Conference at the Gates is a protest/workshop/conference for academics and activists to resist both militarism and DSEI- the world’s biggest arms fairs. It will be a day of learning, resisting and collaborating, in an attempt to blur the lines between activism and academia. It is part of Stop The Arms Fair – a coalition of groups and individuals who have joined forces to put an end to DSEI and all UK arms fairs.
Conference at the Gates will take place on Friday the 8th of September from 9.30am to 5.30 pm, during Stop the Arms Trade’s week of action 4-11th of September, and is held outside the ExCel Centre in London where DSEI takes place.
Call for paper/activities/participants
Ee will host a series of themed workshops throughout the day, each focusing on a different issue connected with militarism, including colonialism, gender, policing and security, universities and youth, popular culture, and radical theory.
Rather than presume the panel format or organise everything ourselves, the plan is to bring together small groups of activists and academics working on some aspect of each theme and get them to design the workshop together. Some ideas of what the workshop sessions could be based around are:
- A talk,
- A discussion,
- A performance
- Manifesto-writing, letter writing
- Practical skills sharing
- Planning an action/how to work together in the future
- Any other unusual and creative ideas you have depending on each group’s preferences and interests
Your involvement could range from taking an organisational role to delivering a talk to leading an activity. You could just get in touch and say you want to be kept in the loop on what happens with a particular theme, and then decide later on whether you will have something to contribute for that theme. Each workshop will be coordinated by one of the conference organisers, who will put participants in touch with one another and provide as much practical support as is needed. The idea would be to collectively design a 90 minute session to deliver to activists, academics and anyone else at the site.
Contact us with your ideas or interest to participate
LucasDonna Hedlund, lucasdonna.h@gmail.com for anything on:
Feminism, queerness and militarism
Borders and militarism
Chris Rossdale, c.rossdale@lse.ac.uk for anything on:
Militarisation of policing
Militarisation of universities
Youth recruitment
Jess Poyner, jess@caat.org.uk anything on:
Imperialism, colonialism and militarism
Cities as militarised spaces
Aggie Hirst, aggie.hirst@city.ac.uk for anything on
The purpose of radical theory
Popular Culture and militarism
For anything else including suggestions of other themes/ideas that fall outside of these areas, e-mail conferenceatthegates@gmail.com