labor
The Past Is the Future: Economic Alternatives from Contemporary Maya
Sunday, March 15, 6pm
$5 admission
What is wealth? Can there be a definition that moves beyond the superficiality of cash accumulation? Who is embracing a new definition? Using data collected form ethnographic work conducted in Maya villages in the lowland rainforests of Belize, social anthropologist Kristina Baines presents thoughts on the movement between a traditional reciprocal labor system to a cash economy, and back again. Outlining the details of the Maya reciprocal labor system, which uses a day’s work as currency to trade for a day’s work of another community member, Kristina discusses what it means in terms of health, heritage and future to use a cash-less system. As part of Proteus’ ongoing exploration of COMMERCE, Kristina questions our understandings of poverty and wealth, the linear perception of “development” and how we put alternatives to capital into “communal” or “fringe” boxes. What lessons can these traditional systems teach us about commerce in our communities when we recast ideas about heritage in the present? [continue reading…]
Labor of Love: True Stories by Real People
Thursday, February 12, 7pm
$5 admission
When Labor Was Capital: the Slave-Breeding Industry
Thursday, January 22, 7:30pm
$5 admission
When Labor Was Capital: The Slave-Breeding Industry looks at how US slavery differed from the other slaveries of the hemisphere in having a domestically supplied slave trade, with Virginia, “the mother of slavery,” as the largest supplier of native-born human beings for market. Ned Sublette, author of The World That Made New Orleans and the co-author (with Constance Sublette) of the forthcoming The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry (Chicago Review Press, October 2015), will talk about how labor was capital in the making of the United States. [continue reading…]
Labor: the New Gold Standard with Paul Glover
Saturday, January 10, 7-9 pm
Admission: $5
Paul Glover, social activist and social entrepreneur, believes that real money is measured in hours of labor, steady as the clock. In conjunction with the Proteus exhibit, Labor, he will describe the benefits and processes for creating, growing, and managing labor currencies. The Ithaca HOURS program he created in 1991 has traded millions of dollars value, among thousands of residents and 500 businesses. HOURS have sparked an international movement to stimulate grassroots control of money.http://www.paulglover.
TimeDebt Services
Sundays, December 21 – February 15, 3 – 6 pm
Free – App’t suggested but not required
- Work Evaluations: Confused about the value of your labor? TimeDebt Services will evaluate your past, present, and future work including the uncompensated and unrecognized transactions in your life.
- Letters to Creditors: Want to write to Sallie Mae and/or Chase Bank but don’t know how? TimeDebt Services will help you write the perfect barter and/or timebank letter to your creditor offering alternatives to paying off your debt.
- Education Resources: Want to learn for free? TimeDebt Services will map alternative education models and resources in the city to help you learn what you want to learn without breaking the bank.
Eliza Martin consults with the Work Intern (Meredith Degyansky, right)
