Autumn 2023 Organizing Reports
Volume 26, no. 1, Gender: Beyond Binaries
You can find previous organizing reports here. Contact secretary@sciencefothepeople.org to get involved!
Archive Working Group
The Science for the People Archive Digitization Working Group is a team of volunteers across SftP chapters working to digitize the full legacy of SftP by uploading all the original magazines to our fully searchable online platform: archive.scienceforthepeople.org.
The digitization process involves transcribing all of the text from PDFs of the original magazines into editable documents, editing the formatting and fixing errors that occur due to scanning/copying, extracting images, tagging the articles by topic, and uploading these articles to our archive wordpress site. To date, we have published Volumes 2-11 (1970-1979) and are working on formatting and publishing articles through Volume 21 (1989). This project is building on the work of the team who initially created PDFs of all the issues for the 2014 SftP Conference site. If you are interested, we organize archive digitization orientations several times a year, and we are always happy to work with new volunteers on the project!
We also collaborate with current SftP magazine editorial collectives to find ways to incorporate archive content into new issues. You will see our work in this issue, where we link to archive content that relates to the articles in this issue and provide some more context for the history and prior work of SftP. We are working in the background on building reading guides and syllabi to make engaging with the content more accessible.
We can always use more people on the team! Join the working group and learn more about the history of radical science through hands-on experience with its archive, and feel free to contact archives@scienceforthepeople.org.
People’s Science Network
What’s the People’s Science Network (PSN)? PSN acts as the fundraising and fiscal sponsorship body for Science for the People and its affiliated projects. We coordinate financial planning and reporting for our publishing and organizing initiatives. Our all-volunteer board is advised by officers of Science for the People, and together we strategize ways to support the development and ensure longevity of our work.
What’s the PSN been up to? The growth and success of the magazine, combined with the rising costs of everything, as well as the flux of financial models mean that we have optimized our accounting and reporting practices to improve our budgeting. We have also created projections of our finances to ensure balanced accounts under uncertain conditions, while prioritizing funds for the excellent publishing and organizing work of Science for the People members. Speaking of funding, we are delighted to share that the Western Massachusetts chapter 1will host their annual People’s Science Fair2 enhanced by PSN funding support. Their event showcased a diversity of projects by Western Massachusetts residents that harness STEM knowledge for social, economic, racial, environmental, climate, and cultural justice in the region. If your chapter has an idea for a new project that would benefit from PSN sponsorship, please reach out and we would be happy to discuss your concept and needs.
How can I help? We are always looking for more bodies and new energy, so if you are interested in volunteering for the Board of Directors, you can contact mail@pplsci.net. We are particularly interested in working with people who have experience with accounting and reporting processes for activism and publishing operations, or who want to learn.
Finally, you can support PSN by making a tax-deductible donation via
- Providing a recurring donation through our Action Network
- Mailing a check to:
People’s Science Network
PO Box 3817
Knoxville, TN 37927
The People’s Science Network Board of Directors
Ben Allen – President
Andrew Butts – Co-secretary
Fern Wildtruth – Co-secretary
Ashley Theissen – Co-secretary
Canada
Science for the People Canada
The Science for the People (SftP) Canada chapter turned the page on our first anniversary this spring. Coming full circle gives a reason to pause and reflect on what we have accomplished in this time and articulate our goals for the up-coming year.
COP15 campaign
Several SftP Canada members hosted teach-ins about anticapitalist science and participated in direct action campaigns related to the COP15 conference in Montréal on December 7-19, 2022. We supported campaigns that brought attention to capitalist greenwashing tactics within the COP15 and the need for radical alternatives that address the political and economic roots of the biodiversity crisis. Teach-ins were hosted at McGill University, Université de Montréal, and Sherbrooke on the financialization and commercialization of nature. These were important and timely discussions of the dangers of false solutions to biodiversity loss, such as debt-for-land swaps and biodiversity credits. We will continue engaging in direct, local actions, eager to collaborate with other activists with ideas and spaces to create more radical science teach-in opportunities in the future.
Organize the Lab book launch at Frigo Vert
Earlier this year on February 4th SftP Canada hosted our first in-person event: a book launch for SftP’s Organize the Lab which was held at Le Frigo Vert – an anti-capitalist, – colonial, and – oppression community space – in Montreal. We were grateful to host three of the authors – Drs. Calvin Wu, Shua Sanchez, and Elizabeth Karnaukh – in-person. They traveled from the Boston area on what turned out to be the coldest weekend of the year. Despite -40C temperatures, the turnout far exceeded our expectations! The venue was filled to near-capacity, and we were joined by 20 others via Zoom. The authors presented their personal experiences with graduate student organizing in the context of organizing within STEM fields. Presentations from the panelists were followed by an enriching discussion about radical science, challenges of unionizing scientists in general, and challenges specific to organizing in Québec. This book launch generated fantastic discussion and elicited questions from the audience that ultimately reinforced the SftP profile with the Canada chapter in Montréal. It also helped draw in new members, who attended subsequent in-person meet-ups.
Tri-weekly journal club
The chapter has also kept up online meetings once every three weeks over Zoom to discuss articles from both the current magazine and archival editions. We also use this time to discuss our local struggles and organizing. If you’d like to receive notifications about this journal club, don’t hesitate to reach out via the #Canada channel on SftP’s general Slack or by emailing sftp.canada@gmail.com.
Canadian magazine distribution
SftP has a new Canadian magazine distribution center – you can now purchase SftP books and magazines on www.leftwingbooks.net. Be sure to check out the other fantastic titles published and distributed by Kersplebedeb Publishing. Leftwingbooks delivers anywhere in the world, with free local delivery within Montréal and for orders over $50 in North America.
Upcoming events
SftP Canada will be tabling at the upcoming annual Anarchist Bookfair in Montréal, based at the Georges-Vanier Cultural Centre over the weekend of May 27th – 28th. We will be presenting the latest issue of the magazine as well as displaying various archival issues to help promote and reach new people
Overall, the chapter has continued to grow, and we have more exciting plans for future events. If you are in Canada, please do not hesitate to contact us!
