Revolutionary Desires examines the lives and subjectivities of militant-nationalist and communist women in India from the late 1920s, shortly after the communist movement took root, to the 1960s, when it fractured. This close study demonstrates how India's revolutionary women shaped a new female - and in some cases feminist - political subject in the twentieth century, in collaboration and contestation with Indian nationalist, liberal-feminist, and European left-wing models of womenhood. Through a wide range of writings by, and about, revolutionary and communist women, including memoirs, autobiographies, novels, party documents, and interviews, Ania Loomba traces the experiences of these women, showing how they were constrained by, but also how they questioned, the gendered norms of Indian political culture. A collection of carefully restored photographs is dispersed throughout the book, helping to evoke the texture of these women's political experiences, both public and private. Revolutionary Desires is an original and important intervention into a neglected area of leftist and feminist politics in India by a major voice in feminist studies.

"as indispensable to confronting, say, your domineering mother-in-law or your local city council as it is to helping foment an ongoing and ever-escalating insurrection against, say, a sexist, racist, nepotistic power-mad oligarchy threatening to destroy democracy as we know it...My advice: Buy one" - VOGUE A guerrilla guide to radical protest and joyful political resistance from artist, activist and Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova. The face of modern protest is wearing a brightly colored ski mask. Nadya Tolokonnikova, founding member of the Russian activist group Pussy Riot, is a creative activist, professional protestor, brazen feminist, shocking visual artist, and force to be reckoned with. Her spontaneous, explosive approach to political action has involved jumping over barbed wire, kissing police officers, giving guerilla performances in crowded subway cars, and going on a hunger strike to protest the abuse of prisoners. She's been horse-whipped by police in Sochi, temporarily blinded when officers threw green paint in her eyes, and monitored by the Russian government. But what made Nadya an activist icon overnight happened on February 21, 2012, when she was arrested for performing an anti-Putin protest song in a Moscow church. She was sent to a Russian prison for 18 months and emerged as an international symbol of radical resistance, as calls to "Free Pussy Riot" resounded around the world. With her emblematic ski mask, black lipstick, and unwavering bravery, Nadya has become an emissary of hope and optimism despite overwhelming and ugly political corruption. Read & Riot is structured around Nadya's ten rules for revolution (Be a pirate! Make your government shit its pants! Take back the joy!) and illustrated throughout with stunning examples from her extraordinary life and the philosophies of other revolutionary rebels throughout history. Rooted in action and going beyond the typical "call your senator" guidelines, Read & Riot gives us a refreshing model for civil disobedience, and encourages our right to question every status quo and make political action exciting--even joyful.

This book is about the building of alliances and about joint activities between two groups of social movement actors ascribed increasing relevance for the functioning and the eventual amendment of democratic capitalism. The chapters provide a well-balanced mix of theoretical and empirical accounts on the political, social and economic catalysts behind the changing motives finding expression in a multitude of novel types of joint collective action and inter-organizational alliances. The contributors to this volume go beyond attempting to place unions, movements, crises, precariousness, protests and coalitions at the centre of the research. Instead, they focus on actors who themselves transcend clear-cut social camps. They look at the values and motives underlying collective action by both types of actors as much as at their structural and strategic properties, and inter-organizational relations and networks. This creates a fresh, genuine and historically valid account of the incompatibilities and the commonalities of movements and unions, and of prospects for inter-organizational learning.

Contents:
List of Illustrations. Notes on Contributors. Acknowledgements. 1. Comparisons Between an Area of Research in Germany, Great Britain and Italy A. Jobert, C. Marry, L.Tanguy 2. Education, Vocational Training and Employment in Germany C. Marry 3. Thirty Years of the Sociology of Education B. Krais 4. Relationships Between the Educational and Employment Systems M. Frackmann 5. Social Change and the Modernisation of School-to-Work Transitions W. Heinz and U. Nagel 6. The Relationship Between Education and Employment in German Industrial Sociology I. Drexel 7. Labour Market Transitions and Dynamics of Transitions in Germany K. Schomann 8. Institutions and the Market L. Tanguy and H. Rainbird 9. The Transition from School to Work and Its Heirs D. Raffe 10. Labour Market Approaches to the Study of the Relationship Between Education and (Un)employment in the UK D. Ashton 11. Is This a Way of Understanding Education-Work Relations? L. Chisholm 12. The Social Construction of Skill H. Rainbird 13. The Approaches of Economists to the Relationship Between Training and Work D. Marsden 14. Employment, Education and Training in Italy A. Jobert 15. Analysis of Research in the Sociology of Education: 1960-1990 L. Benadusi and P.Botta 16. Youth Employment and Public Action in Italy M. Giovine 17. Connections Between Collective Bargaining, Job Training and Educational Research in Italy S. Meghnagi 18. Industrial Development and Training Policies V. Capecchi 19. Socio-economic Approaches to the Labour Market P. Calzibini. Index.

Jane Addams, the co-founder of Hull House, the famous settlement home, writes about her experiences and insights in her autobiography, Twenty Years at Hull House. As a child growing up in Illinois, Addams suffered from Pott's Disease, which was a rare infection in her spine. This disease caused her to contract many other illnesses, then because of these aliments, Addams was self-conscious of her appearance. She explains that she could not play with other children often due to a limp, a side effect to her illnesses. Still, she is able to provide relatable and even amusing childhood anecdotes. Addams was very close to her father. She admired him for his political work, which likely inspired her own interest and attention to the social problems of her society. In a time invested with xenophobia and cruelty towards immigrants, Addams bought land in Chicago and co-founded a settlement house named Hull House. There, Addams sought to improve the lives of immigrants and the poor by providing shelter, essential social services, and access to education. Addams served as an advocate not only for the impoverished and immigrants, but also for women. She was a leader within the women's suffrage movement, determined to expand the work she did for her community to a national scale. Twenty Years at Hull House provides both a conversation about social issues and an example of how to act against them. Though originally published in 1910, Addams autobiography provides social discourse that is not only still relevant, but also considered radical by some. Addams' autobiography was well received when it was first released, impacting many key reform movements. Twenty Years at Hull House still carries that effect today, inspiring its readers to improve their community and advocate for those in need. This edition of Twenty Years at Hull House by Jane Addams features a new, eye-catching cover design and is printed in a readable font, ready to inspire readers to follow the footsteps and musings of activist Jane Addams.

Political disillusionment is widespread in contemporary society. In Japan, the search for the 'outside' of a stagnant reality sometimes leads marginalised young people to a disastrous image of social change. The Fukushima nuclear disaster was the realisation of such an image, triggering the largest wave of activism since the 1960s. The disaster revealed the interconnected nature of contemporary society. The protesters regretted that their past indifference to politics prefigured such a catastrophe and became motivated to protest in the streets. They did not share any totalising ideology or predetermined collective identity. Instead, the activism provided a space for each body to encounter others who forced them to feel and think, which also introduced an ethical dimension to their politics. In this book, Azumi Tamura proposes a concept of politics as a series of endless experiments based on creative responses to unexpected forces. Instead of searching for a transcendental reference for politics, she investigates an immanent force within individuals that motivates them to become involved in political action. Referencing Deleuzian philosophy, Tamura provides a different epistemological and ontological approach to the social movement studies. She suggests social movements themselves generate knowledge about how one may live better in a complex society and where our lives are exposed to uncertainty. This knowledge is neither empirical knowledge, nor normative political theory of 'how we should live'. Instead, social movements bring affective knowledge into politics as they offer a space for experimenting with 'how we might live.' The encounter with such knowledge galvanizes our desire for 'how we want to live' and encourages new experiments.

Muckraking and progressivism have always marched arm-in-arm, cutting a wide path through modern American history. Originally published as Appointment at Armageddon, Filler's book is a vital contribution in understanding the intrinsic dynamic of reform in American life. It extracts from the issues that fostered progressivism and muckraking an essence that illuminates contemporary debate. Filler points out that early twentieth-century progressivism was essentially middle class, seeking common denominators for social interests. It was also a modernizing force in such areas as child labor, poverty, farm problems, and race relations. In his new introduction, Filler reviews various instances of progressivism throughout history. Filler maintains that progressivism died out when pride in its achievements turned to bitterness. Rather than celebrating the progress made by outstanding Americans, such as W.E.B. DuBois and Susan B. Anthony, various groups began focusing only on the oppressed and the oppressors. By concentrating on the negative instead of the positive, Americans abandoned the forward-looking tenets of turn of the century progressivism. Muckraking and Progressivism in the American Tradition is a timely book. It is needed to inspire Americans to find a new way to solve current dilemmas. This significant work will be of interest to sociologists, historians, and political theorists.

First Published in 1996. This study is the outcome of eight-months' fieldwork in Beijing, the capital of the People's Republic of China (PRC), from 8 November 1988 to 17 June 1989. The original purpose of the fieldwork had been to acquire a grass-roots perspective on the dynamics of Chinese state socialist society under the impact of ten years of reform. This was extended to include People's Movement. The central questions this book therefore tries to answer are: how can these two different fieldwork experiences be reconciled with each other, and what do they tell us about the dynamics of Chinese culture and society?

Were the occupations of 2010-11 - from Spain to Tahrir Square to Occupy Wall Street - a success or failure? Are they the model for urban radical politics? This book challenges common understandings and underlying assumptions of what constitutes activism and resistance. It proposes a critical urban theory of politics and citizenship that is grounded in the city as it is inhabited. For those who are marginalized, the city is a double-edged sword of oppression and emancipation. This book argues for an intersectional approach that actively dismantles hierarchies and embraces a wider range of acts of resistance and creative transformation, one in which we recognize these acts of citizenship as a form of constitutionalism. Wood reframes the theorization of protest and of the city, 'post-political' literature and the history of protest, and Marxist and anarchist ideas about the time and space of politics. Through this, she adopts a unique approach to provide new theoretical insights and challenges to post-political thinking. This book will be valuable reading for those interested in political, urban and social geography, in addition to political economy and progressive politics in the urban context.

This title was first published in 2003. Militant racism is concerned with antagonism and hostility associated with racist activity. Within a society it is expressed by material that may stir up racial hatred and/or discrimination. It can also be seen on the streets and, indeed, the alleged racist criminality orchestrated by militant gangs. After examining the possible causes of militant racism and its effects, this book considers the new laws designed to tackle racially-motivated crime found in the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act. A central theme of the book is the balance between freedom of expression and penalizing racially-offensive expression.

The initial push for a federation among British Caribbean colonies might have originated among the white elites, but the banner for federation was quickly picked up by Afro-Caribbean activists who saw in the possibility of a united West Indian nation a means of securing political power and more. In Building a Nation, Eric Duke moves beyond the narrow view of federation as only relevant to Caribbean and British imperial histories. By examining support for federation among many Afro-Caribbean and other black activists in and out of the West Indies, Duke convincingly expands and connects the movement's history squarely into the wider history of political and social activism in the early-mid-twentieth century Black Diaspora. Exploring the relationships between the pursuit of Caribbean federation and Black Diaspora politics, Duke posits that federation was more than a regional endeavor; it was a diasporic, black-nation building undertaking-with broad support in diaspora centers such as Harlem and London-deeply immersed in ideas of racial unity, racial uplift, and black self-determination.

Opposing Democracy in the Digital Age is about why ordinary people in a democratizing state oppose democracy and how they leverage both traditional and social media to do so. Aim Sinpeng focuses on the people behind popular, large-scale anti-democratic movements that helped bring down democracy in 2006 and 2014 in Thailand. The yellow shirts (PAD-People's Alliance for Democracy) that are the focus of the book are anti-democratic movements grown out of democratic periods in Thailand, but became the catalyst for the country's democratic breakdown. Why, when, and how supporters of these movements mobilize offline and online to bring down democracy are some of the key questions that Sinpeng answers. While the book primarily uses a qualitative methodological approach, it also uses several quantitative tools to analyze social media data in the later chapters. This is also one of the few studies in the field of regime transition that focuses on anti-democratic mobilization and takes the role of social media seriously.

This highly readable book, is a unique, ethnographic study of devolution and Scottish politics as well as party political activism more generally. Available in paperback for the first time, it explores how Conservative Party activists who had opposed devolution and the movement for a Scottish Parliament during the 1990s attempted to mobilise politically following their annihilation at the 1997 General Election. It draws on fieldwork conducted in Dumfries and Galloway - a former stronghold for the Scottish Tories - to describe how senior Conservatives worked from the assumption that they had endured their own 'crisis' in representation. The material consequences of this crisis included losses of financial and other resources, legitimacy and local knowledge for the Scottish Conservatives. This book ethnographically describes the processes, practices and relationships that Tory Party activists sought to enact during the 2003 Scottish and local government elections. Its central argument is that, having asserted that the difficulties they faced constituted problems of knowledge, Conservative activists cast to the geographical and institutional margins of Scotland became 'banal' activists. Believing themselves to be lacking in the data and information necessary for successful mobilisation during Parliamentary elections, local Tory Party strategists attempted to address their knowledge 'crisis' by burying themselves in paperwork and petty bureaucracy. -- .

"Combines a remarkable amount of close research with a deep understanding of the role of gender in the making of the Freedom Struggle. This book will hold a place of honor on the growing shelf of scholarship on the movement in South Carolina."--W. Scott Poole, author of "Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting" "Rediscovering fascinating black and white women, Jones-Branch thoughtfully analyzes how they endeavored to change South Carolina's racial climate."--Marcia G. Synnott, author of "The Half-Opened Door: Discrimination and Admissions at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, 1900-1970" Although they were accustomed to a segregated society, many women in South Carolina--both black and white, both individually and collectively--worked to change their state's unequal racial status quo. In this volume, Cherisse Jones-Branch explores the early activism of black women in organizations including the NAACP, the South Carolina Progressive Democratic Party, and the South Carolina Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. At the same time, she discusses the involvement of white women in such groups as the YWCA and Church Women United. Their agendas often conflicted and their attempts at interracial activism were often futile, but these black and white women had the same goal: to improve black South Carolinians' access to political and educational institutions.
Examining the tumultuous years during and after World War II, Jones-Branch contends that these women are the unsung heroes of South Carolina's civil rights history. Their efforts to cross the racial divide in South Carolina helped set the groundwork for the broader civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

Series Information:
Critical Social Thought

In the personal and frank Confessions of a Free Speech Lawyer, Rodney A. Smolla offers an insider's view on the violent confrontations in Charlottesville during the "summer of hate." Blending memoir, courtroom drama, and a consideration of the unhealed wound of racism in our society, he shines a light on the conflict between the value of free speech and the protection of civil rights. Smolla has spent his career in the thick of these tempestuous and fraught issues, from acting as lead counsel in a famous Supreme Court decision challenging Virginia's law against burning crosses, to serving as co-counsel in a libel suit brought by a fraternity against Rolling Stone magazine for publishing an article alleging that one of the fraternity's initiation rituals included gang rape. Smolla has also been active as a university leader, serving as dean of three law schools and president of one and railing against hate speech and sexual assault on US campuses. Well before the tiki torches cast their ominous shadows across the nation, the city of Charlottesville sought to relocate the Unite the Right rally; Smolla was approached to represent the alt-right groups. Though he declined, he came to wonder what his history of advocacy had wrought. Feeling unsettlingly complicit, he joined the Charlottesville Task Force, and he realized that the events that transpired there had meaning and resonance far beyond a singular time and place. Why, he wonders, has one of our foundational rights created a land in which such tragic clashes happen all too frequently?

This title was first published in 2000. Drawing upon fieldwork conducted with Amnesty International, the Labour Party, Tenants' Associations and the Exodus collective, this work examines the nature of political activism. The author combines Habermasian theory and empirical fieldwork to critically analyze the nature of the political public sphere. While adopting a Habermasian approach, Clark recognizes the problems and limitations associated with notions of civil society and communicative action. An empirically formed critical stance is maintained throughout the work. Three main themes are drawn from this research: an analysis of structures of political participation; presentation of a typology of political activism ; analysis of the public process of participation. Essential reading for those studying public participation and its relationship to activism, as well as for students of politics, public policy and sociology.

The Green Movement in Iran contains Hamid Dabashi's most important writings on the Iran's June 2009 election, its tumultuous aftermath, and the characteristics and aspirations of the emerging Green Movement. These analyses range from close analysis of the nature of the events to the Green Movement's historical background and future political consequences. The writings have been modified and updated for book publication. The volume presents Dabashi's account of the events since June 12, 2009 the Election Day itself and his recap of highlights of the build-up period to the mass protests. He provides insightful background for events on the ground, dealing with debates about the credibility of the election. He then discusses political continuity in Iran, as well as the characteristics of the Green Movement. Dabashi argues that the reaction of the custodians of the Islamic Republic to the charge of the election being a fraud only affirms its lost legitimacy, and casts the system as being neither "Islamic" nor a "republic." Dabashi also comments on US politics and its relations to Iran and the Green Movement, pointing out shortcomings in American media culture. The role of the Iranian opposition in the Green Movement and American political policies, the political and economic consequence of the U.S. sanctions against Iran, and the way these may be interpreted by Iranian society are all viewed from an enlightening perspective. Dabashi argues that the Iranian regime, suffering deeply from legitimacy issues, makes use of its bureaucratic, economic, and political leverage to stage a show of support and project division among the people.

Early nineteenth-century Ireland witnessed widespread and prolonged rural unrest, as groups of labourers and smallholders formed secret societies demanding land reform, fair rents, the protection of wages and an end to tithes. One of the most active of these groups - the Rockites - waged a vigorous and sustained campaign of arson, intimidation and houghing (maiming of animals) across the southern half of Ireland during the 1820s, quickly attracting the attention of the authorities in both Ireland and Britain. Combining analyses of local and economic concerns with wider national political dimensions, this book offers an in-depth and alternative interpretation of the Rockites. Attaching particular importance to the political dimensions of the Rockites, Katsuta demonstrates how their political mindset was created by local circumstances. Styling themselves descendants of the United Irishmen, Rockites drew on the memories of the bitter political struggles in Cork during the 1790s, as well as current political events such as Daniel O'Connell's mass mobilisation to oppose the Catholic relief bill in 1821. As well as situating the Rockites within the Irish context, the book also offers insights into how British politicians dealt with Ireland in the early years of the Union. The Rockite disturbances prompted the Tory government to adopt a new course that proved less a remedy to problems in Ireland than as a response to events within parliament. In turn Rockites became a useful tool for Whigs and radicals in Westminster to blame the Tories for the misgovernment of Ireland, revealing how the Irish question in the early nineteenth-century UK was regarded first and foremost as a parliamentary issue.

Aroused by gains in civil rights and galvanized by the antiwar movement, radical leaders of the 1960s sought to make revolutionary changes in American society. Partly through their leadership, a generation was awakened by the call for a counterculture. That generation is now responsible for the same social and political structures they so adamantly, and sometimes violently, opposed. How did the sixties affect the counterculture leaders? And what are they doing now? Paul Krassner, Cleveland Sellers, Jane Adams, Dave Dellinger, Bill Ayers, Warren Hinckle, Peter Berg, Noam Chomsky, Tim Leary, Philip Berrigan, Anita Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Erica Huggins, Jim Fouratt, Bernadine Dohrn, Barry Melton, Peter Coyote, and Abbie Hoffman reflect on the seminal events that dominated the sixties and discuss the major issues and problems facing America (and them!) today.

Due to the strong sense among the student community of belonging to a specific social group, student revolts have been an integral part of the university throughout its history. Ironically, since the Middle Ages, the advantageous position of students in society as part of the social elite undoubtedly enforced their critical approach. This edited collection studies the role of students as a critical mass within their urban context and society through examples of student revolts from the foundation period of universities in the Middle Ages until today, covering the whole European continent. A dominant theme is the large degree of continuity visible in student revolts across space and time, especially concerning the (rebellious) attitudes of and criticisms directed towards students. Too often, each generation thinks they are the first. Moreover, student revolts are definitely not always of a progressive kind, but instead they are often characterized by a tension between conservative ambitions (e.g. the protection of their own privileges or nostalgia for the good old days) and progressive ideas. Particular attention is paid to the use of symbols (like flags, caps, etc.), rituals and special traditions within these revolts in order to bring the students' voice back to the fore.

The growing influence of Russia on the Western far right has been much discussed in the media recently. This book is the first detailed inquiry into what has been a neglected but critically important trend: the growing links between Russian actors and Western far right activists, publicists, ideologues, and politicians. The author uses a range of sources including interviews, video footage, leaked communications, official statements and press coverage in order to discuss both historical and contemporary Russia in terms of its relationship with the Western far right. Initial contacts between Russian political actors and Western far right activists were established in the early 1990s, but these contacts were low profile. As Moscow has become more anti-Western, these contacts have become more intense and have operated at a higher level. The book shows that the Russian establishment was first interested in using the Western far right to legitimise Moscow's politics and actions both domestically and internationally, but more recently Moscow has begun to support particular far right political forces to gain leverage on European politics and undermine the liberal-democratic consensus in the West. Contributing to ongoing scholarly debates about Russia's role in the world, its strategies aimed at securing legitimation of Putin's regime both internationally and domestically, modern information warfare and propaganda, far right politics and activism in the West, this book draws on theories and methods from history, political science, area studies, and media studies and will be of interest to students, scholars, activists and practitioners in these areas.

This ambitious work provides a unique statement on the question of place-based activism and its relationship to powerful forces of international capital. Arguing that specific places around the world are sites for the defense and enhancement of daily life in the context of rapidly expanding global technologies and investment options, the contributors reach for a vision of social development that supports sustainable, humane cultures. Bringing together the local and the global, this work provides the first sustained linkage of ethnic groups in diaspora to macrocosmic processes of world capital that inevitably reach down to mediate even the most local experiences. The essays, ranging in their discussion of place from Los Angeles and New York to New Zealand and Indonesia, offer both reasoned argument and authoritiative information on how local experience interacts with larger processes of global capital and the diasporic phenomenon. The book will be an invaluable resource and launching point for scholars and students in ethnic and identity studies and will interest all readers exploring the production of place and identification.

An in depth and scholarly report on the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), an essential actor on behalf of modern-day Kurds The Kurds, who number some 28 million people in the Middle East, have no country they can call their own. Long ignored by the West, Kurds are now highly visible actors on the world's political stage. More than half live in Turkey, where the Kurdish struggle has gained new strength and attention since the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq. Essential to understanding modern-day Kurds-and their continuing demands for an independent state-is understanding the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers' Party. A guerilla force that was founded in 1978 by a small group of ex-Turkish university students, the PKK radicalized the Kurdish national movement in Turkey, becoming a tightly organized, well-armed fighting force of some 15,000, with a 50,000-member civilian militia in Turkey and tens of thousands of active backers in Europe. Under the leadership of Abdullah Ocalan, the war the PKK waged in Turkey through 1999 left nearly 40,000 people dead and drew in the neighboring states of Iran, Iraq, and Syria, all of whom sought to use the PKK for their own purposes. Since 2004, emboldened by the Iraqi Kurds, who now have established an autonomous Kurdish state in the northernmost reaches of Iraq, the PKK has again turned to violence to meet its objectives. Blood and Belief combines reportage and scholarship to give the first in-depth account of the PKK. Aliza Marcus, one of the first Western reporters to meet with PKK rebels, wrote about their war for many years for a variety of prominent publications before being put on trial in Turkey for her reporting. Based on her interviews with PKK rebels and their supporters and opponents throughout the world-including the Palestinians who trained them, the intelligence services that tracked them, and the dissidents who tried to break them up-Marcus provides an in-depth account of this influential radical group.