Chris Caruso

Student Fellow

Chris Caruso is a PhD candidate in Cultural Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York where he studies poverty, social movements, and new media. The focus of his dissertation is how grassroots anti-poverty organizations and social movements are using information technology to develop innovative strategies and new models of organizing. Chris is an Instructional Technology Fellow at the Macaulay Honors College and City College. He has also taught Urban Studies at Queens College. Chris received his BA from the University of Pennsylvania. He has spent more than 20 years working with organizations of the poor and working class in the US and globally.

Participating Years

2010–2011

Labor/Crisis/Protest

Labor processes and conditions of employment in almost all sectors of the economy and most of the world have been revolutionized over the last thirty years. Generally, the share of wages in gross domestic product has declined while the share taken by capital (finance in particular) has soared. The response (or lack of it) to these new conditions has been patchy, raising questions of the state of political consciousness and political subjectivity among affected populations. Where, many ask, is the outrage and why the lack of mass protest and mass movement?