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    Class in movement, forming and unforming

    Leslie, Esther (2023) Class in movement, forming and unforming. Crisis and Critique 10 (1), ISSN 2311-8172.

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    Abstract

    On the basis of observations on Marx’s concept of class as a fluid and self-undoing formation, this essay considers the ways in which solidifications of class as an identity have failed to grasp the extent to which class is always in movement, both across time and within each moment of its existence. The implications of this stance are followed through in relation to contemporary fantasies of AI enabled deployment into production without limit , which argues that class is redployed as a digital quality – but one that will not ever gain critical consciousness – or, alternatively, is, as amounts to the same thing, transcended. What is left behind and out in the vision? How might those made redundant, but still the source of wealth, in combination with nature, not stop, on account of this technical shift, being a class that is directed towards forming and deforming itself as class, even if it makes less – but does not become less subject to extraction – in pursuit of which it is directed to consume more? Keywords: Movement, ferment, consciousness, critique, schooling

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication
    Depositing User: Esther Leslie
    Date Deposited: 14 Jun 2023 15:34
    Last Modified: 09 Aug 2023 12:54
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/51414

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