Wayfinding: Work
A conversation about work as a site of moral courage and collective action, featuring Rafael Grohmann and Viet Vu, moderated by Jenny Zhang.
With very few exceptions, we all have to work for a living, often in very alienating environments. Fulfilling and meaningful work—not to mention humane bosses and fair compensation—seems to be few and far between, and getting more scarce day by day.
Those of us who are disillusioned by hustle culture and its emphasis on ambition at all costs are sometimes tempted to swing all the way in the opposite direction: we divorce ourselves from our work selves, take pride in never talking about it with our friends and family, and denounce any emotional involvement with our job.
But work doesn't exist in a vacuum. We spend more than a third of our waking time at work, and no matter how much we try, the way we show up to work affects the way we show up to our communities. Being a worker is a part of our identities, as surely as sibling, parent, child, or activist is. When we disregard our identities as workers, we disregard a key source of collective power.
How do we make sense of the shifting labour landscape?
How do we harness our collective worker power?
What do we owe to each other as fellow workers?
Viet Vu leads economics research at the Dais as Manager, Economic Research. Prior to the merger, at the Brookfield Institute, Viet has done extensive work on the impact of technology in the labour market in Canada, the technology sector and workers, digital skills, and scale-ups.
Rafael Grohmann is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies (Critical Platform Studies) at the University of Toronto. He is research associate at the University of Oxford, founding editor of Platforms & Society journal and leader of DigiLabour initiative. His research focuses on digital labour, AI and work, AI in the cultural sector, workers’ organizing, platform cooperativism and digital solidarity economy, especially in Latin America. He is currently working on a book manuscript on how worker collectives are failing and learning to govern platforms. Grohmann is a co-lead of the Creative Labour and Critical Futures (CLCF) project. He is also researcher of the AI Policy Observatory of the World of Work.
Jenny Zhang is a writer and software engineer based in Toronto who has worked in open source, non-profit, and government tech sectors to make the collective action problem of the tech industry more legible. She is the founder of Show Up Toronto, a calendar and newsletter for organizing and activism events in the city.
Logistics
Doors: 6
Feature conversation: 7-7:45
Discussion with the audience: 7:45-8:15pm
Mingling: 8:15pm-9pm
Snacks and refreshments will be provided
Wayfinding: conversations about navigating the tensions of tech in modern life.
We live in a moment where our trust in tech companies to protect our privacy and our freedom is at its lowest. Large swathes of the tech industry are shifting into an openly authoritarian politic.
At the same time, we live in a moment where our individual capacity to collaborate with technology has been amplified more than ever before.
How do we engage with this potential while living in accordance with the responsibility we have to the world and each other?
Wayfinding is a series of conversations about finding our way through this landscape together, both individually and collectively. This series will place signs and markers to help you orient yourself in the digital world with intentionality. Wayfinding is not about having the answers but about asking the right questions together.
Schedule
Feb 4: Wayfinding 1: Privacy
Feb 11: Wayfinding 2: Civics
Feb 25: Wayfinding 3: Teenhood
Mar 11: Wayfinding 4: Art
Mar 25: Wayfining 5: Work
🤝Join 1RG
1RG is a container for experiments re-imagining the relationship between technology and our communities. If you want to be a part of our community, consider becoming a 1RG member.
♿️ Accessibility
1RG does not have an accessible entrance, the front entrance requires 3 steps of about 8 inches each. The rear entrance is two steps. There is a bathroom on the ground floor.
This event will primarily be held on the second floor which is accessible via an L-shaped staircase with handrails on both sides.