Fruitful INCA Joint International Workshop on Rent Extraction Infrastructures
On 27 November, a joint international workshop on Infrastructures of Rent Extraction took place in Bologna. The event was organised by INCA members from the University of Bologna and Nova University Lisbon, in collaboration with CoLABOR, the University of Évora, and FCT.
The workshop began at 13:00 with an introduction by Amadeo Policante (Nova University Lisbon) and our colleague Mattia Frapporti (University of Bologna). They presented the context of the workshop, encouraging a rethinking of imperialist rent through the politics of global infrastructures. The rest of the day was structured into two thematic sessions, each composed of several talks.
The first session focused on Digital Infrastructures, Technoscience Rents, and Artistic Resistance, featuring three presentations:
- Technocapitalism: The Politics of the Interface, by Guillermo García Santos (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid & Università di Bologna)
- A New System? Crisis, Capital and the State in Italian Digital Sovereignty, by Davide Blotta (University of Urbino)
- Obstructing the Flow: Artistic Forms of Resistance in the Age of Rentier Capitalism, by Sara Marhuenda Barberà (Universitàt Politecnica de València)
The second session, titled Speculative Infrastructures and Financial Rents, included two presentations:
- A Submarine Extractive Enclave: Deep-Sea Mining and Rent Extraction in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, by Erica Borg (University College London)
- Projects and Opposition, by Evelina Gambino (University of Cambridge)
Discussions followed each session, with INCA members Sandro Mezzadra, Mattia Frapporti, and Maurilio Pirone (University of Bologna), as well as Niccolò Cuppini (SUPSI), acting as discussants.
The final segment of the event was a roundtable, concluding a highly fruitful activity that successfully condensed, in just a few hours, a rich exchange of reflections and ideas on the main topic.
