Gaggles of activists representing a myriad of ideas will return to the AU campus this weekend for the National Conference on Organized Resistance. The annual conference is slated to take place from this Friday to Sunday in a celebration of topical awareness, social justice and revolution.
The conference itself was founded under the auspices of AU Animal Rights Effort, one of AU's oldest on-campus organizations. Until 2003, when NCOR's organization branched off into the "NCOR Club" and received its own advisor and student representation, the conference was organized under the sponsorship of AUARE.
This year's collection of workshops, film screenings and performances marks the ninth time that the conference has taken place at AU. Every year since 1998, a collective of AU students and D.C. community activists alike have committed themselves to coordinating the conference's contents - from the recurring workshops on "radicalizing your life" led by AU professor Colman McCarthy to case studies on the "politics of food" in the United States. The bulk of 1998's pioneering conference content dealt with animal rights issues, but since then programming has expanded exponentially.
Kat Schiffler, a senior in the School of International Service, was a member of this year's collective. Other members included AU students Gene Fielden and Lauren Barthel, as well as selected D.C. community activists and AU alum Sonya Mendoza. As a participant in NCOR every year that she has been on the AU campus, Schiffler found her experience as a collective member to be personally rewarding.
"Every year the collective members shape the subjects at NCOR," Schiffler says. "[We get to] make the conference representative of us."
To Schiffler, one priority was bringing in presenters from the Midwest, a region she considers to be underrepresented in the activism community. This year, a woman from Kansas named Erika Nelson will be presenting, along with her "mobile museum," on the issue of combating "genericana." According to the NCOR website, the workshop will emphasize the Midwest and its "struggles with the agricultural industry, the out-migration of young people and the increasing 'generification' of places with the influx of chain stores and the Wal-Martization of the rural landscape."
Schiffler also recounted how NCOR has evolved since her freshman year. She described her early experiences as "pretty wild," specifically with the large number of participants sleeping in AU dorm lounges - a practice that has since been addressed by AU Housing and Dining.
The collective aspect of NCOR's organization has also brought in a lot of members of the D.C. activist community since Schiffler first began attending.
"I feel like a minority as a student," Schiffler says
Yet Schiffler also praises the "diverse representation of life experiences" that comes with incorporating the at-large community into NCOR's programming, which in turn makes the conference more legitimate and more professional. Thanks to this kind of growth, the collective is capable of "pushing more complex ideas," Schiffler says.
NCOR's growth is physical as well as ideological. Last year's conference drew in approximately 1,500 people. Schiffler says that they are expecting at least 2,000 people to show up this year, based on participant registration numbers. Because many people tend to "just show up," Schiffler says, there is no truly accurate way to know exactly how many people will be coming to AU this weekend.
Another change in NCOR's composition this year is its move from the Ward building to the Mary Graydon Center. While Schiffler is confident that the location switch will be smooth, she is also aware that there is some concern that some people will be uncomfortable with NCOR taking place somewhere different for the first time in nine years.
NCOR's graphic designer this year is Josh MacPhee of JustSeeds.org, a radical culture design hub. MacPhee is responsible for the blue and yellow stickers that have appeared around AU, as well as many T-shirts that will available for sale at the conference.
The National Conference on Organized Resistance will run from Friday, Feb. 3, through Sunday, Feb. 5. For more information, visit www.organizedresistance.org.
