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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political activism > General
The world is currently witnessing the emergence of a new context
for education, labor, and transformative social movements. Global
flows of people, capital, and energy increasingly define the world
we live in. The multinational corporation, with its pursuit of
ever-cheaper sources of labor and materials and its disregard for
human life, is the dominant form of economic organization, where
capital can cross borders, but people can't. Affirmative action,
democracy, and human rights are moving in from the margins to
challenge capitalist priorities of "efficiency", i.e. exploitation.
In some places, the representatives of popular movements are
actually taking the reins of state power. Across the globe new
progressive movements are emerging to bridge national identities
and boundaries, in solidarity with transnational class, gender, and
ethnic struggles. At this juncture, educators have a key role to
play. The ideology of market competition has become more entrenched
in schools, even as opportunities for skilled employment diminish.
We must rethink the relationship between schooling and labor,
developing transnational pedagogies that draw upon the myriad
social struggles shaping students' lives and communities. Critical
educators need to connect with other social movements to put a
radically democratic agenda, based on the principles of equity,
access, and emancipation, at the center of educational praxis. Many
countries in Latin America like in other continents are developing
new alternatives for the reconstruction of social projects; these
emerging sources of hope are the central focus of this book. Major
historical change always starts with people's social movement.
Democracy can be one of the best political and social systems in
the world but for it to work entails the sustainable participation
of citizens. Above all, it requires that people be informed and
critically educated since the quality of democracy depends on
quality of education. There are 2 kinds of power: money and people.
If people exercise their agency, they can be more powerful than
money. There are some organizing principles of social movements,
as: "don't do for others what they should do for themselves." Saul
Alinsky wrote: Rules for Radicals: A pragmatic primer for realistic
radicals; Mary Rogers: Cold Anger: A story of faith and power
politics; Michael Gecan: Going Public: An organizer's guide to
citizen action; and Ernesto Cortez's, Industrial Area Foundation,
are all great sources for organized activism that do work. I put
some of these principles to the test and they produced positive
results, I was a founder and president of a union at my university
and I lived my whole life as an activist and learned that, we can
do more together than alone. Now we also have a new digital war
with the Cambridge Analitica and Breitbart's fake news
manipulation; however, we also have social-justice hacktivism to
counter act it, as well as other democratic social media venues
that critical thinkers and activist use. The chapters in this book
demonstrate the importance of widening and diversifying social
movements, at the same time, emphasizes the need to build cohesive
alliances among all the different fronts. What some people think is
"impossible" can become a transformed reality, for those who dare
attempt changing the world as global citizens.
***Winner of an English PEN Award 2021*** In this sharp
intervention, authors Luci Cavallero and Veronica Gago defiantly
develop a feminist understanding of debt, showing its impact on
women and members of the LGBTQ+ community and examining the
relationship between debt and social reproduction. Exploring the
link between financial activity and the rise of conservative forces
in Latin America, the book demonstrates that debt is intimately
linked to gendered violence and patriarchal notions of the family.
Yet, rather than seeing these forces as insurmountable, the authors
also show ways in which debt can be resisted, drawing on concrete
experiences and practices from Latin America and around the world.
Featuring interviews with women in Argentina and Brazil, the book
reveals the real-life impact of debt and how it falls mainly on the
shoulders of women, from the household to the wider effects of
national debt and austerity. However, through discussions around
experiences of work, prisons, domestic labour, agriculture, family,
abortion and housing, a narrative of resistance emerges. Translated
by Liz Mason-Deese.
"Thoughtful and often moving." Gaby Hinsliff, The Guardian Female
Masculinities and the Gender Wars provides important theoretical
background and context to the 'gender wars' or 'TERF wars' - the
fracture at the forefront of the LGBTQ international conversation.
Using queer and female masculinities as a lens, Finn Mackay
investigates the current generational shift that is refusing the
previous assumed fixity of sex, gender and sexual identity.
Transgender and trans rights movements are currently experiencing
political backlash from within certain lesbian and lesbian feminist
groups, resulting in a situation in which these two minority
communities are frequently pitted against one another or perceived
as diametrically opposed. Uniquely, Finn Mackay approaches this
debate through the context of female masculinity, butch and
transmasculine lesbian masculinities. There has been increasing
interest in the study of masculinity, influenced by a popular
discourse around so-called 'toxic masculinity', the rise of men's
rights activism and theory and critical work on Trump's America and
the MeToo movement. An increasingly important topic in political
science and sociological academia, this book aims to break new
ground in the discussion of the politics of gender and identity.
Born in 1917 in Bizana in the Eastern Cape, Oliver Reginald Tambo became Nelson Mandela's legal partner and a prominent member of the ANC's Youth League.
Following the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, Tambo left South Africa to set up the ANC's international mission. As President of the ANC in exile, he led the fight against apartheid on both the diplomatic and military fronts. He died in 1993 on the eve of liberation. Tambo had a profound influence on the ANC during the difficult years of uncertainty, loneliness and homesickness in exile. His simplicity, his nurturing style, his genuine respect for all people seemed to bring out the best in them.
This is the story of one of South Africa's great sons - 'the most loved leader', the Moses who led his people to the promised land but did not live to enter it.
Politics of the Many draws inspiration from Percy Bysshe Shelley's
celebrated call to arms: 'Ye are many - they are few!' This idea of
the Many, as a general form of emancipatory subjectivity that
cannot be erased for the sake of the One, is the philosophical and
political assumption shared by contributors to this book. They
raise questions of collective agency, and its crisis in
contemporary capitalism, via new engagements with Marxist
philosophy, psychoanalysis, theories of social reproduction and
value-form, and post-colonial critiques, and drawing on activist
thought and strategies. This book interrogates both established and
emergent formations of the Many (the people, classes, publics,
crowds, masses, multitudes), tracing their genealogies, their
recent failures and victories, and their potentials to change the
world. The book proposes and explores an intense and provoking
series of new or reinvented concepts, figures, and theoretical
constellations, including dividuality, the centaur, unintentional
vanguard, insomnia at work, always-on capitalism, multitude (from
its 'voiding' to a '(non)emergence'), crowds, necropolitics, and
the link between political subjectivity and value-form. The
contributors to Politics of the Many are both acclaimed and
emergent thinkers including Carina Brand, Rebecca Carson, Luhuna
Carvalho, Lorenzo Chiesa, Jodi Dean, Dario Gentili, Benjamin
Halligan, Marc James Leger, Paul Mazzocchi, Alexei Penzin, Stefano
Pippa, Gerald Raunig, and Stevphen Shukaitis.
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Building Bridges
(Hardcover)
Kendra Weddle, Jann Aldredge-Clanton
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This book investigates the interplay between media, politics,
religion, and culture in shaping Arabs' quest for more stable and
democratic governance models in the aftermath of the "Arab Spring"
uprisings. It focuses on online mediated public debates,
specifically user comments on online Arab news sites, and their
potential to re-engage citizens in politics. Contributors
systematically explore and critique these online communities and
spaces in the context of the Arab uprisings, with case studies,
largely centered on Egypt, covering micro-bloggers, Islamic
discourse online, Libyan nationalism on Facebook, and a
computational assessment of online engagement, among other topics.
Since long before the age of celebrity activism, literary authors
have used their public profiles and cultural capital to draw
attention to a wide range of socio-political concerns. This book is
the first to explore – through history, criticism and creative
interventions – the relationship between authorship, political
activism and celebrity culture across historical periods, cultures,
literatures and media. It brings together scholars, industry
stakeholders and prominent writer-activists to engage in a
conversation on literary fame and public authority. These scholarly
essays, interviews, conversations and opinion pieces interrogate
the topos of the artist as prophet and acute critic of the
zeitgeist; analyse the ideological dimension of literary celebrity;
and highlight the fault lines between public and private authorial
selves, ‘pure’ art, political commitment and marketplace
imperatives. In case studies ranging from the 18th century to
present-day controversies, authors illuminate the complex
relationship between literature, politics, celebrity culture and
market activism, bringing together vivid current debates on the
function and responsibility of literature in increasingly fractured
societies.
A Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2022 A Financial Times Politics Book
of the Year 2021 A fascinating account of Russia's famous dissident
and the politics he embodies. Who is Alexei Navalny? Poisoned in
August 2020 and transported to Germany for treatment, the
politician returned to Russia in January 2021 in the full glare of
the world media. His immediate detention at passport control set
the stage for an explosive showdown with Vladimir Putin. But
Navalny means very different things to different people. To some,
he is a democratic hero. To others, he is betraying the Motherland.
To others still, he is a dangerous nationalist. This book explores
the many dimensions of Navalny's political life, from his
pioneering anti-corruption investigations to his ideas and
leadership of a political movement. It also looks at how his
activities and the Kremlin's strategies have shaped one another.
Navalny makes sense of this divisive character, revealing the
contradictions of a man who is the second most important political
figure in Russia-even when behind bars. In order to understand
modern Russia, you need to understand Alexei Navalny. This updated
version includes new material following Russia's February 2022
invasion of Ukraine.
While South Africa has many stories about the struggle years, yet
many more remain untold. For the Fallen; honouring the unsung
heroes and heroines of the liberation struggle was inspired by a
radio interview with the late Govan Mbeki. In that interview Mbeki
emphasised the need for South Africans to tell their stories and
spread knowledge. It took a while for Ndlela to heed those words
and tell his story in this book. This book is as much about the
author’s concerns that a generation who have only known freedom
will forget or never even understand the great price it took to
gain that freedom, as it is about the often forgotten heroes and
heroines who showed their ultimate commitment to their ideals. The
book chronicles the author’s journey from Bedford in the Eastern
Cape as a young boy, fearful and yet defiant of the police who
harassed him and his friends, to the young militant who became an
MK soldier whose exile took him to Lesotho, Zambia, Angola and
Swaziland. He describes the inspiration he gained from the heroes
and heroines he encountered on this journey. These heroes and
heroines included the primary school teacher who encouraged parents
to broaden their thinking and who stressed the importance of
education; the radical high school teacher who defied the “system
“and the school curriculum to teach real, “current” history and the
man of God who was required to save souls in more ways than one. As
the reader accompanies Ndlela on this retrospective journey, one
will encounter individuals who would later play a pivotal role in
the establishment and concretisation of the democratic South
Africa, people such as Thenjiwe Mtintso, Chris Hani, Jeff Radebe,
Rev Makhenkesi Stofile, Mvuyo Tom and many others. For the Fallen
is above all, a reminder that our freedom was not lightly gained
and that we should keep telling these stories, lest we forget.
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