Camille Chalmers

Country: Haiti

Organisation: PAPDA – Plateforme Haïtienne de Plaidoyer pour un Développement Alternatif 

Website: http://www.papda.org/

Topic:

•    Crisis of Civilisation and the Alternative
•    New Utopias, visions and strategies for building anti-capitalist alternatives, solidarity and hope

Chalmers is an economist and political activist in Haiti. He is the executive director of PAPDA (Plateforme Haïtienne de Plaidoyer pour un Développement Alternatif) – In defence of an alternative development – and focuses on popular mobilisation as a tool to find alternatives to the current neoliberal policies of the World Bank and IMF. Between 1993 and 1994 he served as Director of Haiti’s then President Jean Bertrand Aristide’s staff. Chalmers has done extensive work in Haiti’s agricultrural sector and is a long standing advocate of debt cancellation and finding alternatives to neoliberalism and privatisation.

Edgardo Lander

Country: Venezuala

Organisation: Latin American Social Science Council’s (CLACSO)/ Universidad Central de Venezuela

Website: http://www.clacso.org/

Topic: Crisis of Civilisation as a multi-dimensional crisis – Ecology; Climate Change; Food; Social and Urban

Lander is involved in social movements in the Americas that defeated the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA).  He is part of the Latin American Social Science Council (CLACSO) research group on Hegemonies and Emancipations and an editorial board member of the journal Revista Venezolana de Economía y Ciencias Sociales. Lander is one of the leading thinkers and writers on the left in Venezuela, both supportive and constructively critical of the Venezuelan revolution under Chavez and is a Social Sciences Professor at Universidad Central de Venezuela. Currently, he is part of the steering committee of the Hemispheric Council of the Social Forum of the Americas.

Areas of expertise include Politics in Latin America and Venezuela; Critique of eurocentric and colonial character of modern social science knowledge; democratic theory; limits of industrial civilization and economic growth; Chavez and Venezuela; Latin American Left.

Some Recent Published work, written and/or edited:

•    Contribución a la crítica del marxismo realmente existente: Verdad, ciencia y tecnología

•    La ciencia y la tecnología como asuntos politicos

•    Neoliberalismo, sociedad civil y democracia

Source: http://www.tni.org/users/edgardo-lander

Lillian Celiberti

Country: Uruguay

Organisation: Cotidiano Mujer/ Youth and South American Integration Project/ MERCOSUR

Website:

Topic: Crisis of Civilisation as a multi-dimensional crisis – Ecology; Climate Change; Food; Social and Urban

Celibriti is well known for her work in gender and youth and is the co-ordinator of a feminist collective across Latin America – Cotidiano Mujer – as well as Uruguay’s national co-ordinator for the Youth and South American Integration Project. Celebriti headed the technical secretariat of the MERCOSUR Expert Meeting on Women to promote a gender approach to regional integration and co-ordinates its participation in the Inter-American Platform of Human Rights, Democracy and Development. She is a professor.

Miguel Palacin

Country: Peru

Organisation: Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indigenas

Website: http://www.minkandina.org/

Topic: Crisis of Civilisation and the Alternative

Palacin is the president of Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indigenas (CAOI)  – the Andean Coordination of Indigenous Organizations and a Quechua Indigenous leader. He is actively involved in fighting for the rights of, and raising awareness around the issues facing Indigenous peoples, especially in Peru. Palacin was also president of the National Confederation of Communities Affected by Mining in Peru (CONACAMI) which was instrumental in uniting communities affected by mining in Peru.

Trevor Ngwane

Country: South Africa

Organisation: Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC)

Website:

Topic: Rebuilding the global justice movement towards Dakar WSF, COP17 and Rio+20

Ngwane is a political activist who fought vehemently against the apartheid regime. In 1995 (post-apartheid) he was appointed as an ANC councillor in Pimville, Soweto. However, he was expelled from the ANC in 1999 after speaking out against the Igoli 20002 project which was a plan to privatise municipal services. He continued to rally against privatisation and helped found the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC) in 2001 and is its national co-ordinator. The SECC advocates against the privatisation of basic municipal services with a specific focus on access to electricity. He also helped form the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF). Currently, he is studying a Masters degree in sociology at the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu Natal.

Sam Moya

Country: Zimbabwe

Organisation: African Institute of Agrarian Studies (AIAS)

Website: http://www.aiastrust.org/

Topic: New Utopias, visions and strategies for building anti-capitalist alternatives, solidarity and hope

Moya is the executive director of the African Institute for Agrarian Studies (AIAS) in Harare, Zimbabwe and a Professor. He specialises in rural development pertaining to social movements, land reform and environmental policy and has lectured and done research for almost three decades. Moya has lectured in Calabar and Port Harcourt in Nigeria, the University of Zimbabwe, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Fort Hare, South Africa.

His worked has focused greatly on Zimbabwe where he has acted as senior advisor for many organisations on land reform issues in southern Africa. His published works include:

•    The Land Question in Zimbabwe (Harare: Sapes Books, 1995)

•    Land Reform Under Structural Adjustment in Zimbabwe (Uppsala: The Nordic Africa Institute, 2000)

•    African Land Questions, Agrarian Transitions and the State: Contradictions of Neoliberal Land Reforms, (CODESRIA Greenbook, Dakar: 2008)

Moema Miranda

Country: Brazil

Organisation: Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Research (IBASE)

Website: http://www.ibase.br/

Topic: Rebuilding the global justice movement towards Dakar WSF, COP17 and Rio+20

Miranda is an anthropologist and coordinator at Brazilian based organisation, IBASE (Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Research). She has an MA in Social Anthropology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Miranda has worked at IBASE since 1992 and in the late 90’s tackled the issue of slums (favelas) and urbanisation. She has also formed part of the organizing committee for the past five World Social Forums (WSF) and is the IBASE representative on the WSF International Council.

Mamadou Goita

Country: Mali

Organisation: Institute for Research and the Promotion of Alternatives in Development (IRPAD)

Website: http://www.irpadafrique.org/

Topic: Crisis of Civilisation as a multi-dimensional crisis – Ecology; Climate Change; Food; Social and Urban

Goita is the Executive Director of the Institute for Research and the Promotion of Alternatives in Development (IRPAD) in Mali, a social economist and activist. He also chairs of the board of AMASSA (Association Malienne pour la Sécurité et la Souveraineté Alimentaire and is actively involved in social movements. Goita works with farming networks in West Africa and helped co-ordinate the World Food Sovereignty Forum in 2007. Issues worked on include governance, cotton, decentralisation and local development and he has been involved in socio-economic studies and research in Africa.

Jacklyn Cock

Country: South Africa

Organisation:

Website:

Topic: New Utopias, visions and strategies for building anti-capitalist alternatives, solidarity and hope

Jacklyn Cock is a professor in sociology and an Honorary Research Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her published work focuses on gender and environmental issues and the labour movement. She is a regular contributor to the bi-monthly magazine Amandla! Cock’s research also focuses on the labour movement and Published works include:

•    Maids and Madams: A Study in the Politics of Exploitation (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1989)

•    Going Green: People, Politics and the Environment (co-edited with Eddie Koch) (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1991)

•    The War Against Ourselves: Nature, Power and Justice (Wits University Press, 2007)

Ayanda Kota

Country: South Africa

Organisation: Unemployed Peoples Movement (UPM)

Website:

Topic: Social Movements and Popular Encounters with the Crisis of Civilisation

Kota is the national chairperson of the Unemployed People’s Movement which was established in August 2009. It is based in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape and is a newly formed movement vying for the rights of the unemployed through social transformation. In a recent interview with a local South African newspaper Kota states that, “…it is critical we work very hard to unite the left and make it a real force in South African politics. In one year’s time we hope to have millions signed up. This is achievable considering more than half the 50 million people in South Africa are unemployed.”

Desmond D’Sa

Country: South Africa

Organisation: South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA)

Website: http://www.sdcea.co.za

Topic: Social Movements and popular encounters with the crisis of civilisation

D’Sa is an activist in South Durban, South Africa. He is a strong advocate for environmentalism and tackles the issues of pollution in that area. As a teenager his family was forcibly removed from Cato Manor because of the Group Areas Act under apartheid. He was forced to stay in Wentworth where gangsterism grew. D’Sa then founded the Wentworth Crisis Committee to tackle this issue and in 1994 he founded the Wentworth Development Forum which would address the housing issue.

However, during this time he realised that the diseases that those in area were suffering from could be linked to the pollution in South Durban. Therefore, in 1997 various groups came together to form the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) aimed at cleaning up the area, where D’Sa is the chairperson.