replace human workers
in an increasing range of activities, we
enter "the early stages of a shift from
'mass labor' to highly skilled 'elite'
labor accompanied by increasing
automation in the production of
goods and the delivery of services.">
Bridges suggests that changes in tech-
nology and the global market have
transformed work relations so exten-
sively that the very idea of "jobs" will
soon disappear. He argues that each
increase in productivity seems to
make jobs redundant; the cyberneriza-
tion of capital, for example, has
already eliminated many jobs.
Corresponding to this may be a shift
in peoples' perceptions of work.
More and more, people are "searching
for alternatives to jobs and job
descriprions.l'v Rifkin proclaims that
the "jobs" question is "likely to be the
most explosive issue of the [present]
decade."7
However, Rifkin's analysis remains
In like fashion, Bridges's optimism
over possibilities for the transforma-
tion of jobs speaks only to the strata
of well-skilled, well-paid workers in an
increasingly polarised workforce.
Bridges never challenges the hegemo-
ny of capital in structuring which
responses to the "death of the job"
are politically possible. He leaves
"employeets)" as an intact category
and as a group of workers facing such
unsatisfactory and increasingly tenu-
ous options as freelance work, part-
time work, or piecework. The so-
called "decline of the job" means that
those who are working have more
work to do; as a result, more and more
people are simply not working. But
what Bridges fails to consider are
questions about what is being pro-
duced, how, by whom, and for what
purposes. Nor does he discuss what
happens to those newly "liberated"
from work: the jobless.
18 UnderCurrents Volume 11 Previous page: How does a woman become a bird?, by Rosabella Sau Wai Tai
Furthermore, autonomist Marxists
have argued that the cybernetization
of capital will not usher in a leisure
society, but will instead encourage an
enlargement of the work realm. They
claim that labour displaced from pri-
mary and secondary industries would
be reabsorbed by "the tertiary, quater-
nary, or quinary sectors as farther and
farther flung domains of human
activity are assimilated within the
social factory."lo Cybernetized capital,
through the commodification of
expanded and novel realms of human
activity, can maintain wage labour,
"incessantly recreating its proletariat,
unless it is forcibly interrupted by the
organised efforts of workers to
reclaim their life-time."11
Work Abolitionism
More radical than the Marxistfuturists are those who advocate
the abolition of work. Believing that a
"job" signifies a dependency relation-
ship disguised as independence (the
"freedom" to consume), work aboli-
tionists call for workers of the world
to relax. They gleefully reject what
they call the Leftist mantra of full
employment, which results in further
integration of the working classes into
capitalism through preservation of
jobs at all costs. 12Abolitionists draw
on traditionally anarchist or libertarian
sensibilities that move beyond the
reductionist contortion which has
equated work with jobs. Instead, they
emphasize creativity, self-determina-
tion, and conviviality of relations.
"Jobs" are seen to restrict peoples'
capacities to care for themselves and
those within their communal/ecologi-
cal groupings, and are therefore reject-
ed as a basis for radical activist con-
vergence.
Work abolitionism suggests a move-
ment simultaneously "of class" and
"against class", i.e. against the com-
modification of creativity and per-
formance. The category "jobs" speaks
to the compulsory character of
involvement in capitalist produc-
tion-production enforced via rela-
tions of economic and political con-
trol and power. In order to receive
sustenance in a capitalist system, peo-
ple must sell themselves. This is the
imperative of wage labour: work is
not done for its own sake but for sec-
ondary effects, such as wages, which
are not characteristic of or inherent to
the work itself. In other words, jobs
form a condensation point for com-
plex relations of power around the
trading of time for money, or what
Zimpel quite poignantly refers to as "a
transaction of existential absurdity."!'
Jobs are characterized by an extension
of organizational control over people:
"employees" signify a system of dom-
ination practised through forms of
discipline which include surveillance
and time-management. The regimen-
tation and discipline of the job serves
to habituate workers to hierarchy and
obedience while also discouraging
insubordination and autonomy. Jobs
as regimented roles replace direct, cre-
ative participation and initiative
through arrangements of sub-
servience. Bob Black argues that
employment is capital's primary and
most direct coercive formation; one
that is experienced daily.
Marxists might object that work aboli-
tionism does not necessarily trans-
form capitalism. After all, even some
nee-liberal post-industrial theorists
write about the "abolition of work"
and they see it as the result of the
application of innovative technologi-
cal resources within capitalist rela-
tions-not as a destruction of those
relations. At its most dramatic, the
Industrial Ecology, by Roger Keil 19UnderCurrents Volume 11
neo-liberal "abolition of work" pres-
ents a leisure society enabled through
the development of artificial intelli-
gence and robotics. These are not
acceptable alternatives. Among the
prerequisites for ecological change is a
reduction both in the amount of work
being done and in the character of
what work is done. Ecological
lifestyles could not be constituted
without the outright cessation of cap-
italist production. Only the end of
production can bring about the end of
nuclearism, weapons production,
clear-cutting, toxic waste produc-
tion-the variety of harmful applica-
tions to which nature is commonly
subjected. Moreover, much work is
useless. Here I include the defence
and reproduction of work relations in
political (ownership and control) and
economic (circulation and consump-
tion) forms. Radical politics can no
longer ignore the question of jobs;
indeed, returning to this question
must be the starting point for refor-
mulating radicalism, at least along
green lines.
Political Movements to
Abolish Work
Of course, anti-work themes arenot new. They find antecedents
in Fourier and Lafargue, and even in
Marx's critique of alienated Iabour.l ?
Earlier Wobbly (Industrial Workers of
the World) demands for a four-hour-
day may be understood as an expres-
sion of opposition to the extension of
capitalist control over labour and the
reduction of workers to one-dimen-
sional class beings. The shortened
workday opens up creative time out-
side of capitalist discipline and com-
mand and expands the time available
for "frivolous" undertakings (includ-
ing bringing about the end of indus-
trial capitalism). It is an assertion by
labour of its own project, counter to
that of capital-much like workplace
rebellion and workers' self-determina-
tion can be read as reasonable
responses to the uncertainty of
emerging conditions of (unlernploy-
ment.
The mythic use of the general strike
by Wobblies might also be understood
in this. Anarcho-syndicalists have
long argued that for co-operative,
community-based ways of living to
endure, workers will have to stop pro-
ducing for Capital and State. In other
words, class is only abolished through
not working. A broad-based with-
drawal of labour-the general
strike-would force the megamachine
to grind to a halt, left to rust.
Historically, unions have responded to
technological changes and increases in
productivity with demands for a
shortened work-week. However,
Rifkin reports that the union officials
with whom he has spoken are "uni-
versally reluctant to deal with the
notion that mass labour-the very
basis of trade unionism-will contin-
ue to decline and may even disappear
altogether." 15 Mainstream unionists
have been incapable of radically
rethinking their politics to address the
transformation of jobs. They have
offered no alternatives to the nee-lib-
eral perspectives on unemployment,
particularly mass retraining-a strate-
gy that simply reinforces dependence
upon elites. Such failures to adapt-
or to even remember their own radical
histories-reveal the challenges work-
ers within traditional unions face in
the contemporary context.
In comparison, work abolitionists find
the "end of work" to be the start of
some truly liberating possibilities
based on worker and community self-
determination. Abolitionism con-
ceives of work more as craft or play,
and a task that is performed through
democratic, participatory means.
While bosses of all sorts try to con-
vert our labour, and the world's
resources, into their value, work aboli-
tion holds out a vision of "self-val-
orization" in which we free our labour
to meet our own needs. Self-valorizing
acts use time for work and activities
which value ourselves and our rela-
tionships with each other and with
nature. Capitalism, by contrast,
encloses us in commodified time.
Perhaps more than other activists,
work abolitionists have increasingly
come to understand jobs, under the
guise of work, as the most basic
moment of unfreedom. The struggle
for new social relations begins with
the struggle against capitalist work.
~
Notes
1 William Bridges, "The Death of the Job,"
National Times. Sept. 1995: 44.
2 Ibid.
3 Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation,
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1958); E.P. Thompson,
The Making 0/ the English Working Class,
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963); Bob Black,
The Abolition o/Work and Other Essays, (Port
Townsend: Loompanics Unlimited, 1995);
Bridges.
4 Jeremy Rifkin, "Vanishing Jobs," Mother
Jones, October (1995): 58-64. 60.
5 Ibid.
6 Bridges 46.
7 Rifkin 58.
8 Ibid. 64.
9 Ibid.60.
10 Nick Witheford, "Autonomist Marxism and
the Information Society," Capital and Class 52:
85-125. 106.
11 Ibid 108.
12 See Black.
13 Lloyd Zimpel, ed, Man Against Work,
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974).
14 Antonio Negri, Marx Beyond Marx, (New
York: Autonomedia, 1991).
15 Rifkin 64.
20 UnderCurrentsVolume 11


Abolish Work!

Webdrops

The blue dry-docked sailboat at the side of Airport Road,
just north of Caledon East, has a new coat of paint. The
last time you drove by it showed marks of needy resolu-
tion. Now it looks more like the sunny picture of warm
wind, lapping waves and fluttering sails. Your spirit is
buoyed for a moment, but you are melancholic. The boat
has been sitting there since the first time you made the trip
up to Baba's Farm three
years ago.
by Daryl Keating
, Airport Road has thisBabas Farm effect on you. It is a get-
away artery that runs
north from the city.
Alongside of it, the
rolling hills, forests and farmhouses are a refreshing con-
trast to the big-city concrete. But the sport utility vehicles
speeding up behind you impatiently, waiting to pass
between hills, are worrisome. You grip the wheel tightly as
they veer into the oncoming traffic. You have not escaped
everything.
It is further up Airport Road that you arrive. Stepping out
of the car you covet the cool and fresh farm air. It smells
of such clarity: four parts impending winter mixed with a
two parts wood stove and a two parts chicken-coop. The
garden has been turned up and the pumpkins are gone.
You imagine for a moment the garden flourishing during
the summer months. It is as if there were some kind of
secret energy field beneath it recharging. You imagine that
only its gardeners Baba and Jadz knew of its existence.
Existence. She was born a twin in what was once Poland but
is now Russia. Her fother died of alcohol poisoning while
her mother was in her third trimester. Her twin sister did
not survive birth. Her mother barely survived her delivery.
Three months later her mother died of the winter s cold while
riding in a horse-drawn carriage.
Stumbling through the front door, you breathe in the warm
air meshed with cooking onions. Baba greets you with a
strong hug. There are loud helicopter and machine gun
noises blaring from the television. Someone has hung tin-
sel and other plastic Christmas decorations from the beam
across the ceiling. Jadz is sitting at the kitchen table eating
kilbassa while counting coins piled high beside his plate.
He nods at you severely through the door in what is at
most vague recognition. You stand at the door sheepishly,
nodding your head and kicking off your running shoes.
Baba comments on your stupidity for wearing running
shoes when it is so cold outside. She walks back into the
kitchen and you follow her and sit down across the table
from Jadz. You feel calmed by the atmosphere-the warm
temperature, the old furniture, the white noise of violence
coming from the television, Baba's hyperactivity. She is
continually moving around the house doing things. You
will soon feel lethargic.
Lethargy. After her mothers death, shefell into the care of
herfour older sisters.Her brother had left home. Her oldest
sister,age seventeen, died afew years later after being struck
by lightning. A second sister was burned to death in a house
fire. The two remaining sisters were not able to look after
her. At age six, she was given to aformer down the road.
There are plants everywhere. In the kitchen.
On every coffee table. On the windowsills.
On most areas of the floor that are off
the beaten track. There are many
types that you do not recognize so
you ask Baba about them.
"I don't know what they
are," she responds.
She explains that
one was picked
up yesterday on
Highway 10 on her
way to Orangeville.
Another came from the gar-
den outside. Another was a
gift. You do recognize the ivy.
Apparently the whole constellation
came from one single plant. It grows
everywhere throughout the house as a dom-
inant feature.
Across from you, Jadz concentrates on his posses-
sions. Behind jadz's spot at the table is a cupboard
where he keeps them: his boxes of cookies, his dinner rolls,
his combs, his wristwatch, his pill bottles, his handker-
chiefs, his resin, his gloves, his knife, his chocolates, his
transistor radio. No one else touches these things. No one
else si ts in his chair.
Jadz fusses with the tuner on his transistor radio. You are
startled as he turns the volume up to offset the sound of
the television in the other room. Jadz listens briefly to a
rendition of local news, then a polka. He gives the visitor
no sign that he is pleased with what he hears. "Argh, I don't
care," he says. He turns it off with impatience.
Impatience. Theformer down the road allowed her to live in
the barn so long as she worked the fields. There she drank
milk from the udders of cows when she got hungry at night.
There, on cold nights, she soaked her feet in the warmth of
the yellow pools beneath them.
26 UnderCurrents Volume 11 Opposite page: Untitled, by Tema Sa rick



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