person:ada

  • Beyond the Hype of Lab-Grown Diamonds
    https://earther.gizmodo.com/beyond-the-hype-of-lab-grown-diamonds-1834890351

    Billions of years ago when the world was still young, treasure began forming deep underground. As the edges of Earth’s tectonic plates plunged down into the upper mantle, bits of carbon, some likely hailing from long-dead life forms were melted and compressed into rigid lattices. Over millions of years, those lattices grew into the most durable, dazzling gems the planet had ever cooked up. And every so often, for reasons scientists still don’t fully understand, an eruption would send a stash of these stones rocketing to the surface inside a bubbly magma known as kimberlite.

    There, the diamonds would remain, nestled in the kimberlite volcanoes that delivered them from their fiery home, until humans evolved, learned of their existence, and began to dig them up.

    The epic origin of Earth’s diamonds has helped fuel a powerful marketing mythology around them: that they are objects of otherworldly strength and beauty; fitting symbols of eternal love. But while “diamonds are forever” may be the catchiest advertising slogan ever to bear some geologic truth, the supply of these stones in the Earth’s crust, in places we can readily reach them, is far from everlasting. And the scars we’ve inflicted on the land and ourselves in order to mine diamonds has cast a shadow that still lingers over the industry.

    Some diamond seekers, however, say we don’t need to scour the Earth any longer, because science now offers an alternative: diamonds grown in labs. These gems aren’t simulants or synthetic substitutes; they are optically, chemically, and physically identical to their Earth-mined counterparts. They’re also cheaper, and in theory, limitless. The arrival of lab-grown diamonds has rocked the jewelry world to its core and prompted fierce pushback from diamond miners. Claims abound on both sides.

    Growers often say that their diamonds are sustainable and ethical; miners and their industry allies counter that only gems plucked from the Earth can be considered “real” or “precious.” Some of these assertions are subjective, others are supported only by sparse, self-reported, or industry-backed data. But that’s not stopping everyone from making them.

    This is a fight over image, and when it comes to diamonds, image is everything.
    A variety of cut, polished Ada Diamonds created in a lab, including smaller melee stones and large center stones. 22.94 carats total. (2.60 ct. pear, 2.01 ct. asscher, 2.23 ct. cushion, 3.01 ct. radiant, 1.74 ct. princess, 2.11 ct. emerald, 3.11 ct. heart, 3.00 ct. oval, 3.13 ct. round.)
    Image: Sam Cannon (Earther)
    Same, but different

    The dream of lab-grown diamond dates back over a century. In 1911, science fiction author H.G. Wells described what would essentially become one of the key methods for making diamond—recreating the conditions inside Earth’s mantle on its surface—in his short story The Diamond Maker. As the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) notes, there were a handful of dubious attempts to create diamonds in labs in the late 19th and early 20th century, but the first commercial diamond production wouldn’t emerge until the mid-1950s, when scientists with General Electric worked out a method for creating small, brown stones. Others, including De Beers, soon developed their own methods for synthesizing the gems, and use of the lab-created diamond in industrial applications, from cutting tools to high power electronics, took off.

    According to the GIA’s James Shigley, the first experimental production of gem-quality diamond occurred in 1970. Yet by the early 2000s, gem-quality stones were still small, and often tinted yellow with impurities. It was only in the last five or so years that methods for growing diamonds advanced to the point that producers began churning out large, colorless stones consistently. That’s when the jewelry sector began to take a real interest.

    Today, that sector is taking off. The International Grown Diamond Association (IGDA), a trade group formed in 2016 by a dozen lab diamond growers and sellers, now has about 50 members, according to IGDA secretary general Dick Garard. When the IGDA first formed, lab-grown diamonds were estimated to represent about 1 percent of a $14 billion rough diamond market. This year, industry analyst Paul Zimnisky estimates they account for 2-3 percent of the market.

    He expects that share will only continue to grow as factories in China that already produce millions of carats a year for industrial purposes start to see an opportunity in jewelry.
    “I have a real problem with people claiming one is ethical and another is not.”

    “This year some [factories] will come up from 100,000 gem-quality diamonds to one to two million,” Zimnisky said. “They already have the infrastructure and equipment in place” and are in the process of upgrading it. (About 150 million carats of diamonds were mined last year, according to a global analysis of the industry conducted by Bain & Company.)

    Production ramp-up aside, 2018 saw some other major developments across the industry. In the summer, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reversed decades of guidance when it expanded the definition of a diamond to include those created in labs and dropped ‘synthetic’ as a recommended descriptor for lab-grown stones. The decision came on the heels of the world’s top diamond producer, De Beers, announcing the launch of its own lab-grown diamond line, Lightbox, after having once vowed never to sell man-made stones as jewelry.

    “I would say shock,” Lightbox Chief Marketing Officer Sally Morrison told Earther when asked how the jewelry world responded to the company’s launch.

    While the majority of lab-grown diamonds on the market today are what’s known as melee (less than 0.18 carats), the tech for producing the biggest, most dazzling diamonds continues to improve. In 2016, lab-grown diamond company MiaDonna announced its partners had grown a 6.28 carat gem-quality diamond, claimed to be the largest created in the U.S. to that point. In 2017, a lab in Augsburg University, Germany that grows diamonds for industrial and scientific research applications produced what is thought to be the largest lab-grown diamond ever—a 155 carat behemoth that stretches nearly 4 inches across. Not gem quality, perhaps, but still impressive.

    “If you compare it with the Queen’s diamond, hers is four times heavier, it’s clearer” physicist Matthias Schreck, who leads the group that grew that beast of a jewel, told me. “But in area, our diamond is bigger. We were very proud of this.”

    Diamonds can be created in one of two ways: Similar to how they form inside the Earth, or similar to how scientists speculate they might form in outer space.

    The older, Earth-inspired method is known as “high temperature high pressure” (HPHT), and that’s exactly what it sounds like. A carbon source, like graphite, is placed in a giant, mechanical press where, in the presence of a catalyst, it’s subjected to temperatures of around 1,600 degrees Celsius and pressures of 5-6 Gigapascals in order to form diamond. (If you’re curious what that sort of pressure feels like, the GIA describes it as similar to the force exerted if you tried to balance a commercial jet on your fingertip.)

    The newer method, called chemical vapor deposition (CVD), is more akin to how diamonds might form in interstellar gas clouds (for which we have indirect, spectroscopic evidence, according to Shigley). A hydrocarbon gas, like methane, is pumped into a low-pressure reactor vessel alongside hydrogen. While maintaining near-vacuum conditions, the gases are heated very hot—typically 3,000 to 4,000 degrees Celsius, according to Lightbox CEO Steve Coe—causing carbon atoms to break free of their molecular bonds. Under the right conditions, those liberated bits of carbon will settle out onto a substrate—typically a flat, square plate of a synthetic diamond produced with the HPHT method—forming layer upon layer of diamond.

    “It’s like snow falling on a table on your back porch,” Jason Payne, the founder and CEO of lab-grown diamond jewelry company Ada Diamonds, told me.

    Scientists have been forging gem-quality diamonds with HPHT for longer, but today, CVD has become the method of choice for those selling larger bridal stones. That’s in part because it’s easier to control impurities and make diamonds with very high clarity, according to Coe. Still, each method has its advantages—Payne said that HPHT is faster and the diamonds typically have better color (which is to say, less of it)—and some companies, like Ada, purchase stones grown in both ways.

    However they’re made, lab-grown diamonds have the same exceptional hardness, stiffness, and thermal conductivity as their Earth-mined counterparts. Cut, they can dazzle with the same brilliance and fire—a technical term to describe how well the diamond scatters light like a prism. The GIA even grades them according to the same 4Cs—cut, clarity, color, and carat—that gemologists use to assess diamonds formed in the Earth, although it uses a slightly different terminology to report the color and clarity grades for lab-grown stones.

    They’re so similar, in fact, that lab-grown diamond entering the larger diamond supply without any disclosures has become a major concern across the jewelry industry, particularly when it comes to melee stones from Asia. It’s something major retailers are now investing thousands of dollars in sophisticated detection equipment to suss out by searching for minute differences in, say, their crystal shape or for impurities like nitrogen (much less common in lab-grown diamond, according to Shigley).

    Those differences may be a lifeline for retailers hoping to weed out lab-grown diamonds, but for companies focused on them, they can become another selling point. The lack of nitrogen in diamonds produced with the CVD method, for instance, gives them an exceptional chemical purity that allows them to be classified as type IIa; a rare and coveted breed that accounts for just 2 percent of those found in nature. Meanwhile, the ability to control everything about the growth process allows companies like Lightbox to adjust the formula and produce incredibly rare blue and pink diamonds as part of their standard product line. (In fact, these colored gemstones have made up over half of the company’s sales since launch, according to Coe.)

    And while lab-grown diamonds boast the same sparkle as their Earthly counterparts, they do so at a significant discount. Zimnisky said that today, your typical one carat, medium quality diamond grown in a lab will sell for about $3,600, compared with $6,100 for its Earth-mined counterpart—a discount of about 40 percent. Two years ago, that discount was only 18 percent. And while the price drop has “slightly tapered off” as Zimnisky put it, he expects it will fall further thanks in part to the aforementioned ramp up in Chinese production, as well as technological improvements. (The market is also shifting in response to Lightbox, which De Beers is using to position lab-grown diamonds as mass produced items for fashion jewelry, and which is selling its stones, ungraded, at the controversial low price of $800 per carat—a discount of nearly 90 percent.)

    Zimnisky said that if the price falls too fast, it could devalue lab-grown diamonds in the eyes of consumers. But for now, at least, paying less seems to be a selling point. A 2018 consumer research survey by MVI Marketing found that most of those polled would choose a larger lab-grown diamond over a smaller mined diamond of the same price.

    “The thing [consumers] seem most compelled by is the ability to trade up in size and quality at the same price,” Garard of IGDA said.

    Still, for buyers and sellers alike, price is only part of the story. Many in the lab-grown diamond world market their product as an ethical or eco-friendly alternative to mined diamonds.

    But those sales pitches aren’t without controversy.
    A variety of lab-grown diamond products arrayed on a desk at Ada Diamonds showroom in Manhattan. The stone in the upper left gets its blue color from boron. Diamonds tinted yellow (top center) usually get their color from small amounts of nitrogen.
    Photo: Sam Cannon (Earther)
    Dazzling promises

    As Anna-Mieke Anderson tells it, she didn’t enter the diamond world to become a corporate tycoon. She did it to try and fix a mistake.

    In 1999, Anderson purchased herself a diamond. Some years later, in 2005, her father asked her where it came from. Nonplussed, she told him it came from the jewelry store. But that wasn’t what he was asking: He wanted to know where it really came from.

    “I actually had no idea,” Anderson told Earther. “That led me to do a mountain of research.”

    That research eventually led Anderson to conclude that she had likely bought a diamond mined under horrific conditions. She couldn’t be sure, because the certificate of purchase included no place of origin. But around the time of her purchase, civil wars funded by diamond mining were raging across Angola, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia, fueling “widespread devastation” as Global Witness put it in 2006. At the height of the diamond wars in the late ‘90s, the watchdog group estimates that as many as 15 percent of diamonds entering the market were conflict diamonds. Even those that weren’t actively fueling a war were often being mined in dirty, hazardous conditions; sometimes by children.

    “I couldn’t believe I’d bought into this,” Anderson said.

    To try and set things right, Anderson began sponsoring a boy living in a Liberian community impacted by the blood diamond trade. The experience was so eye-opening, she says, that she eventually felt compelled to sponsor more children. Selling conflict-free jewelry seemed like a fitting way to raise money to do so, but after a great deal more research, Anderson decided she couldn’t in good faith consider any diamond pulled from the Earth to be truly conflict-free in either the humanitarian or environmental sense. While diamond miners were, by the early 2000s, getting their gems certified “conflict free” according to the UN-backed Kimberley Process, the certification scheme’s definition of a conflict diamond—one sold by rebel groups to finance armed conflicts against governments—felt far too narrow.

    “That [conflict definition] eliminates anything to do with the environment, or eliminates a child mining it, or someone who was a slave, or beaten, or raped,” Anderson said.

    And so she started looking into science, and in 2007, launching MiaDonna as one of the world’s first lab-grown diamond jewelry companies. The business has been activism-oriented from the get-go, with at least five percent of its annual earnings—and more than 20 percent for the last three years—going into The Greener Diamond, Anderson’s charity foundation which has funded a wide range of projects, from training former child soldiers in Sierra Leone to grow food to sponsoring kids orphaned by the West African Ebola outbreak.

    MiaDonna isn’t the only company that positions itself as an ethical alternative to the traditional diamond industry. Brilliant Earth, which sells what it says are carefully-sourced mined and lab-created diamonds, also donates a small portion of its profits to supporting mining communities. Other lab-grown diamond companies market themselves as “ethical,” “conflict-free,” or “world positive.” Payne of Ada Diamonds sees, in lab-grown diamonds, not just shiny baubles, but a potential to improve medicine, clean up pollution, and advance society in countless other ways—and he thinks the growing interest in lab-grown diamond jewelry will help propel us toward that future.

    Others, however, say black-and-white characterizations when it comes to social impact of mined diamonds versus lab-grown stones are unfair. “I have a real problem with people claiming one is ethical and another is not,” Estelle Levin-Nally, founder and CEO of Levin Sources, which advocates for better governance in the mining sector, told Earther. “I think it’s always about your politics. And ethics are subjective.”

    Saleem Ali, an environmental researcher at the University of Delaware who serves on the board of the Diamonds and Development Initiative, agrees. He says the mining industry has, on the whole, worked hard to turn itself around since the height of the diamond wars and that governance is “much better today” than it used to be. Human rights watchdog Global Witness also says that “significant progress” has been made to curb the conflict diamond trade, although as Alice Harle, Senior Campaigner with Global Witness told Earther via email, diamonds do still fuel conflict, particularly in the Central African Republic and Zimbabwe.

    Most industry observers seems to agree that the Kimberley Process is outdated and inadequate, and that more work is needed to stamp out other abuses, including child labor and forced labor, in the artisanal and small-scale diamond mining sector. Today, large-scale mining operations don’t tend to see these kinds of problems, according to Julianne Kippenberg, associate director for children’s rights at Human Rights Watch, but she notes that there may be other community impacts surrounding land rights and forced resettlement.

    The flip side, Ali and Levin-Nally say, is that well-regulated mining operations can be an important source of economic development and livelihood. Ali cites Botswana and Russia as prime examples of places where large-scale mining operations have become “major contributors to the economy.” Dmitry Amelkin, head of strategic projects and analytics for Russian diamond mining giant Alrosa, echoed that sentiment in an email to Earther, noting that diamonds transformed Botswana “from one of the poorest [countries] in the world to a middle-income country” with revenues from mining representing almost a third of its GDP.

    In May, a report commissioned by the Diamond Producers Association (DPA), a trade organization representing the world’s largest diamond mining companies, estimated that worldwide, its members generate nearly $4 billion in direct revenue for employees and contractors, along with another $6.8 billion in benefits via “local procurement of goods and services.” DPA CEO Jean-Marc Lieberherr said this was a story diamond miners need to do a better job telling.

    “The industry has undergone such changes since the Blood Diamond movie,” he said, referring to the blockbuster 2006 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio that drew global attention to the problem of conflict diamonds. “And yet people’s’ perceptions haven’t evolved. I think the main reason is we have not had a voice, we haven’t communicated.”

    But conflict and human rights abuses aren’t the only issues that have plagued the diamond industry. There’s also the lasting environmental impact of the mining itself. In the case of large-scale commercial mines, this typically entails using heavy machinery and explosives to bore deep into those kimberlite tubes in search of precious stones.

    Some, like Maya Koplyova, a geologist at the University of British Columbia who studies diamonds and the rocks they’re found in, see this as far better than many other forms of mining. “The environmental footprint is the fThere’s also the question of just how representative the report’s energy consumption estimates for lab-grown diamonds are. While he wouldn’t offer a specific number, Coe said that De Beers’ Group diamond manufacturer Element Six—arguably the most advanced laboratory-grown diamond company in the world—has “substantially lower” per carat energy requirements than the headline figures found inside the new report. When asked why this was not included, Rick Lord, ESG analyst at Trucost, the S&P global group that conducted the analysis, said it chose to focus on energy estimates in the public record, but that after private consultation with Element Six it did not believe their data would “materially alter” the emissions estimates in the study.

    Finally, it’s important to consider the source of the carbon emissions. While the new report states that about 40 percent of the emissions associated with mining a diamond come from fossil fuel-powered vehicles and equipment, emissions associated with growing a diamond come mainly from electric power. Today, about 68 percent of lab-grown diamonds hail from China, Singapore, and India combined according to Zimnisky, where the power is drawn from largely fossil fuel-powered grids. But there is, at least, an opportunity to switch to renewables and drive that carbon footprint way down.
    “The reality is both mining and manufacturing consume energy and probably the best thing we could do is focus on reducing energy consumption.”

    And some companies do seem to be trying to do that. Anderson of MiaDonna says the company only sources its diamonds from facilities in the U.S., and that it’s increasingly trying to work with producers that use renewable energy. Lab-grown diamond company Diamond Foundry grows its stones inside plasma reactors running “as hot as the outer layer of the sun,” per its website, and while it wouldn’t offer any specific numbers, that presumably uses more energy than your typical operation running at lower temperatures. However, company spokesperson Ye-Hui Goldenson said its Washington State ‘megacarat factory’ was cited near a well-maintained hydropower source so that the diamonds could be produced with renewable energy. The company offsets other fossil fuel-driven parts of its operation by purchasing carbon credits.

    Lightbox’s diamonds currently come from Element Six’s UK-based facilities. The company is, however, building a $94-million facility near Portland, Oregon, that’s expected to come online by 2020. Coe said he estimates about 45 percent of its power will come from renewable sources.

    “The reality is both mining and manufacturing consume energy and probably the best thing we could do is focus on reducing energy consumption,” Coe said. “That’s something we’re focused on in Lightbox.”

    In spite of that, Lightbox is somewhat notable among lab-grown diamond jewelry brands in that, in the words of Morrison, it is “not claiming this to be an eco-friendly product.”

    “While it is true that we don’t dig holes in the ground, the energy consumption is not insignificant,” Morrison told Earther. “And I think we felt very uncomfortable promoting on that.”
    Various diamonds created in a lab, as seen at the Ada Diamonds showroom in Manhattan.
    Photo: Sam Cannon (Earther)
    The real real

    The fight over how lab-grown diamonds can and should market themselves is still heating up.

    On March 26, the FTC sent letters to eight lab-grown and diamond simulant companies warning them against making unsubstantiated assertions about the environmental benefits of their products—its first real enforcement action after updating its jewelry guides last year. The letters, first obtained by JCK news director Rob Bates under a Freedom of Information Act request, also warned companies that their advertising could falsely imply the products are mined diamonds, illustrating that, even though the agency now says a lab-grown diamond is a diamond, the specific origin remains critically important. A letter to Diamond Foundry, for instance, notes that the company has at times advertised its stones as “above-ground real” without the qualification of “laboratory-made.” It’s easy to see how a consumer might miss the implication.

    But in a sense, that’s what all of this is: A fight over what’s real.
    “It’s a nuanced reality that we’re in. They are a type of diamond.”

    Another letter, sent to FTC attorney Reenah Kim by the nonprofit trade organization Jewelers Vigilance Committee on April 2, makes it clear that many in the industry still believe that’s a term that should be reserved exclusively for gems formed inside the Earth. The letter, obtained by Earther under FOIA, urges the agency to continue restricting the use of the terms “real,” “genuine,” “natural,” “precious,” and “semi-precious” to Earth-mined diamonds and gemstones. Even the use of such terms in conjunction with “laboratory grown,” the letter argues, “will create even more confusion in an already confused and evolving marketplace.”

    JVC President Tiffany Stevens told Earther that the letter was a response to a footnote in an explanatory document about the FTC’s recent jewelry guide changes, which suggested the agency was considering removing a clause about real, precious, natural and genuine only being acceptable modifiers for gems mined from the Earth.

    “We felt that given the current commercial environment, that we didn’t think it was a good time to take that next step,” Stevens told Earther. As Stevens put it, the changes the FTC recently made, including expanding the definition of diamond and tweaking the descriptors companies can use to label laboratory-grown diamonds as such, have already been “wildly misinterpreted” by some lab-grown diamond sellers that are no longer making the “necessary disclosures.”

    Asked whether the JVC thinks lab-grown diamonds are, in fact, real diamonds, Stevens demurred.

    “It’s a nuanced reality that we’re in,” she said. “They are a type of diamond.”

    Change is afoot in the diamond world. Mined diamond production may have already peaked, according to the 2018 Bain & Company report. Lab diamonds are here to stay, although where they’re going isn’t entirely clear. Zimnisky expects that in a few years—as Lightbox’s new facility comes online and mass production of lab diamonds continues to ramp up overseas—the price industry-wide will fall to about 80 percent less than a mined diamond. At that point, he wonders whether lab-grown diamonds will start to lose their sparkle.

    Payne isn’t too worried about a price slide, which he says is happening across the diamond industry and which he expects will be “linear, not exponential” on the lab-grown side. He points out that lab-grown diamond market is still limited by supply, and that the largest lab-grown gems remain quite rare. Payne and Zimnisky both see the lab-grown diamond market bifurcating into cheaper, mass-produced gems and premium-quality stones sold by those that can maintain a strong brand. A sense that they’re selling something authentic and, well, real.

    “So much has to do with consumer psychology,” Zimnisky said.

    Some will only ever see diamonds as authentic if they formed inside the Earth. They’re drawn, as Kathryn Money, vice president of strategy and merchandising at Brilliant Earth put it, to “the history and romanticism” of diamonds; to a feeling that’s sparked by holding a piece of our ancient world. To an essence more than a function.

    Others, like Anderson, see lab-grown diamonds as the natural (to use a loaded word) evolution of diamond. “We’re actually running out of [mined] diamonds,” she said. “There is an end in sight.” Payne agreed, describing what he sees as a “looming death spiral” for diamond mining.

    Mined diamonds will never go away. We’ve been digging them up since antiquity, and they never seem to lose their sparkle. But most major mines are being exhausted. And with technology making it easier to grow diamonds just as they are getting more difficult to extract from the Earth, the lab-grown diamond industry’s grandstanding about its future doesn’t feel entirely unreasonable.

    There’s a reason why, as Payne said, “the mining industry as a whole is still quite scared of this product.” ootprint of digging the hole in the ground and crushing [the rock],” Koplyova said, noting that there’s no need to add strong acids or heavy metals like arsenic (used in gold mining) to liberate the gems.

    Still, those holes can be enormous. The Mir Mine, a now-abandoned open pit mine in Eastern Siberia, is so large—reportedly stretching 3,900 feet across and 1,700 feet deep—that the Russian government has declared it a no-fly zone owing to the pit’s ability to create dangerous air currents. It’s visible from space.

    While companies will often rehabilitate other land to offset the impact of mines, kimberlite mining itself typically leaves “a permanent dent in the earth’s surface,” as a 2014 report by market research company Frost & Sullivan put it.

    “It’s a huge impact as far as I’m concerned,” said Kevin Krajick, senior editor for science news at Columbia University’s Earth Institute who wrote a book on the discovery of diamonds in far northern Canada. Krajick noted that in remote mines, like those of the far north, it’s not just the physical hole to consider, but all the development required to reach a previously-untouched area, including roads and airstrips, roaring jets and diesel-powered trucks.

    Diamonds grown in factories clearly have a smaller physical footprint. According to the Frost & Sullivan report, they also use less water and create less waste. It’s for these reasons that Ali thinks diamond mining “will never be able to compete” with lab-grown diamonds from an environmental perspective.

    “The mining industry should not even by trying to do that,” he said.

    Of course, this is capitalism, so try to compete is exactly what the DPA is now doing. That same recent report that touted the mining industry’s economic benefits also asserts that mined diamonds have a carbon footprint three times lower than that of lab-grown diamonds, on average. The numbers behind that conclusion, however, don’t tell the full story.

    Growing diamonds does take considerable energy. The exact amount can vary greatly, however, depending on the specific nature of the growth process. These are details manufacturers are typically loathe to disclose, but Payne of Ada Diamonds says he estimates the most efficient players in the game today use about 250 kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity per cut, polished carat of diamond; roughly what a U.S. household consumes in 9 days. Other estimates run higher. Citing unnamed sources, industry publication JCK Online reported that a modern HPHT run can use up to 700 kWh per carat, while CVD production can clock in north of 1,000 kWh per carat.

    Pulling these and several other public-record estimates, along with information on where in the world today’s lab diamonds are being grown and the energy mix powering the producer nations’ electric grids, the DPA-commissioned study estimated that your typical lab-grown diamond results in some 511 kg of carbon emissions per cut, polished carat. Using information provided by mining companies on fuel and electricity consumption, along with other greenhouse gas sources on the mine site, it found that the average mined carat was responsible for just 160 kg of carbon emissions.

    One limitation here is that the carbon footprint estimate for mining focused only on diamond production, not the years of work entailed in developing a mine. As Ali noted, developing a mine can take a lot of energy, particularly for those sited in remote locales where equipment needs to be hauled long distances by trucks or aircraft.

    There’s also the question of just how representative the report’s energy consumption estimates for lab-grown diamonds are. While he wouldn’t offer a specific number, Coe said that De Beers’ Group diamond manufacturer Element Six—arguably the most advanced laboratory-grown diamond company in the world—has “substantially lower” per carat energy requirements than the headline figures found inside the new report. When asked why this was not included, Rick Lord, ESG analyst at Trucost, the S&P global group that conducted the analysis, said it chose to focus on energy estimates in the public record, but that after private consultation with Element Six it did not believe their data would “materially alter” the emissions estimates in the study.

    Finally, it’s important to consider the source of the carbon emissions. While the new report states that about 40 percent of the emissions associated with mining a diamond come from fossil fuel-powered vehicles and equipment, emissions associated with growing a diamond come mainly from electric power. Today, about 68 percent of lab-grown diamonds hail from China, Singapore, and India combined according to Zimnisky, where the power is drawn from largely fossil fuel-powered grids. But there is, at least, an opportunity to switch to renewables and drive that carbon footprint way down.
    “The reality is both mining and manufacturing consume energy and probably the best thing we could do is focus on reducing energy consumption.”

    And some companies do seem to be trying to do that. Anderson of MiaDonna says the company only sources its diamonds from facilities in the U.S., and that it’s increasingly trying to work with producers that use renewable energy. Lab-grown diamond company Diamond Foundry grows its stones inside plasma reactors running “as hot as the outer layer of the sun,” per its website, and while it wouldn’t offer any specific numbers, that presumably uses more energy than your typical operation running at lower temperatures. However, company spokesperson Ye-Hui Goldenson said its Washington State ‘megacarat factory’ was cited near a well-maintained hydropower source so that the diamonds could be produced with renewable energy. The company offsets other fossil fuel-driven parts of its operation by purchasing carbon credits.

    Lightbox’s diamonds currently come from Element Six’s UK-based facilities. The company is, however, building a $94-million facility near Portland, Oregon, that’s expected to come online by 2020. Coe said he estimates about 45 percent of its power will come from renewable sources.

    “The reality is both mining and manufacturing consume energy and probably the best thing we could do is focus on reducing energy consumption,” Coe said. “That’s something we’re focused on in Lightbox.”

    In spite of that, Lightbox is somewhat notable among lab-grown diamond jewelry brands in that, in the words of Morrison, it is “not claiming this to be an eco-friendly product.”

    “While it is true that we don’t dig holes in the ground, the energy consumption is not insignificant,” Morrison told Earther. “And I think we felt very uncomfortable promoting on that.”
    Various diamonds created in a lab, as seen at the Ada Diamonds showroom in Manhattan.
    Photo: Sam Cannon (Earther)
    The real real

    The fight over how lab-grown diamonds can and should market themselves is still heating up.

    On March 26, the FTC sent letters to eight lab-grown and diamond simulant companies warning them against making unsubstantiated assertions about the environmental benefits of their products—its first real enforcement action after updating its jewelry guides last year. The letters, first obtained by JCK news director Rob Bates under a Freedom of Information Act request, also warned companies that their advertising could falsely imply the products are mined diamonds, illustrating that, even though the agency now says a lab-grown diamond is a diamond, the specific origin remains critically important. A letter to Diamond Foundry, for instance, notes that the company has at times advertised its stones as “above-ground real” without the qualification of “laboratory-made.” It’s easy to see how a consumer might miss the implication.

    But in a sense, that’s what all of this is: A fight over what’s real.
    “It’s a nuanced reality that we’re in. They are a type of diamond.”

    Another letter, sent to FTC attorney Reenah Kim by the nonprofit trade organization Jewelers Vigilance Committee on April 2, makes it clear that many in the industry still believe that’s a term that should be reserved exclusively for gems formed inside the Earth. The letter, obtained by Earther under FOIA, urges the agency to continue restricting the use of the terms “real,” “genuine,” “natural,” “precious,” and “semi-precious” to Earth-mined diamonds and gemstones. Even the use of such terms in conjunction with “laboratory grown,” the letter argues, “will create even more confusion in an already confused and evolving marketplace.”

    JVC President Tiffany Stevens told Earther that the letter was a response to a footnote in an explanatory document about the FTC’s recent jewelry guide changes, which suggested the agency was considering removing a clause about real, precious, natural and genuine only being acceptable modifiers for gems mined from the Earth.

    “We felt that given the current commercial environment, that we didn’t think it was a good time to take that next step,” Stevens told Earther. As Stevens put it, the changes the FTC recently made, including expanding the definition of diamond and tweaking the descriptors companies can use to label laboratory-grown diamonds as such, have already been “wildly misinterpreted” by some lab-grown diamond sellers that are no longer making the “necessary disclosures.”

    Asked whether the JVC thinks lab-grown diamonds are, in fact, real diamonds, Stevens demurred.

    “It’s a nuanced reality that we’re in,” she said. “They are a type of diamond.”

    Change is afoot in the diamond world. Mined diamond production may have already peaked, according to the 2018 Bain & Company report. Lab diamonds are here to stay, although where they’re going isn’t entirely clear. Zimnisky expects that in a few years—as Lightbox’s new facility comes online and mass production of lab diamonds continues to ramp up overseas—the price industry-wide will fall to about 80 percent less than a mined diamond. At that point, he wonders whether lab-grown diamonds will start to lose their sparkle.

    Payne isn’t too worried about a price slide, which he says is happening across the diamond industry and which he expects will be “linear, not exponential” on the lab-grown side. He points out that lab-grown diamond market is still limited by supply, and that the largest lab-grown gems remain quite rare. Payne and Zimnisky both see the lab-grown diamond market bifurcating into cheaper, mass-produced gems and premium-quality stones sold by those that can maintain a strong brand. A sense that they’re selling something authentic and, well, real.

    “So much has to do with consumer psychology,” Zimnisky said.

    Some will only ever see diamonds as authentic if they formed inside the Earth. They’re drawn, as Kathryn Money, vice president of strategy and merchandising at Brilliant Earth put it, to “the history and romanticism” of diamonds; to a feeling that’s sparked by holding a piece of our ancient world. To an essence more than a function.

    Others, like Anderson, see lab-grown diamonds as the natural (to use a loaded word) evolution of diamond. “We’re actually running out of [mined] diamonds,” she said. “There is an end in sight.” Payne agreed, describing what he sees as a “looming death spiral” for diamond mining.

    Mined diamonds will never go away. We’ve been digging them up since antiquity, and they never seem to lose their sparkle. But most major mines are being exhausted. And with technology making it easier to grow diamonds just as they are getting more difficult to extract from the Earth, the lab-grown diamond industry’s grandstanding about its future doesn’t feel entirely unreasonable.

    There’s a reason why, as Payne said, “the mining industry as a whole is still quite scared of this product.”

    #dimants #Afrique #technologie #capitalisme

  • Renaud Epstein & station urbaner kulturen

    (Feben Amara, Jochen Becker, Christian Hanussek, Eva Hertzsch, Adam Page) with Oliver Pohlisch and Birgit Schlieps

    One day, one ZUP, one postcard (2014-…), 2018

    Wallpaper / Display cabinet
    Collection station urbaner kulturen, Berlin-Hellersdorf

    The sociologist Renaud Epstein’s project has first and foremost been an online format since its initiation in 2014: he posts a new postcard of large housing estates (Zones à Urbaniser par Priorité / ZUP) on his Twitter account every day. From a time when France dreamed of being modern and urban and believed in its architectural utopias, the ZUP postcards evoke at best a golden era, at worst a contemporary delusion.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/vte4ejv9wsumzyh/ARLES%202019-PRESS%20KIT-kl.pdf?dl=0

    The Berlin collective station urbaner kulturen, based in the last big housing estate built in the GDR, has extracted sections from Epstein’s Twitter timeline in order to materialize the interaction between internet users and images. Their project «Going out of Circles / Kreise ziehen» presents a wider series of exhibitions that aims to create connections between the housing estates on the periphery of urban and economic centers, around Berlin and beyond.

    A display case with original postcards next to the Twitter wallpaper emphasises the different readings of formats of communication.

    Postcards – News from a Dream World
    Musée départemental Arles Antique

    1 July - 25 August / 10 - 18

    Exhibition curators: Magali Nachtergael and Anne Reverseau

    Eric Baudart & Thu-Van Tran (1972 et 1979), Fredi Casco (1967), Moyra Davey (1958), documentation céline duval (1974), Renaud Epstein & station urbane kulturen (1971 et créé en 2014), Jean Geiser (1848-1923), Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige (1969), Roc Herms (1978), Susan Hiller (1940-2019), John Hinde (1916-1997), Katia Kameli (1973), Aglaia Konrad (1960), Valérie Mréjen (1969), Martin Parr (1952), Mathieu Pernot (1970), Brenda Lou Schaub (1993), Stephen Shore (1947), John Stezaker (1948), Oriol Vilanova (1980), William Wegman (1943)

    The postcard is the ultimate circulating picture, constantly subject to a sense of déjà-vu. Throughout the twentieth century, it went hand in hand with the bottling of the visible world, the rise of image globalization and mass tourism. Collectors, hoarders, retouchers and iconographers seize existing pictures to give them a new meaning, clarify their status or context.

    By comparing this artistic vision with the making of postcards, this exhibition questions what they show and tell of the world, like a visual anthropology. What did they convey throughout the twentieth century, during their hour of glory? What vision of the world did they plant in the minds of their recipients, who got them from relatives and friends?

    Both a symbol of our private and collective imagination, the postcard represents an illusion, always close to hand. It shows us a dream world in which can project ourselves, as in a desirable fiction story.

    www.rencontres-arles.com/en/expositions/view/779/cartes-postales

    https://archiv.ngbk.de/projekte/station-urbaner-kulturen-hellersdorf-seit-2014
    https://www.ngbk.de/en/program/initiative-urbane-kulturen

    #renaud_epstein #cartes_postales

  • Voiture autonome : quelle est l’intelligence de votre voiture, et quelles sont les fonctions (in) utiles ? Jean-Claude Verset - 26 Juin 2019 - RTBF
    Extrait de l’article : Vraiment efficaces les gadgets autonomes de nos voitures ?
    https://www.rtbf.be/info/societe/detail_voiture-autonome-quelle-est-l-intelligence-de-votre-voiture-et-quelles-s

    Aux Pays -Bas, un rapport de l’Alliance ADAS (pour la promotion de la sécurité des systèmes d’aide à la conduite) a tenté d’étudier la précision des mesures prises pour rendre les véhicules plus autonomes. Un rapport qui révèle le long chemin qu’il faudra encore parcourir avant de disposer des voitures réellement autonomes.

    Contrôle longitudinal : vitesse et freinage intelligents
    Le rapport de l’Alliance ADA approche la sécurité autonome sous trois angles. Le premier est le « contrôle longitudinal » qui porte, principalement sur la vitesse du véhicule. On apprend que la précision du système d’avertissement de risque d’un accident frontal est « raisonnable » (entre bon et mauvais) mais n’a guère d’effet sur la sécurité routière. Il en va de même pour le freinage d’urgence autonome dont la précision est jugée tout aussi « raisonnable » et aurait, cette fois, un effet faiblement positif sur la sécurité. Il faut combiner le freinage automatique d’urgence et l’alarme d’accident frontal pour obtenir un effet positif sur la sécurité routière. Selon les termes de l’enquête néerlandaise, le mot « précision » désigne la capacité du système de lancer une alarme ou d’enclencher une action lorsque c’est nécessaire et de ne pas en lancer lorsque c’est inutile (les faux positifs).
    La précision de la détection des piétons et des cyclistes est, elle, jugée insuffisante et son impact sur la sécurité routière inconnue.

    Le contrôle de vitesse adaptatif qui consiste à adapter automatiquement la vitesse du véhicule aux variations du trafic est jugé raisonnable au niveau de la précision, mais les résultats sur la sécurité routière sont jugés contradictoires.

    Quant à l’adaptation intelligente de la vitesse, elle est estimée d’une bonne précision, et d’un impact réel sur la sécurité routière par sa capacité à prendre le relais de l’automobiliste.

    Le contrôle latéral : mode de conduite et changement de voie
    Le deuxième angle du rapport s’intéresse au « contrôle latéral », la capacité du véhicule autonome à garder le bon cap. Ce contrôle latéral appartient encore largement au futur.
    L’avertissement de dépassement de ligne existe déjà sur de nombreux modèles. Le rapport juge sa précision raisonnable (ni mauvaise ni bonne), mais sans grands effets sur la sécurité , car cette aide ne fonctionne pas dans toutes les circonstances, analyse le rapport. Même verdict pour l’alerte en cas de dépassement dans l’angle mort. L’avenir serait au « lane keeping system » qui permettra à l’ordinateur de bord de maintenir le véhicule sur sa bande. Ce qui n’est pratiquement pas encore disponible à ce jour.

    La surveillance de l’état du conducteur
    Le troisième angle de contrôle vise le conducteur. On peut déjà compter sur la caméra de recul et même sur un détecteur d’alcoolémie qui empêche une personne sous influence de prendre le volant. Cette fois, la précision est bonne et l’effet sur la sécurité du trafic important… Mais cela ne concerne pas les voitures autonomes.
    Les détecteurs de fatigue embarqués semblent encore perfectibles. Selon le rapport, les systèmes actuels de détection ne sont pas encore efficaces . Soit, ils ne détectent pas toutes les périodes de somnolence, soit en croyant endormi un conducteur parfaitement éveillé. Parmi les fonctions qui pourraient un jour être embarquées figure encore la détection de la distraction qui détermine si le conducteur ne quitte pas trop souvent la route des yeux. Un système qui ne serait pas non plus totalement au point.

    #voiture #transport #automobile #mobilité #transports #surveillance #voiture_autonome #voiture_autopilotée #voitures_autonomes #autopilote #robotisation #innovation #algorithme  #intelligence_artificielle #critique #industrie #recherche

    Tiens, aucune recherche sur la #pollution des #voitures , leur consommation !

  • A Barcelone, la maire sortante Ada Colau ne rejette pas le soutien de Manuel Valls
    https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/080619/barcelone-la-maire-sortante-ada-colau-ne-rejette-pas-le-soutien-de-manuel-

    Arrivée deuxième aux municipales du 26 mai, la maire sortante de Barcelone, Ada Colau, figure des gauches alternatives en #EUROPE, a décidé de se présenter à l’investiture, le 15 juin prochain. Elle pourrait rempiler grâce au soutien inattendu de Manuel Valls, qui veut bloquer les indépendantistes.

    #Manuel_Valls,_Ada_Colau,_Espagne,_Barceclone

  • Classe, quoique complexe.
    Le pitch est dans le sous-titre.
    J’ai pas encore atteint le boss de fin de niveau, mais je pressent que ça va mal finir.
    Le gusse a aussi publié un autre livre sur « formation et ruine de l’économie nazie », ce qui ne peut que réjouir l’érudit qui sommeille au fond de moi (et pour un titre aussi claquant, je lui vote des félicitations).

  • N’oubliez pas : ce week-end, c’est la traditionnelle fête de LO. La plus grande fête d’extrême-gauche au monde ! ?

    La fête se déroule dans un grand parc boisé de plusieurs hectares, à Presles, petite ville du Val-d’Oise, à 30 km au nord de Paris, entre L’Isle-Adam et Beaumont.

    15 € pour les 3 jours. L’entrée est gratuite pour les enfants de moins de 14 ans accompagnés.

    La gare ? de Presles-Courcelles (ligne H) est à 900 m de la fête. Départ : toutes les heures de Paris-Gare du Nord à partir de 6 h 34 (durée : 38 minutes).
    Retour : toutes les heures de la gare de Presles vers Paris de 5 h 47 à 23 h 47.
    Un minibus fait la navette de la gare de Presles à l’entrée de la Fête (priorité aux personnes à mobilité réduite).

    Des bus ? font la navette entre la sortie du métro Saint-Denis-Université (terminus de la ligne 13) et l’entrée de la fête. Ils circuleront les trois jours pendant les mêmes horaires que la fête, avec un départ toutes les 20 mn environ, et le retour est toujours garanti ! Durée du trajet : 45 à 60 minutes.

    Pour vous faire une idée du programme des festivités (débats, concerts, librairies, etc.), 2 liens :

     ?Le site de la fête https://fete.lutte-ouvriere.org

     ?https://journal.lutte-ouvriere.org > le pdf avec le plan de la fête (en pages centrales) : https://journal.lutte-ouvriere.org/sites/default/files/journal/pdf/LO2652.pdf ?

    #fete_de_LO #feteLO #fetelo2019 #meetings #debats #concerts #fraternite #extreme_gauche #communisme #communiste_revolutionnaire

  • Espagne : nouveau succès de Pedro Sánchez, échec de Valls à Barcelone
    https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/270519/espagne-nouveau-succes-de-pedro-sanchez-echec-de-valls-barcelone

    En Espagne, le socialiste Pedro Sánchez est le grand vainqueur des européennes. À Barcelone et Madrid, les deux maires « indignées » sortantes, Ada Colau et Manuela Carmena, figures du renouveau de la politique en #EUROPE, devraient perdre leur siège, malgré des scores solides.

    #Manuel_Valls,_Madrid,_Barcelone,_Manuela_Carmena,_Ada_Colau,_Pedro_Sanchez,_Espagne

  • Au tour du Pays de Galles (dont l’hymne à (plus qu’)inspiré l’hymne breton)

    Thousands march in Cardiff calling for Welsh independence | UK news | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/11/thousands-march-in-cardiff-calling-for-welsh-independence

    Thousands have demonstrated in Cardiff to call for an independent Wales in what organisers said was the first such march in Welsh history.

    Some protesters said they had been lifelong supporters of independence, while others said they were converted by Brexit and austerity. A recent poll for ITV Wales showed that 12% of people support self-government.

    As the march ended with a rendition of the Welsh national anthem, Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, Adam Price, leader of nationalist party Plaid Cymru, said that Welsh problems could be more easily solved if decisions were taken within the nation.

  • Espagne : la droite offre de ne pas expulser les migrantes si elles font adopter leur bébé

    Cette proposition défendue par le #Parti_populaire espagnol fait scandale en Espagne, alors que les élections législatives se préparent.

    Un projet de loi qui fait scandale en Espagne. Le Parti populaire (conservateur) propose de retarder l’expulsion des #femmes_enceintes migrantes, si ces dernières consentent à abandonner leur bébé, rapporte El Pais.

    Une proposition que le parti espère pouvoir mettre en oeuvre en cas de victoire aux prochaines élections législatives. Selon son leader, Pablo Casado, la mesure viserait à lutter contre « l’hiver démographique » de l’Espagne qui fait face à une chute de sa natalité.

    L’agence EFE explique qu’une telle loi aurait pour but d’éviter aux migrantes souhaitant confier leur enfant à l’adoption d’être expulsées au cours de la procédure. Mais pour le Parti populaire, cette mesure serait loin de pouvoir servir de « bouclier » à toutes les femmes sans papier du pays, dans la mesure où elles seraient toujours expulsables après leur accouchement.

    Polémique sur les réseaux sociaux

    L’annonce de cette proposition a suscité une vive polémique en Espagne. « Sexiste. Raciste. Classiste. Il ne restait plus que ravisseurs d’enfants. Fascistes. Chaque démocrate doit voter à la prochaine élection pour empêcher cette foule de venir au pouvoir », s’est insurgé sur Twitter, à l’image de nombreux internautes, Ada Colau, la maire de Barcelone.

    Pour un autre internaute, cette proposition rappelle la dictature franquiste. « Le PP appelle les mères migrantes sans papiers à éviter temporairement leur expulsion en échange de l’adoption de leur enfant. C’est la version actuelle des fascistes qui, pendant des décennies, ont volé des milliers de bébés lors de la dictature », gronde-t-il.

    Une proposition inconstitutionnelle ?

    Selon Vladimir Núñez, un avocat spécialiste de l’immigration interrogé par El Pais, la proposition du PP pourrait être inconstitutionnelle. Celle-ci serait contraire à l’article 13 de la Constitution espagnole, qui garantit toutes les libertés publiques aux étrangers en Espagne.

    Face à la polémique, le leader du Parti populaire a finalement été contraint de réagir, qualifiant l’information de fake news. « Ce que propose le PP, est que les femmes enceintes qui décident de confier leur enfant à l’adoption se voient garantir la confidentialité et les mêmes droits, qu’elles soient régularisées ou non (...) Lorsque ces femmes décident de confier l’enfant pour adoption, la procédure de dénonciation de cette personne en situation irrégulière n’est pas engagée », a-t-il expliqué ce jeudi, rapporte El Norte de Castilla.

    https://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/monde/europe/espagne-la-droite-offre-de-ne-pas-expulser-les-migrantes-si-elles-font-adop

    Une sorte de #bébé contre papiers !!!
    ça rappelle de sombres moments de l’#histoire espagnole... #franquisme

    #migrations #asile #adoption #placement #bébés #enfants #maternité #fascisme #régularisation #sans-papiers #bébés_volés #enfants_volés #grossesse

    Loi pensée contre la chute de #natalité
    #démographie #natalisme

    via @Filippo_Furri

    ping @isskein

  • Exclusif : voici l’uniforme du Service national universel

    (Paris Match, 17 avril 2019)

    Brigade de sécurité régionale, lycée Bartholdi, Saint-Denis (France Bleu Paris, 15 avril 2019)

    153 personnes, en majorité des lycéens, ont été arrêtées à Mantes-la-Jolie, le 6 décembre 2018 après des heurts avec la police.

    (20minutes.fr)

    Des militaires de l’opération Sentinelle présents lors de l’après-midi boxe et jeux gonflables organisé par la famille et les proches d’Adama Traoré

    (Beaumont-Sur-Oise, Graine_LaMeute / bondyblog, 30 avril 2018)

    #maréchal_nous_voilà #uniforme

  • China Spying: The Internet’s Underwater Cables Are Next - Bloomberg
    https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-09/china-spying-the-internet-s-underwater-cables-are-next


    Underwater eyes on China.
    Photographer: Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Adam K. Thomas/U.S. Navy via Getty Images

    As the West considers the threat posed by China’s naval ambitions, there is a natural tendency to place overarching attention on the South China Sea. This is understandable: Consolidating it would provide Beijing with a huge windfall of oil and natural gas, and a potential chokehold over up to 40 percent of the world’s shipping.

    But this is only the most obvious manifestation of Chinese maritime strategy. Another key element, one that’s far harder to discern, is Beijing’s increasing influence in constructing and repairing the undersea cables that move virtually all the information on the internet. To understand the totality of China’s “Great Game” at sea, you have to look down to the ocean floor.
    […]
    But now the Chinese conglomerate #Huawei Technologies, the leading firm working to deliver 5G telephony networks globally, has gone to sea. Under its Huawei Marine Networks component, it is constructing or improving nearly 100 submarine cables around the world. Last year it completed a cable stretching nearly 4,000 miles from Brazil to Cameroon. (The cable is partly owned by China Unicom, a state-controlled telecom operator.) Rivals claim that Chinese firms are able to lowball the bidding because they receive subsidies from Beijing.
    […]
    A similar dynamic [as in 5G equipment] is playing out underwater. How can the U.S. address the security of undersea cables? There is no way to stop Huawei from building them, or to keep private owners from contracting with Chinese firms on modernizing them, based purely on suspicions. Rather, the U.S. must use its cyber- and intelligence-gathering capability to gather hard evidence of back doors and other security risks. This will be challenging — the Chinese firms are technologically sophisticated and entwined with a virtual police state.

    And back doors aren’t the only problem: Press reports indicate that U.S. and Chinese (and Russian) submarines may have the ability to “tap” the cables externally. (The U.S. government keeps such information tightly under wraps.) And the thousand or so ground-based landing stations will be spying targets as well.

    #cables_sous-marins #internet #espionnage

  • How a Private Israeli Intelligence Firm Spied on Pro-Palestinian Activists in the U.S.
    Adam Entous, The New-Yorker, le 28 février 2019
    https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-a-private-israeli-intelligence-firm-spied-on-pro-palestinian-activist

    En français :

    Quand les « services » d’Israël sous-traitent le harcèlement de pro-palestiniens sur le territoire des États-Unis à une firme privée
    Adam Entous, The New-Yorker, le 28 février 2019
    http://www.pourlapalestine.be/quand-les-services-disrael-sous-traitent-le-harcelement-a-une-firme-

    Les opérations de renseignement et d’influence de Psy-Group, qui incluaient une tentative infructueuse à l’été 2017 de provoquer des élections locales dans le centre de la Californie, ont été décrites en détail dans une enquête du New Yorker que j’avais co-écrite au début du mois [de février 2018]. Avant de fermer ses portes, l’année dernière, Psy-Group faisait partie d’une nouvelle vague de sociétés de renseignement privées recrutant dans les rangs des services secrets israéliens et se présentant comme des « Mossads privés ».

    C’est aussi la suite de :

    Private Mossad for Hire
    Adam Entous et Ronan Farrow, The New-Yorker, le 11 février 2019
    https://seenthis.net/messages/760734

    Au delà du sujet de l’article, intéressant, je le mettrai avec la liste des articles dans de grands journaux américains (avec The New-York Times) qui publient des articles très critiques d’israel, un peu comme un backlash de la politique trop conservatrice de Trump ?

    A rajouter, donc, à la liste d’articles qui suit l’évolution de la situation aux États-Unis (et du #New-Yorker ) vis à vis de la Palestine :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/752002

    #Palestine #USA #BDS #Hatem_Bazian #Peter_Moskowitz #Salah_Sarsour #Psy-Group #services_secrets #privatisation

  • Mise en orbite groovy et sensuelle avec Adam Naas à l’Espace Django vendredi
    https://www.rue89strasbourg.com/mise-en-orbite-groovy-et-sensuelle-avec-adam-naas-a-lespace-django-

    Depuis 2016 et le choc de « Fading Away », Adam Naas hante les esprits des plus audiophiles. Sa voix, sa présence, son style, sa soul… Tout intrigue chez ce jeune artiste français. Rencontre à prévoir à l’Espace Django le vendredi 12 avril. (lire l’article complet : Mise en orbite groovy et sensuelle avec Adam Naas à l’Espace Django vendredi)

    • Netanyahu polishes security image in Moscow as vote approaches
      Ben Caspit April 3, 2019
      https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/04/israel-russia-syria-benjamin-netanyahu-vladimir-putin.html#ixzz5kCuSazCq

      Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will pass up no opportunity for political points as the April 9 elections approach. Today, April 4, he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, their second meeting in about six weeks. The last one took place on Feb. 27, after a long disconnect between the two leaders. This one comes only a few days before the political electoral verdict that will also decide Netanyahu’s personal fate. During this meeting, Netanyahu will also thank Putin. The Arab media reported that Russia was a third country that helped Israel to return the body of soldier Zacharia Baumel, who had been missing for 37 years. After he milked the March 25 celebration with President Donald Trump in the White House, Netanyahu is looking toward Putin, who is still venerated by many former Soviet Union citizens who moved to Israel. In this last-minute trip, Netanyahu is again trying to convey that no one can replace him in terms of international status.

      “““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““
      Russia helps find remains of Israeli soldier missing since 1982
      April 4, 2019 4:56 P.M. (Updated : April 5, 2019 1:03 P.M.)
      http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=783107
      ““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““
      https://seenthis.net/messages/772531

    • Le Hezbollah se mure dans son silence après le « cadeau » russe fait à Netanyahu
      Jeanine JALKH | OLJ | 05/04/2019
      https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1164974/le-hezbollah-se-mure-dans-son-silence-apres-le-cadeau-russe-fait-a-ne

      La remise par Moscou des restes du soldat porté disparu en 1982 n’affectera toutefois pas les relations entre le parti chiite et la Russie, estime un analyste proche du Hezb.

      Par-delà sa signification et ses effets escomptés sur les relations russo-israéliennes, la remise des restes de Zachary Baumel, commandant de char du 362e bataillon blindé porté disparu en 1982 au Liban, par la Russie à Israël, n’a suscité aucune réaction de la part du Hezbollah qui se refuse catégoriquement à commenter cette affaire. Le parti a probablement du mal à comprendre pourquoi Moscou, voire même le régime syrien, partenaire présumé de la Russie dans cette opération, aurait consenti à cet échange, sachant qu’il a de tout temps adopté la politique du donnant donnant, notamment dans le cadre d’échanges de prisonniers de guerre ou des dépouilles de combattants ou de soldats.

      Hier, la Russie a annoncé officiellement son parrainage de l’opération de recherche qui a abouti à localiser le corps du soldat, un commandant de char qui avait disparu entre le 10 et le 11 juin 1982 lors d’une bataille qui s’était déroulée à la Békaa, dans la localité de Sultan Yacoub, non loin de la frontière libano-syrienne. (...)

    • Poutine : la Syrie a aidé la Russie à récupérer la dépouille de Zachary Baumel
      Par Judah Ari Gross, Times of Israel Staff et AFP 4 avril 2019
      https://fr.timesofisrael.com/poutine-la-syrie-a-aide-la-russie-a-recuperer-la-depouille-de-zach

      Le président russe Vladimir Poutine a déclaré jeudi que l’armée russe, avec l’aide de la Syrie, avait participé aux efforts visant à récupérer la dépouille du sergent Zachary Baumel, qui avait été tué en 1982 lors de la Première guerre du Liban lors de la bataille de Sultan Yacoub contre l’armée syrienne.

      « Les soldats de l’armée russe ont trouvé le corps en coordination avec l’armée syrienne », a déclaré Poutine durant une conférence de presse avec le Premier ministre Benjamin Netanyahu.

      “““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““
      La Syrie contredit Poutine, nie avoir aidé au rapatriement de Zachary Baumel
      Par Judah Ari Gross, Adam Rasgon et Times of Israel
      https://fr.timesofisrael.com/la-syrie-contredit-poutine-nie-avoir-aide-au-rapatriement-dun-sold

      Damas soutient que "toute l’opération était l’œuvre d’Israël et de groupes terroristes," après que le Kremlin a indiqué que les troupes russes l’avaient menée avec l’armée syrienne
      (...)
      « Nous n’avons pas la moindre information sur le sujet et ignorons s’il y a des restes ou pas, » ajoute le communiqué.
      Un responsable de l’organisation terroriste palestinienne du Front populaire de libération de la Palestine (FPLP) basé en Syrie a fait savoir mercredi que des insurgés ayant pris le contrôle du camp de réfugiés palestiniens de Yarmouk à Damas jusqu’à l’année dernière avaient excavé des tombes à la recherche des dépouilles de trois soldats disparus. Le FPLP l’avait déjà affirmé par le passé.

      Le ministre de l’Information syrien Imad Sara a assuré à la télévision officielle que la Russie n’était pas non plus impliquée. « Ce que nous croyons, c’est que toute l’opération a été menée par Israël et des groupes terroristes armés en Syrie. »(...)

  • Right-Wing Donor Adam Milstein Has Spent Millions of Dollars to Stifle the BDS Movement and Attack Critics of Israeli Policy
    Alex Kane, The Intercept, le 25 mars 2019
    https://theintercept.com/2019/03/25/adam-milstein-israel-bds

    From 2004 to 2016 (the last year that records are available online), the Milstein Family Foundation, which Adam and his wife Gila run, gave at least $4.4 million to groups in the United States and Israel that work to solidify the U.S.-Israel alliance and harshly attack critics of Israeli policy, according to an Intercept review of foundation tax records.

    What appeared to be charitable donations, however, turned out to be a vehicle to evade taxes. Milstein was indicted on and ultimately pleaded guilty to two counts of federal tax evasion. He admitted that he gave $53,550 to Spinka affiliates from 2005 to 2007, declared that money as donations on his tax returns, and received 90 percent of it back from the groups. He was sentenced to three months in minimum-security prison, 600 hours of community service, three years of supervised release, and a $30,000 fine, in addition to back taxes owed.

    Milstein has also given to politicians, particularly to hawkish Democrats and Republicans who advocate for Israel in Congress. Since 2011, he has donated $8,700 to Brad Sherman, a California Democrat who earlier this year called on UCLA to bar SJP from hosting its national conference on campus, and since 2015, has given $7,400 to Juan Vargas, another California Democrat who recently said that questioning the U.S.-Israel relationship is “unacceptable.” He has also donated to Sens. Kamala Harris ($500), Kirsten Gillibrand ($1,000), Ted Cruz ($10,800), Chuck Schumer ($2,700), Ron Wyden ($3,000), Jeanne Shaheen ($2,000), Brian Schatz ($1,000) and Robert Menendez ($1,900).

    #Palestine #BDS #USA #corruption

  • What Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” Can Teach Us About #blockchain Mass Adoption
    https://hackernoon.com/what-outkasts-hey-ya-can-teach-us-about-blockchain-mass-adoption-cb37111

    The members of Outkast have parlayed their hip hop careers into decades-long endeavors that extend beyond the music industry.Most recently, Big Boi performed 2004 №1 hit “The Way You Move” at the Super Bowl, alongside Maroon 5’s Adam Levine and Sleepy Brown, the latter of whom sang on the original version.While reading Charles Duhigg’s “The Power of Habit” recently, I learned the story of their smash hit, “Hey Ya!” This song’s unique trajectory to success could teach us about blockchain adoption, I thought.“The Power of Habit”“People listen to Top 40 because they want to hear their favorite songs or songs that sound like their favorite songs. When something different comes on, they’re offended. They don’t want anything unfamiliar.”Charles Duhigg, The Power of HabitIn his book, “The Power of Habit,” (...)

    #bitcoin #cryptocurrency #mass-adoption #technology

  • N°1 Archives privées contemporaines : quel traitement ? quel devenir ? - vendredi 16 mars 2018, 11h-13h
    https://archive.org/details/transborder-1

    Conception : Reine Prat (coordinatrice générale de l’événement), intervenant.es : Emilie Blanc, Adam Evrard, Valentin Gleyze et Adelin.e Leménager (doctorant.es Université Rennes 2), Elvan Zabunyan (historienne de l’art contemporain, professeur à Rennes 2), Ewen Chardronnet (artiste, commissaire d’expositions), Alain Carou (BnF), Catherine Gonnard (Ina), Catherine Lord (artiste, écrivaine).

    Après la projection du court-métrage « Nathalie Magnan, théoricienne des médias » de Christophe Écoffet, Cyril Thomas et Gilles Beaujard, interrogent les frontières du #genre et le rôle majeur de Nathalie Magnan pour l’enseignement et la diffusion des pensées #féministes et #queer nord-américaines en France. Cette introduction est conclue par Elvan Zabunyan qui évoque ses rencontres avec la théoricienne des médias. Ewen Chardronnet propose une navigation à travers les #archives de #Nathalie_Magnan en datavisualisation à partir de l’outil Zotero. Catherine Gonnard intervient du double point de vue de documentaliste à l’Ina et de militante engagée dans les archives féministes et lesbiennes. Alain Carou précise dans quelles conditions la BnF accueillera et s’attachera à valoriser, dans toutes leurs dimensions, ses archives. Catherine Lord revient sur les spécificités des archives Lgbtq et présente un slide-show, réalisé à partir d’une sélection des quelques 25 000 photographies numériques personnelles de l’activiste, ce qui suscite une forte émotion dans la salle.

  • [ActeursPublics] Débat : L’État face aux géants du Web
    https://www.laquadrature.net/2019/03/24/acteurspublics-debat-letat-face-aux-geants-du-web

    Chaque mois, Écrans publics propose de débattre autour de documentaires qui interrogent les politiques publiques. Ce mois-ci, la diffusion du documentaire Apple, Google, Facebook, les nouveaux maîtres du monde, de Yannick Adam de Villiers, a…

    #censure_et_filtrage_du_Net #Cite_La_Quadrature_du_Net #liberté_d'expression #Revue_de_presse #Surveillance #Vie_privée_-_Données_personnelles #revue_de_presse

  • Domestik
    https://www.nova-cinema.org/prog/2019/171-offscreen-12th-edition/offscreenings/article/domestik

    Adam Sedlák, 2018, HU-CZ, dcp, VO ST EN, 117’

    Roman s’entraîne pour intégrer une équipe de vélo sur piste. Charlotte, sa femme, veut un enfant. Elle vérifie son mucus cervical, il mesure ses kilomètres/heure et son rythme cardiaque. Ils ne mangent ni viande, ni gluten. Pendant qu’ils dorment dans la tente à oxygène, le robot aspirateur nettoie le sol en béton ciré de leur intérieur clinique. Tout va bien. En fait, tout va mal. Adam Sedlák met en scène de façon minimaliste des corps médicalisés, rationalisés, qui poursuivent chacun leur idéal au détriment de l’autre. Le quasi huis clos tourne progressivement à l’horreur, les corps deviennent meurtris, sont violentés. C’est un couple qui se détruit lentement à grands coups de dispositifs médicaux. Un film gore en chambre stérile.

    jeudi 28 mars 2019 à 19h (...)

  • Informatique, astronomie ou chimie : toutes ces inventions de femmes attribuées à des hommes - Politique - Numerama
    https://www.numerama.com/politique/469570-informatique-astronomie-ou-chimie-toutes-ces-inventions-de-femmes-a

    Le Wi-Fi, la fission nucléaire ou le pulsar : quel est le point commun entre ces inventions ? Elles ont toutes été créées par des inventrices, éclipsées dans l’ombre de leurs confrères masculins. Nous rappelons leur histoire ce 8 mars 2019.

    Où sont les femmes dans les technologies et les sciences ? Dans l’ombre de leurs homologues masculins, pour nombre d’entre elles. À l’occasion de la journée internationale des droits des femmes, le 8 mars 2019, nous avons décidé de revenir sur le parcours d’inventrices éclipsées par l’Histoire, dont les exploits ont été notamment attribués à des hommes.

    On parle d’effet Matilda pour désigner la manière dont la contribution de nombreuses femmes scientifiques a été minimisée, voir attribuée à des confrères masculins.

    Son manuscrit en atteste encore aujourd’hui : Ada Lovelace, née en 1815 et décédée à 37 ans, a réalisé le premier programme informatique. Entre 1842 et 1843, la comtesse traduit en anglais un article du mathématicien Federico Luigi, qui décrit la machine analytique de Babbage. Sur les conseils de ce dernier, elle va enrichir cette traduction avec ses propres notes, dont le volume est plus imposant que le texte de départ.

    Dans la note G, elle présente un algorithme particulièrement détaillé. Ce travail est considéré comme le premier programme informatique du monde, rédigé dans un langage exécutable par une machine. Charles Babbage, qui a consacré sa vie à la construction de cette fameuse machine analytique, a bien bénéficié du travail sur l’algorithme mené par Ada Lovelace.
    Ada Lovelace. // Source : Wikimedia/CC/Science Museum Group (photo recadrée)
    Hedy Lamarr et le Wi-Fi

    On ne doit pas seulement à Hedy Lamarr, actrice autrichienne naturalisée américaine, une trentaine de films. L’inventrice, née en 1914 et décédée en 2000, a aussi joué un autre rôle important dans l’histoire de nos télécommunications. Le brevet qu’elle a déposé en 1941 (enregistré l’année suivante) en atteste encore : Hedy Lamarr avait inventé un « système secret de communication » pour des engins radio-guidés, comme des torpilles. La découverte, à l’origine du GPS et du Wi-Fi, était le fruit d’une collaboration avec George Antheil, un pianiste américain.

    Le brevet ainsi déposé permettait à l’Armée des États-Unis de l’utiliser librement. La technologie n’a pourtant pas été mobilisée avant 1962, lors de la crise des missiles de Cuba. La « technique Lamarr » a valu à l’actrice un prix en de l’Electronic Frontier Foundation… en 1997.
    Hedy Lamarr en 1944. // Source : Wikimedia/CC/MGM (photo recadrée)
    Alice Ball et le traitement contre la lèpre

    Pendant 90 ans, l’université d’Hawaï n’a pas reconnu son travail. Pourtant, Alice Ball a contribué au développement d’un traitement efficace contre la lèpre au cours du 20e siècle. Cette chimiste, née en 1892 et morte en 1916 à l’âge seulement de 24 ans, est devenue la première afro-américaine diplômée de cet établissement. Plus tard, elle y est devenue la première femme à enseigner la chimie.

    Alice Ball s’est penchée sur une huile naturelle produite par les arbres de l’espèce « Chaulmoogra », réputée pour soigner la lèpre. En isolant des composants de l’huile, elle est parvenue à conserver ses propriétés thérapeutiques tout en la rendant injectable dans le cops humain. Décédée avant d’avoir eu le temps de publier ses travaux, Alice Ball est tombée dans l’oubli tandis qu’Arthur L. Dean, le président de l’université d’Hawaï, s’est attribué son travail.
    Alice Ball (1915). // Source : Wikimedia/CC/University of Hawaii System
    Grace Hopper et le premier compilateur

    En 1951, Grace Hopper a conçu le premier compilateur, c’est-à-dire un programme capable de traduire un code source (écrit dans un langage de programmation) en code objet (comme le langage machine). Née en 1906 et décédée en 1992, cette informaticienne américaine a fait partie de la marine américaine où elle s’est hissée au grade d’officière générale.

    Pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, elle a travaillé sur le Harvard Mark I, le premier grand calculateur numérique construit aux États-Unis. Le mathématicien John von Neumann est présenté comme celui qui a initié l’un des premiers programmes exécutés par la machine. Grace Hopper faisait pourtant partie de l’équipe des premiers programmateurs du Mark I.
    Grace Hopper (1984). // Source : Wikimedia/CC/James S. Davis (photo recadrée)
    Esther Lederberg et la génétique bactérienne

    Cette spécialiste de microbiologie était une pionnière de la génétique microbienne, une discipline croisant la microbiologie (l’étude des micro-organismes) et le génie génétique (l’ajout et la suppression de l’ADN dans un organisme). La génétique microbienne consiste à étudier les gènes des micro-organismes.

    Esther Lederberg est née en 1922 et décédée en 2006. Elle a découvert ce qu’on appelle le « phage lambda », un virus qui infecte notamment la bactérie E.coli. Le phage lambda est très étudié en biologie et il est utilisé pour permettre le clonage de l’ADN. Esther Lederberg l’a identifié en 1950. Elle collaborait régulièrement avec son mari Joshua Ledeberg : c’est lui qui a obtenu le prix Nobel de médecine en 1958, récompensant ces travaux sur la manière dont les bactéries échangent des gènes sans se reproduire.
    Esther Lederberg. // Source : Wikimedia/CC/Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg
    Jocelyn Bell et le pulsar

    En 1974, le prix Nobel de physique est remis à l’astronome britannique Antony Hewish. Pourtant, ce n’est pas lui qui a découvert le pulsar, un objet astronomique qui pourrait être une étoile à neutrons tournant sur elle-même. Antony Hewish était le directeur de thèse de Jocelyn Bell : il s’est contenté de construire le télescope nécessaire à ces observations. C’est bien l’astrophysicienne, née en 1943, qui a identifié la première le pulsar.

    En 2018, elle a finalement reçu le Prix de physique fondamentale. Elle a choisi d’utiliser les 3 millions de dollars qui lui ont été offerts pour encourager les étudiants sous-représentés dans le domaine de la physique.
    Jocelyn Bell (2015). // Source : Wikimedia/CC/Conor McCabe Photography (photo recadrée)
    Chien-Shiung Wu et la physique nucléaire

    Chien-Shiung Wu, née en 1912 et décédée en 1997, était une spécialiste de la physique nucléaire. En 1956, elle démontre par l’expérience la « non conservation de la parité dans les interactions faibles », au cours de ses travaux sur les interactions électromagnétiques. C’est une contribution importante à la physique des particules.

    Deux physiciens théoriciens chinois, Tsung-Dao Lee et Chen Ning Yang, avaient mené des travaux théoriques sur cette question. Tous deux ont reçu le prix Nobel de physique en 1957. Il faut attendre 1978 pour que la découverte expérimentale de Chien-Shiung Wu soit récompensée par l’obtention du prix Wolf de physique.
    Chien-Shiung Wu en 1963. // Source : Wikimedia/CC/Smithsonian Institution (photo recadrée)
    Rosalind Franklin et la structure de l’ADN

    La physico-chimiste Rosalind Franklin, née en 1920 et décédée en 1958, a joué un rôle important dans la découverte de la structure de l’ADN, notamment sa structure à double hélice. Grâce à la diffraction des rayons X, elle prend des clichés d’ADN qui permettent de faire cette découverte. Elle présente ses résultats en 1951 au King’s College.

    Un certain James Dewey Watson assiste à cette présentation. Ce généticien et biochimiste informe le biologiste Francis Crick de la découverte de Rosalind Franklin. En utilisant les photos de la physico-chimiste, ils publient ce qui semble être leur découverte de la structure de l’ADN. En 1953, ils publient ces travaux dans la revue Nature. Ils obtiennent un prix Nobel en 1962, sans mentionner le travail pionnier de Rosalind Franklin.
    Rosalind Franklin. // Source : Flickr/CC/retusj (photo recadrée)
    Lise Meitner et la fission nucléaire

    Nommée trois fois pour recevoir un prix Nobel, cette physicienne autrichienne n’a jamais reçu la précieuse distinction. C’est pourtant une collaboration entre Elise Meitner et Otto Frisch, son neveu, qui permis d’apporter la première explication théorique de la fusion, en 1939.

    La scientifique, née en 1878 et décédée en 1968, n’a jamais reçu du comité remettant la distinction la même estime que celle que lui portaient ses collègues. En 1944, le prix Nobel de chimie fut donné à Otto Hahn, chimiste considéré à tort comme le découvreur de la fission nucléaire.
    Lise Meitner (1906). // Source : Wikimedia/CC (photo recadrée)
    Katherine Johnson et la navigation astronomique

    L’action déterminante de Katherine Johnson dans les programmes aéronautiques et spatiaux de la Nasa a fait l’objet d’un film, Les Figures de l’ombre. Née en 1918, cette physicienne et mathématicienne a calculé de nombreuses trajectoires et travaillé sur les fenêtres de lancement de nombreuses missions. Véritable « calculatrice humaine », elle a vérifié à la main des trajectoires de la mission Mercury-Atlas 6, qui a envoyé un homme en orbite autour de la Terre.

    En 1969, elle calcule des trajectoires essentielles lors de la mission Apollo 11. C’est à cette occasion que des humains — des hommes — se sont posés pour la première fois sur la Lune. En 2015, elle est récompensée et reçoit la médaille présidentielle de la Liberté.
    Katherine Johnson en 1966. // Source : Wikimedia/CC/Nasa (photo recadrée)

    #femmes #historicisation #effet_Matilda #sexisme #discrimination #invisibilisation #science

  • #programming in #rust : the good, the bad, the ugly.
    https://hackernoon.com/programming-in-rust-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly-d06f8d8b7738?source=rss---

    This post is about my experience learning Rust by solving every CtCI problem live on #twitch, an unfinished project.Portrait of Ada Lovelace, Science Museum Group UKRust logo, courtesy of Mozilla, CC-BYRust is a modern systems-level programming language designed with safety in mind. It provides zero-cost abstractions, generics, functional features, and plenty more. I recently embarked on an effort to learn Rust properly, and I wanted to share some of my thoughts.Until recently, I’d written only a handful of small programs in Rust, and after reading half of “Programming Rust”, I really didn’t know Rust. I figured a good way to get to know the language was to solve all 189 problems from the “Cracking the Coding Interview” book. Not only would I solve them with Rust, but I decided to do it live (...)

    #hackernoon-top-story #rustlang

    • Grenoble : Le point sur la situation après une troisième nuit d’émeutes
      https://www.20minutes.fr/societe/2464631-20190305-video-violences-urbaines-grenoble-point-situation-apres-t

      Un adolescent de 16 ans grièvement blessé à l’œil
      Au cours des affrontements de samedi soir, un garçon de 16 ans a été blessé à l’œil dans le quartier Mistral dans des circonstances qui restent vagues. Sa mère a porté plainte lundi, selon le parquet de Grenoble. Des voisins auraient indiqué à la Grenobloise que son fils aurait été victime d’un tir de balle en caoutchouc. « A ce stade, nous ne disposons d’aucune autre information », a précisé lundi soir le procureur de la République de Grenoble Eric Vaillant, qui a ouvert une enquête pour « violences volontaires avec arme suivies d’une ITT supérieure à huit jours ». Des faits qui n’ont pas manqué d’ajouter à la suspicion envers les forces de l’ordre d’une partie des habitants, selon plusieurs messages postés sur les réseaux sociaux.

      Des compléments sur les affrontations, des point de vue de proches, etc.
      https://twitter.com/clprtr/status/1102660522481254400

      « On les a envoyés à la mort », accuse un proche. « On était vraiment sur de la chasse... On dirait du du gros gibier (...) on a ôté la vie à deux personnes, on a rendu des gens malheureux, Un scooter à 1000 euros, deux morts, ça se passe de commentaires »

      #Maintien_de_l'ordre #violences_policières #violence_d'État #LBD40 @davduf

    • ⎯ Tu te rappelles que tu ne dois jamais mentionner dans tes titres qu’ils étaient poursuivis par la police ?
      ⎯ T’inquiète.

      via @vivelefeu
      https://twitter.com/vivelefeu

      Après des jours d’émeute, faute de figurer dans le titre, le mot « police » figure dans la première phrase.

      La mort de Fatih et Adam, révélatrice des fractures de Grenoble , Henri Seckel et Maud Obels.

      Depuis la mort dans un accident de deux jeunes poursuivis par la police, les nuits de fièvre se succèdent dans le quartier du Mistral.

      Jusqu’alors, les seuls messages de protestation visibles devant l’école Anatole-France concernaient le trop grand nombre d’élèves en classe de CP et la vitesse trop élevée des automobilistes. Sur la façade de cet établissement du quartier Mistral, dans le sud de Grenoble, sont venues s’ajouter ces jours-ci des inscriptions d’un autre genre : « La police tue la jeunesse de demain », « Vous allez payer », « Aucune pitié pour les porcs », « 500 euros pour chaque policier au sol ». Et aussi « F & A, on vous aime pour toujours ».

      Environ 1 500 personnes se sont rassemblées, mercredi 6 mars, devant ces tags hostiles aux forces de l’ordre, pour une marche silencieuse à la mémoire de Fatih et Adam, 19 et 17 ans, que tous présentent comme de bons garçons, et qui ont trouvé la mort samedi à quelques hectomètres de là. Ils circulaient, sans casque et sans permis, sur un scooter volé à bord duquel ils auraient grillé des feux rouges et brisé des rétroviseurs, et ont été pris en chasse par deux voitures de police. La course-poursuite a emprunté un petit bout de l’A480, qui longe le quartier Mistral. L’accident s’est produit sur une bretelle de sortie. Le parallèle avec Zyed et Bouna, deux jeunes de 17 et 15 ans morts électrocutés en 2005 à Clichy-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis) dans un poste électrique en tentant d’échapper à un contrôle policier, a vite surgi.
      Lire aussi A Grenoble, une nouvelle nuit tendue après la « marche blanche » en hommage à Adam et Fatih

      « Question d’orgueil »

      Au lendemain du drame, le procureur de la République de Grenoble, Eric Vaillant, s’est voulu aussi précis que possible sur le déroulement des faits, en s’appuyant sur une caméra de vidéosurveillance et le témoignage d’un chauffeur de car : « Il a vu dans son rétroviseur un scooter et un véhicule de police. Il a décidé de se serrer sur la droite pour leur laisser le passage, sauf que le scooter a décidé de doubler le car par la droite et s’est retrouvé coincé entre le car et le parapet. En l’état, il n’y a eu, selon nous, aucun choc entre le véhicule de police et le scooter. »

      La démonstration n’a pas convaincu la totalité des 3 000 « Mistraliens ». Une photo d’une éraflure sur le pare-chocs avant de la voiture de police a atterri sur tous les téléphones, aussitôt interprétée comme la preuve d’une collision avec le scooter. « On les a envoyés à la mort, affirme Karim, l’oncle maternel d’Adam. On dirait que venir ici, pour les forces de l’ordre, c’est comme faire un safari, chasser du gros gibier. » « Les policiers ont de la rancœur parce qu’ils n’arrivent pas à agir sur ce quartier, c’était une question d’orgueil, il fallait absolument les attraper, explique un jeune homme souhaitant rester anonyme, comme les amis qui l’entourent, à la terrasse du snack La Cantine. C’est dommage qu’une simple question d’orgueil aboutisse à deux morts. »

      « Si on commence à ne plus contrôler ce genre de personnes et à ne plus faire de flagrants délits, on reste au commissariat et on ne fait plus rien, répond Philippe Lepagnol, secrétaire départemental en Isère du syndicat de police Alliance, qui dit avoir vu les images de vidéosurveillance. Les jeunes ont pris des risques énormes, c’est ça qui les mène à l’accident, pas la police. On est des pères de famille, on sait faire preuve de discernement. On déplore ce drame, mais on est sereins sur les circonstances. »

      L’épisode ne risque pas de réparer la fracture, qui semblait déjà définitive, entre policiers et jeunes du quartier. Les seconds dénoncent les « abus de pouvoir permanents » des premiers, les premiers le « sentiment d’impunité » des seconds. Lesquels n’ont pas plus confiance en la justice ni en l’enquête qui débute à peine : « Qu’est-ce que c’est que ce silence général sur les circonstances de l’accident ? Quelqu’un a quelque chose à se reprocher ? » Le temps – long – de la justice n’est pas celui – immédiat – de l’émotion.

      La marche silencieuse s’est élancée à 16 h 30, et le cortège a fait ses premiers pas dans un paysage urbain défiguré, entre Abribus aux vitres émiettées et squelettes de voitures. La plupart des carcasses calcinées ont été enlevées, ne reste alors plus que le goudron qui s’est gondolé sous l’effet de la chaleur, et que parsèment des dizaines de douilles de grenades lacrymogènes usagées. Les enfants ramassent ces curieux jouets, et se font gronder par leurs parents.

      Les stigmates des dernières nuits agitées dans le quartier sont partout. Depuis samedi, les lacrymos des CRS ont affronté les cailloux, boules de pétanque et cocktails Molotov parfois jetés directement depuis les étages des immeubles. D’autres secteurs de Grenoble (Villeneuve, Teisseire, Village olympique) et d’autres communes de l’agglomération (Echirolles, Fontaine, Saint-Martin-le-Vinoux) se sont embrasés également.

      Soixante-cinq voitures ont flambé dans la seule nuit de lundi à mardi. L’épisode rappelle 2010, et les émeutes qui avaient suivi la mort d’un braqueur, tué par les policiers, dans le quartier de la Villeneuve.

      Chantier permanent

      Ces nuits de fièvre ont fait un seul blessé grave (une enquête a été ouverte sur le cas de ce jeune homme de 16 ans qui a perdu un œil) et entraîné une seule interpellation : un homme de 25 ans, condamné mercredi à huit mois de prison ferme pour avoir jeté une barre de fer et des parpaings sur des policiers. « S’il faut aller en prison, on ira en prison », explique un jeune du quartier ayant participé aux échauffourées, pour qui la violence est légitime : « L’imam nous a dit de ne pas être violents, et de monter une association. Mais est-ce que vous seriez venus si on avait monté une association ? »

      Avant de se diriger vers le pont de Catane, à l’entrée duquel Adam et Fatih sont morts, les manifestants ont serpenté dans le quartier Mistral, bâti dans les années 1960, dont on se demande aujourd’hui comment ses concepteurs ont pu s’enthousiasmer pour ses hautes barres de 150 mètres de long sur 10 de large aux façades totalement planes, même si les premiers sommets du Vercors, en arrière-plan, agrémentent l’ensemble. Le quartier, chantier permanent, s’oriente vers quelque chose de plus aéré, de moins haut.

      Pendant que les arbres attendent le printemps, la vaste esplanade centrale jonchée de détritus attend les éboueurs et les dealers attendent les clients. « Je n’ai jamais vu une ville de cette taille aussi pourrie et gangrenée par le trafic de drogue », avait dit de Grenoble le précédent procureur, Jean-Yves Coquillat. « Ce quartier est sans doute l’endroit où il s’était le plus structuré, mais ça a bougé », assure Eric Piolle, lointain successeur à la mairie de Paul Mistral (1919-1932), qui a donné son nom au quartier.

      Appels à la haine

      L’actuel édile écologiste ne nie pas les difficultés mais loue le travail de « couture urbaine » en cours, symbolisé entre autres par Le Plateau, centre socioculturel de grande qualité. Son directeur, Hassen Bouzeghoub, attaché à ce quartier qui l’a vu naître il y a cinquante-trois ans, n’en cache pas les défauts : « C’est une enclave urbaine, un quartier “du bout”, qui vient s’écraser contre un mur d’autoroute. Il concentre tous les problèmes – paupérisation, absence de mixité, échec scolaire, délinquance, chômage. Il y a un nouveau projet urbain depuis une dizaine d’années, mais on paie aujourd’hui vingt ans d’errance entre 1980 et 2000, qui ont abouti à un entre-soi, et généré des fonctionnements sociaux particuliers. La fracture sociale est intense. »

      Plus encore lorsqu’un drame survient, parce qu’alors, « tout ressort de façon épidermique, analyse Eric Piolle. Certains se sentent désaffiliés, et cette désaffiliation peut se transformer en colère ». Les appels à la haine ont fleuri sur les réseaux sociaux depuis samedi. « Nous devons nous garder de nous laisser entraîner dans cette boue, dont nous sortirions tous salis », a dénoncé le maire mardi, à la veille de l’enterrement des deux garçons – en périphérie de Grenoble pour l’un, en Turquie pour l’autre. Avant et après la marche, les appels à cesser les violences se sont multipliés. « Ça ne sert à rien, ça ne fera pas revenir Adam », avait dit sa mère, Jamila, au Dauphiné libéré le matin. Appel à moitié entendu : la nuit de mercredi à jeudi a encore vu quelques voitures brûler et des cocktails Molotov tomber des fenêtres.

      #Bac

  • Three Theses on Neoliberal Migration and Social Reproduction

    Today there are more than 1 billion regional and international migrants, and the number continues to rise: within 40 years, it might double because of climate change. While many of these migrants might not cross a regional or international border, people change residences and jobs more often, while commuting longer and farther to work. This increase in human mobility and expulsion affects us all. It should be recognized as a defining feature of our epoch: The twenty-first century will be the century of the migrant.

    The argument of this paper is that the migrant is also a defining figure of neoliberal social reproduction. This argument is composed of three interlocking theses on what I am calling the “neoliberal migrant.”

    Thesis 1 : The first thesis argues that the migrant is foremost a socially constitutive figure. That is, we should not think of the migrant as a derivative or socially exceptional figure who merely travels between pre- constituted states. The movement and circulation of migrants has always played an important historical role in the social and kinetic production and reproduction of society itself.1

    Thesis 2 : The second thesis therefore argues that social reproduction itself is a fundamentally kinetic or mobile process. The fact that a historically record number of human beings are now migrating and commuting between countries, cities, rural and urban areas, multiple part time precarious jobs, means that humans are now spending a world historical record amount of unpaid labor-time just moving around. This mobility is itself a form of social reproduction.

    Thesis 3 : The third thesis is that neoliberalism functions as a migration regime of social reproduction. Under neoliberalism, the burden of social reproduction has been increasingly displaced from the state to the population itself (health care, child care, transportation, and other traditionally social services). At the same time, workers now have less time than ever before to do this labor because of increasing reproductive mobility regimes (thesis two). This leads then to a massively expanded global market for surplus reproductive laborers who can mow lawns, clean houses, and care for children so first world laborers can commute longer and more frequently. Neoliberalism completes the cycle by providing a new “surplus reproductive labor army” in the form of displaced migrants from the global South.

    We turn now to a defense of these theses.

    Thesis 1 : The Migrant is Socially Constitutive

    This is the case, in short, because societies are themselves defined by a continual movement of circulation, expansion, and expulsion that relies on the mobility of migrants to accommodate its social expansions and contractions.

    The migrant is the political figure who is socially expelled or dispossessed, to some degree as a result, or as the cause, of their mobility. We are not all migrants, but most of us are becoming migrants. At the turn of the twenty- first century, there were more regional and international migrants than ever before in recorded history—a fact that political theory has yet to take seriously.2

    If we are going to take the figure of the migrant seriously as a constitutive, and not derivative, figure of Western politics, we have to change the starting point of political theory. Instead of starting with a set of pre-existing citizens, we should begin with the flows of migrants and the ways they have circulated or sedimented into citizens and states in the first place—as well as emphasizing how migrants have constituted a counterpower and alternative to state structures.

    This requires first of all that we take seriously the constitutive role played by migrants before the 19th century, and give up the arbitrary starting point of the nation-state. In this way we will be able to see how the nation-state itself was not the origin but the product of migration and bordering techniques that existed long before it came on the scene.3

    Second of all, and based on this, we need to rethink the idea of political inclusion as a fundamentally kinetic process of circulation, not just as a formal legal, economic, or other kind of status. In other words, instead of a formal political distinction between inclusion/exclusion or a formal economic distinc- tion between productive/unproductive, we need a material one of circulation/ recirculation showing how social activity is defined by lived cycles of socially reproductive motions.

    One way to think about the constitutive role played by migrants is as a kinetic radicalization of Karl Marx’s theory of primitive accumulation.

    Primitive Accumulation
    Marx develops this concept from a passage in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations: “The accumulation of stock must, in the nature of things, be previous to the division of labour.”4 In other words, before humans can be divided into owners and workers, there must have already been an accu- mulation such that those in power could enforce the division in the first place. The superior peoples of history naturally accumulate power and stock and then wield it to perpetuate the subordination of their inferiors. For Smith, this process is simply a natural phenomenon: Powerful people always already have accumulated stock, as if from nowhere.

    For Marx, however, this quote is perfectly emblematic of the historical obfuscation of political economists regarding the violence and expulsion required for those in power to maintain and expand their stock. Instead of acknowledging this violence, political economy mythologizes and naturalizes it just like the citizen-centric nation state does politically. For Marx the concept of primitive accumulation has a material history. It is the precapitalist condition for capitalist production. In particular, Marx identifies this process with the expulsion of peasants and indigenous peoples from their land through enclosure, colonialism, and anti-vagabond laws in sixteenth-century England. Marx’s thesis is that the condition of the social expansion of capitalism is the prior expulsion of people from their land and from their legal status under customary law. Without the expulsion of these people, there is no expansion of private property and thus no capitalism.

    While some scholars argue that primitive accumulation was merely a single historical event in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, others argue that it plays a recurring logical function within capitalism itself: In order to expand, capitalism today still relies on non-capitalist methods of social expulsion and violence.5

    The idea of expansion by expulsion broadens the idea of primitive accumulation in two ways. First, the process of dispossessing people of their social status (expulsion) in order to further develop or advance a given form of social motion (expansion) is not at all unique to the capitalist regime of social motion. We see the same social process in early human societies whose progressive cultivation of land and animals (territorial expansion) with the material technology of fencing also expelled (territorial dispossession) a part of the human population. This includes hunter-gatherers whose territory was transformed into agricultural land, as well as surplus agriculturalists for whom there was no more arable land left to cultivate at a certain point. Thus social expulsion is the condition of social expansion in two ways: It is an internal condition that allows for the removal of part of the population when certain internal limits have been reached (carrying capacity of a given territory, for example) and it is an external condition that allows for the removal of part of the population outside these limits when the territory is able to expand outward into the lands of other groups (hunter gatherers). In this case, territorial expansion was only possible on the condition that part of the population was expelled in the form of migratory nomads, forced into the surrounding mountains and deserts.

    We later see the same logic in the ancient world, whose dominant polit- ical form, the state, would not have been possible without the material tech- nology of the border wall that both fended off as enemies and held captive as slaves a large body of barbarians (through political dispossession) from the mountains of the Middle East and Mediterranean. The social conditions for the expansion of a growing political order, including warfare, colonialism, and massive public works, were precisely the expulsion of a population of barbarians who had to be walled out and walled in by political power. This technique occurs again and again throughout history, as I have tried to show in my work.

    The second difference between previous theories of primitive accumulation and the more expansive one offered here is that this process of prior expulsion or social deprivation Marx noted is not only territorial or juridical, and its expansion is not only economic.6 Expulsion does not simply mean forcing people off their land, although in many cases it may include this. It also means depriving people of their political rights by walling off the city, criminalizing types of persons by the cellular techniques of enclosure and incarceration, or restricting their access to work by identification and checkpoint techniques.

    Expulsion is the degree to which a political subject is deprived or dispossessed of a certain status in the social order. Accordingly, societies also expand and reproduce their power in several major ways: through territorial accumulation, political power, juridical order, and economic

    profit. What is similar between the theory of primitive accumulation and the kinetic theory of expansion by expulsion is that most major expan- sions of social kinetic power also require a prior or primitive violence of kinetic social expulsion. The border is the material technology and social regime that directly enacts this expulsion. The concept of primitive accu- mulation is merely one historical instance of a more general kinopolitical logic at work in the emergence and reproduction of previous societies.

    Marx even makes several general statements in Capital that justify this kind of interpretive extension. For Marx, the social motion of production in general strives to reproduce itself. He calls this “periodicity”: “Just as the heavenly bodies always repeat a certain movement, once they have been flung into it, so also does social production, once it has been flung into this movement of alternate expansion and contraction. Effects become causes in their turn, and the various vicissitudes of the whole process, which always reproduces its own conditions, take on the form of periodicity.”7 According to Marx, every society, not just capitalist ones, engages in some form of social production. Like the movements of the planets, society expands and contracts itself according to a certain logic, which strives to reproduce and expand the conditions that brought it about in the first place. Its effects in turn become causes in a feedback loop of social circulation. For Marx, social production is thus fundamentally a social motion of circulation or reproduction.

    In short, the material-kinetic conditions for the expansion of societies re- quires the use of borders (fences, walls, cells, checkpoints) to produce a system of marginalized territorial, political, legal, and economic migrants that can be more easily recirculated elsewhere as needed. Just as the vagabond migrant is dispossessed by enclosures and transformed into the economic proletariat, so each dominant social system has its own structure of expansion by expulsion and reproduction as well.

    Expansion by Expulsion

    Expulsion is therefore a social movement that drives out and entails a deprivation of social status.8 Social expulsion is not simply the deprivation of territorial status (i.e., removal from the land); it includes three other major types of social deprivation: political, juridical, and economic. This is not a spatial or temporal concept but a fundamentally kinetic concept insofar as we understand movement extensively and intensively, that is, quantitatively and qualitatively. Social expulsion is the qualitative transformation of deprivation in status, resulting in or as a result of extensive movement in spacetime.

    The social expulsion of migrants, for example, is not always free or forced. In certain cases, some migrants may decide to move, but they are not free to determine the social or qualitative conditions of their movement or the degree to which they may be expelled from certain social orders. Therefore, even in this case, expulsion is still a driving-out insofar as its conditions are not freely or individually chosen but socially instituted and compelled. Expulsion is a fundamentally social and collective process because it is the loss of a socially determined status, even if only temporarily and to a small degree.9

    Expansion, on the other hand, is the process of opening up that allows something to pass through. This opening-up also entails a simultaneous extension or spreading out. Expansion is thus an enlargement or exten- sion through a selective opening. Like the process of social expulsion, the process of social expansion is not strictly territorial or primarily spatial; it is also an intensive or qualitative growth in territorial, political, juridical, and economic kinopower. It is both an intensive and extensive increase in the conjunction of new social flows and a broadening of social circulation. Colonialism is a good example of an expansion which is clearly territorial as well as political, juridical, and economic.

    Kinopower is thus defined by a constitutive circulation, but this circulation functions according to a dual logic of reproduction. At one end, social circulation is a motion that drives flows outside its circulatory system: expulsion. This is accomplished by redirecting and driving out certain flows through exile, slavery, criminalization, or unemployment. At the other end of circulation there is an opening out and passing in of newly conjoined flows through a growth of territorial, political, juridical, and economic power. Expansion by expulsion is the social logic by which some members of society are dispossessed of their status as migrants so that social power can be expanded elsewhere. Power is not only a question of repression; it is a question of mobilization and kinetic reproduction.

    For circulation to open up to more flows and become more powerful than it was, it has historically relied on the disjunction or expulsion of mi- grant flows. In other words, the expansion of power has historically relied on a socially constitutive migrant population.

    Thesis 2: Mobility is a form of Social Reproduction

    People today continually move greater distances more frequently than ever before in human history. Even when people are not moving across a regional or international border, they tend to have more jobs, change jobs more often, commute longer and farther to their places of work,10 change their residences repeatedly, and tour internationally more often.11

    Some of these phenomena are directly related to recent events, such as the impoverishment of middle classes in certain rich countries after the financial crisis of 2008, neoliberal austerity cuts to social-welfare programs, and rising unemployment. The subprime-mortgage crisis, for example, led to the expul- sion of millions of people from their homes worldwide (9 million in the United States alone). Globally, foreign investors and governments have acquired 540 million acres since 2006, resulting in the eviction of millions of small farmers in poor countries, and mining practices have become increasingly destructive around the world—including hydraulic fracturing and tar sands.

    In 2006, the world crossed a monumental historical threshold, with more than half of the world’s population living in urban centers, compared with just fifteen percent a hundred years ago. This number is now expected to rise above seventy-five percent by 2050, with more than two billion more people moving to cities.12 The term “global urbanization,” as Saskia Sassen rightly observes, is only another way of politely describing large-scale human migration and displacement from rural areas, often caused by corporate land grabs.13 What this means is not only that more people are migrating to cities but now within cities and between suburban and urban areas for work. This general increase in human mobility and expulsion is now widely recognized as a defining feature of the twenty-first century so far.14

    Accordingly, this situation is having and will continue to have major social consequences for social relations in the twenty-first century. It there- fore demands the attention of critical theory. In particular, it should call our attention to the fact that this epic increase in human mobility and migration around the world is not just a minor or one-time “inconvenience” or “eco- nomic risk” that migrants make and then join the ranks of other “settled” urban workers. It is a continuous, ongoing, and nearly universal massive ex- traction of unpaid reproductive labor.

    Urban workers have become increasingly unsettled and mobile.The world average commuting time is now 40 minutes, one-way.15 This unpaid transport time is not a form of simply unproductive or unpaid labor. It is actually the material and kinetic conditions for the reproduction of the worker herself to arrive at work ready for labor. Not only this, but unpaid transport labor also continuously reproduces the spatial architecture of capitalist urban centers and suburban peripheries.16 The increasing neoliberal privatization of roadway construction and tollways is yet another way in which unpaid transport labor is not “unproductive” at all but rather continues to reproduce a massive new private transport market.This goes hand in hand with the neoliberal decline of affordable public transportation, especially in the US.

    Unfortunately, transport mobility has not traditionally been considered a form of social reproductive activity, but as global commute times and traffic increase, it is now becoming extremely obvious how important and constitu- tive this migratory labor actually is to the functioning of capital. If we define social reproduction as including all the conditions for the worker to arrive at work, then surely mobility is one of these necessary conditions. Perhaps one of the reasons it has not been recognized as such is because transport is an activity that looks least like an activity, since the worker is typically just sitting in a vehicle. Or perhaps the historical identification of vehicles and migration as sites of freedom (especially in America) has covered over the oppressive and increasingly obligatory unpaid labor time they often entail.

    The consequences of this new situation appeared at first as merely tempo- ral inconveniences for first-world commuters or what we might call BMWs (bourgeoise migrant workers).This burden initially fell and still falls dispropor- tionally on women who are called on to make up for the lost reproductive labor of their traveling spouses (even if they themselves also commute). Increasingly, however, as more women have begun to commute farther and more often this apparently or merely reproductive neoliberal transport labor has actually pro- duced a growing new market demand for a “surplus reproductive labor army” to take up these domestic and care labors. This brings us to our third thesis.

    Thesis: 3: Neoliberal Migration is a Regime of Social Reproduction

    The third thesis is that neoliberalism functions as a migration regime of social reproduction. This is the case insofar as neoliberalism expands itself in the form of a newly enlarged reproductive labor market, accomplished through the relative expulsion of the workers from their homes (and into

    vehicles) and the absolute expulsion of a migrant labor force from the global south to fill this new market.

    Migration therefore has and continues to function as a constitutive form of social reproduction (thesis one). This is a crucial thesis because it stresses the active role migrants play in the production and reproduction of society, but it is not a new phenomenon. Marx was of course one of the first to identify this process with respect to the capitalist mode of production. The proletariat is always already a migrant proletariat. At any moment an employed worker could be unemployed and forced to relocate according to the demands of capitalist valorization. In fact, the worker’s mobility is the condition of modern industry’s whole form of motion. Without the migration of a surplus population to new markets, from the rural to the city, from city to city, from country to country (what Marx calls the “floating population”) capitalist accumulation would not be possible at all. “Modern industry’s whole form of motion,” Marx claims, “therefore depends on the constant transformation of a part of the working population into unemployed or semi-employed ‘hands.’”17 As capitalist markets expand, contract, and multiply “by fits and starts,” Marx says, capital requires the possibility of suddenly adding and subtracting “great masses of men into decisive areas without doing any damage to the scale of production. The surplus population supplies these masses.”18

    What is historically new about the neoliberal migration regime is not merely that it simply expels a portion of the population in order to put it into waged labor elsewhere. What is new is that late-capitalist neoliberalism has now expelled one portion of the workers from a portion of their ownun-waged reproductive activity in order open up a new market for the waged activity of an as yet unexploited productive population of migrants from the global South. In other words reproductive labor itself has become a site of capitalist expansion. Wherever objects and activities have not yet been commodified, there we will find the next frontier of capitalist valorization.

    The consequence of this is a dramatic double expulsion. On the one hand, the bourgeois migrant worker is expelled from her home in the form of unpaid reproductive transport labor so that on the other hand the proletarian migrant worker can be expelled from her home as an international migrant and then expelled from her home again as a commuting worker to do someone else’s reproductive activity. The burden of social reproduction then falls disproportionately on the last link in the chain: the unpaid reproductive labor that sustains the domestic and social life of the migrant family. This is what must be ultimately expelled to expand the market of social reproduction at another level. This expulsion falls disproportionally on migrant women from the global south who must somehow reproduce their family’s social conditions, commute, and then reproduce someone else’s family’s conditions well.19

    Neoliberalism thus works on both fronts at the same time. On one side it increasingly withdraws and/or privatizes state social services that aid in social reproductive activities (child care, health care, public transit, and so on) while at the same increasing transport and commute times making a portion of those activities increasingly difficult for workers. On the other side it introduces the same structural adjustment policies (curtailed state and increased privatization) into the global South with the effect of mass economic migration to Northern countries where migrants can become waged producers in what was previously an “unproductive” (with respect to capital) sector of human activity: social reproduction itself.

    Conclusion

    This is the sense in which migrants play a constitutive role in the kinopolitics of social reproduction and neoliberal expansion. In other words, neoliberal migration has made possible a new level of commodification of social reproduction itself. Waged domestic labor is not new, of course, but what is new is the newly expanded nature of this sector of labor and its entanglement with a global regime of neoliberal expulsion and forced migration.

    One of the features that defines the uniquely neoliberal form of social reproduction today is the degree to which capitalism has relied directly on economically liberal trade policies and politically liberal international governments in order to redistribute record-breaking numbers of “surplus migrant reproductive labor” into Western countries. Global migration is therefore not the side-effect of neoliberal globalization; it is the main effect. Neoliberalism should thus be understood as a migration regime for expanding Western power through the expulsion and accumulation of migrant reproductive labor.

    https://philosophyofmovementblog.com/2019/02/28/three-theses-on-neoliberal-migration-and-social-reproducti

    #migrations #exploitation #néolibéralisme #mobilité #travail #main_d'oeuvre #reproduction_sociale #philosophie

    Mise en exergue d’une citation (fin de l’article) :

    Global migration is therefore not the side-effect of neoliberal globalization; it is the main effect. Neoliberalism should thus be understood as a migration regime for expanding Western power through the expulsion and accumulation of migrant reproductive labor.

    Article publié ici :


    https://polygraphjournal.com/issue-27-neoliberalism-and-social-reproduction

  • The Secret History of Women in Coding
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/magazine/women-coding-computer-programming.html

    Almost 200 years ago, the first person to be what we would now call a coder was, in fact, a woman: Lady Ada Lovelace. As a young mathematician in England in 1833, she met Charles Babbage, an inventor who was struggling to design what he called the Analytical Engine, which would be made of metal gears and able to execute if/then commands and store information in memory. Enthralled, Lovelace grasped the enormous potential of a device like this. A computer that could modify its own instructions and memory could be far more than a rote calculator, she realized. To prove it, Lovelace wrote what is often regarded as the first computer program in history, an algorithm with which the Analytical Engine would calculate the Bernoulli sequence of numbers. (She wasn’t shy about her accomplishments: “That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal; as time will show”, she once wrote.) But Babbage never managed to build his computer, and Lovelace, who died of cancer at 36, never saw her code executed.

    #femmes #informatique #rapports_sociaux_de_sexe #parité