Student Labour, Student Strikes, Student Power

While post-secondary education in Ontario is under attack by Doug Ford’s Conservative government, students in Québec are fighting back and planning an unlimited general strike. Why are there so many student strikes in Québec? What makes this one different? And why do some people think it’s revolutionary to consider study as a kind of labour, and students as workers? This talk will touch on the history of student organizing, the discursive construction of student identity, and the form and function of study in a late-capitalist economy.

Jonathan Turcotte-Summers is a first-year PhD student in the Department of Educational Studies who has worked as a teacher in four different countries and at virtually every stage of the formal school system. Originally from Tio:tia’ke (Montréal), on the traditional territory of the Kanienkeha:ha (Mohawk), he is also an anti-fascist, anti-colonialist, and anti-capitalist activist. At UBC, Jon has been awarded a Four-Year Doctoral Fellowship and an R. Howard Webster Foundation Fellowship.