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Mar. 30: The Summer for Respect: Student Activists, Walmart Workers, and the Future of the American Labor Movement

  • 509 Knox Hall 606 West 122nd Street New York, NY, 10027 United States (map)

**DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER, THIS EVENT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED FROM FEBRUARY 9 TO MARCH 30, 2017**

WHEN: Thursday, March 30, 2017, 6 - 8 PM

WHERE: Knox Hall, 606 W. 122nd Street, Room 509

During the summer of 2014, Adam Reich directed a project in which 20 students, assigned to five different regions of the country, conducted oral histories with and organized alongside Walmart workers--part of a larger collaboration with the advocacy organization Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart).

He is now working on a book project that combines these oral histories with ethnographic observation, text analysis, survey and administrative data, to tell a story about the experience of low-wage work and the possibilities for worker organizing at places like Walmart.

Adam will discuss the limitations and strengths of oral history as a method and as a political practice, and will argue that it is at its most powerful--methodologically and politically--when in interaction with other methods and practices.

Adam Reich is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. He is the author of three books, the most recent of which is Selling Our Souls: Contradictions in the Commodification of Hospital Care (Princeton, 2014). He is also the author of several peer-reviewed articles, which have appeared in journals such as the American Journal of Sociology and Social Science & Medicine.

INFORMATION: For more information, please email Amy Starecheski at aas39@columbia.edu.

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED.

NO REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED, BUT RSVPS ON THE EVENT FACEBOOK PAGE ARE APPRECIATED TO GAUGE ATTENDANCE.