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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political activism > General
Technological advancements have always influenced politics in society, but never in as strong and direct a manner as in the Internet Age. E-Politics and Organizational Implications of the Internet: Power, Influence, and Social Change charts this influence and describes the unique effect electronic communication has on organizations, communities, nations, and cultures. This book presents the most current research on both the history of these powerful new tools and their preliminary impact both in across the world and in daily life. A thorough understanding of these technologies is necessary to properly navigate this new millennium and this reference is the beginning of that knowledge.
Charles Cornelius Coffin Painter (1833-89), clergyman turned reformer, was one of the foremost advocates and activists in the late-nineteenth-century movement to reform U.S. Indian policy. Very few individuals possessed the influence Painter wielded in the movement, and Painter himself published numerous pamphlets for the Indian Rights Association (IRA) on the Southern Utes, Eastern Cherokees, California Indians, and other Native peoples. Yet this is the first book to fully consider his unique role and substantial contribution. Born in Virginia, Painter spent most of his life in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, commuting to New York City and Washington, D.C., initially as an agent of the American Missionary Association (AMA), later as an appointed member of the Board of Indian Commissions (BIC), and most significant, as the Indian Rights Association's D.C. agent. In these capacities he lobbied presidents and Congress for reform, conducted extensive investigations on reservations, and shaped deliberations in such reform bodies as the BIC and the influential Lake Mohonk conferences. Mining an extraordinary wealth of archival material, Valerie Sherer Mathes crafts a compelling account of Painter as a skilled negotiator with Indians and policymakers and as a tireless investigator who traveled to far-flung reservations, corresponded with countless Indian agents, and drafted scrupulously researched reports on his findings. Recounted in detail, his many adventures and behind-the-scenes activities - promoting education, striving to prevent the removal of the Southern Utes from Colorado, investigating reservation fraud, working to save the Piegans of Montana from starvation - afford a clear picture of Painter's importance to the overall reform effort to incorporate Native Americans into the fabric of American life. No other book so effectively captures the day-to-day and exhausting work of a single individual on the front lines of reform. Like most of his fellow advocates, Painter was an unapologetic assimilationist, a man of his times whose story is a key chapter in the history of the Indian reform movement.
The Citizen Action Encyclopedia provides basic information on the activities and significance of the people, organizations, and events that comprise the history of American citizen activism in the 20th century. Containing almost 300 cross-referenced entries and 50 illustrations, the encyclopedia includes individuals, groups, and movements that achieved both national standing and significant success in altering the political, legal, social, or economic structure of the United States. The encyclopedia is the first single-volume reference work to cover the entire spectrum of American activism in the last century, describing groups and activists of both the Left and the Right. The book also offers broad general entries that put the debates on such issues as the environment and abortion policy into balanced perspective. The entries cover such broad issues and topics as BLAnimal Welfare and Rights BLConsumer Rights and Safeguards BLFarmers' Rights BLHomelessness BLLesbians and Gays BLLiberal Activism BLReligious Right BLStudent Activism BLTerm Limits BLVeterans' Issues And such specific organizations and individuals as BLAmericans for Tax Reform BLCesar Estrada Chavez BLJames C. Dobson BLFeminists for Life in America BLJohn Birch Society BLMalcolm X BLNational Council of Senior Citizens BLPeople for the American Way BLSierra Club BLUnited Students Against Sweatshops
Urban agriculture is increasingly considered an important part of creating just and sustainable cities. Yet the benefits that many people attribute to urban agriculture-fresh food, green space, educational opportunities-can mask structural inequities,thereby making political transformation harder to achieve. Realizing social and environmental justice requires moving beyond food production to address deeper issues such as structural racism, gender inequity, and economic disparities. Beyond the Kale argues that urban agricultural projects focused explicitly on dismantling oppressive systems have the greatest potential to achieve substantive social change. Through in-depth interviews and public forums with some of New York City's most prominent urban agriculture activists and supporters, Kristin Reynolds and Nevin Cohen illustrate how some urban farmers and gardeners not only grow healthy food for their communities but also use their activities and spaces to disrupt the dynamics of power and privilege that perpetuate inequity. Addressing a significant gap in the urban agriculture literature, Beyond the Kale prioritizes the voices of people of colour and women-activists and leaders whose strategies have often been underrepresented within the urban agriculture movement-and it examines the roles of scholarship in advancing social justice initiatives.
Until recently, scholars assumed that women "stopped speaking" after they won the vote in 1920 and did not reenter political life until the second wave of feminism began in the 1960s. Nothing could be further from the truth. While national attention did dissipate after 1920, women did not retreat from political and civic life. Rather, after winning the vote, women's public activism shifted from a single-issue agenda to the myriad social problems and public issues that faced the nation. As such, women began to take their place in the public square as political actors in their own rights rather than strictly campaigning for a "women's issue." This anthology documents women's activism during this period by introducing heretofore unpublished public speeches that address a wide array of debated topics including child labor, international relations, nuclear disarmament, consumerism, feminism and anti-feminism, social welfare, family life, war, and the environment. Some speeches were delivered in legislative forums, others at schools, churches, business meetings, and media events; still others before national political organizations. To ensure diversity, the volume features speakers of different ages, races, classes, ethnicities, geographic regions, and political persuasions. The volume editors include short biographical introductions as well as historical context for each selection.
Voices of Freedom: The Middle East and North Africa showcases essays from activists, journalists, novelists, and scholars whose areas of expertise include free speech, peace and reconciliation, alterity-otherness, and Middle Eastern and North African religions and literatures. Co-edited by TCU colleagues Rima Abunasser and Mark Dennis, the volume is meant to serve as a vehicle for giving dignity and depth to the peoples of these regions by celebrating courageous voices of freedom trying to respond to fundamental, often devastating, changes on the ground, including the Arab Spring, the Syrian refugee crisis, and the rise of the Islamic State. Writing in both the first- and third-person, essayists offer deeply moving portraits of voices that cry out for freedom in chaotic, and often violent, circumstances. Voices of Freedom is aimed at college classes that address the many ways in which freedom intersects with politics, religion, and other elements in the societies of these dynamic and diverse regions. It will serve as a valuable primary source for college teachers interested in exploring with their students the struggle for freedom in non-Western and transnational cultural contexts. The volume is also meant to attract other audiences, including readers from the general public interested in learning about inspirational people from parts of the world about which Americans and other English-speaking peoples are generally unfamiliar.
Defiance against Chinese oppression has been a defining
characteristic of Tibetan life for more than four decades,
symbolized most visibly by the much revered Dalai Lama. But the
story of Tibetan resistance weaves a far richer tapestry than
anyone might have imagined. The CIA's Secret War in Tibet takes readers from training camps in the Colorado Rockies to the scene of clandestine operations in the Himalayas, chronicling the agency's help in securing the Dalai Lama's safe passage to India and subsequent initiation of one of the most remote covert campaigns of the Cold War. Establishing a rebel army in the northern Nepali kingdom of Mustang and a para-commando force in India designed to operate behind Chinese lines, Conboy and Morrison provide previously unreported details about secret missions undertaken in extraordinarily harsh conditions. Their book greatly expands on previous memoirs by CIA officials by putting virtually every major agency participant on record with details of clandestine operations. It also calls as witnesses the people who managed and fought in the program-including Tibetan and Nepalese agents, Indian intelligence officers, and even mission aircrews. Conboy and Morrison take pains to tell the story from all perspectives, particularly that of the former Tibetan guerrillas, many of whom have gone on record here for the first time. The authors also tell how Tibet led America and India to become secret partners over the course of several presidential administrations and cite dozens of Indian and Tibetan intelligence documents directly related to these covert operations. Ultimately, they are persuasive that the Himalayan operations were far more successful as a proving ground for CIA agents who were later reassigned to southeast Asia than as a staging ground for armed rebellion. As the movement for Tibetan liberation continues to attract international support, Tibet's status remains a contentious issue in both Washington and Beijing. This book takes readers inside a covert war fought with Tibetan blood and U. S. sponsorship and allows us to better understand the true nature of that controversy.
"Design as Politics" confronts the inadequacy of contemporary politics to deal with unsustainability. Current "solutions" to unsustainability are analysed as utterly insufficient for dealing with the problems but, further than this, the book questions the very ability of democracy to deliver a sustainable future. "Design as Politics" argues that finding solutions to this problem, of which climate change is only one part, demands original and radical thinking. Rather than reverting to failed political ideologies, the book proposes a post-democratic politics. In this, design occupies a major role, not as it is but as it could be if transformed into a powerful agent of change, a force to create and extend freedom. The book does no less than position design as a vital form of political action.
This accessible yet authoritative collection of essays chronicles the history of dissent in the British Isles, from Magna Carta to the present day. The contributors - all specialists in their field - cover such milestones as the age of revolution, industrialisation and the foundation of the Labour Party. Tony Benn contributes a powerful, final extended chapter arguing that "we are light years away from being a true democracy."
The southern Agrarians were a group of twelve young men who joined, from 1929 to 1937, in a fascinating intellectual and political movement. Prominent among them were Robert Penn Warren, Allen Tate, John Crowe Ransom, and Donald Davidson. In the midst of the depression, these gifted writers tried, as did so many other intellectuals, to plot the best cultural and economic choices open to southerners and Americans as a whole. That they failed to gain most of their goals does not diminish the significance of their crusade, or the enduring values that they espoused. Interweaving group biography and intellectual history, Conkin traces how these young intellectuals came to write their classic manifesto, "I'll Take My Stand, " relates their political advocacy to the earlier Fugitive movement in poetry, and follows their careers after the Agrarian crusade fell apart. More than any other historian or critic, Conkin takes seriously the economic and political beliefs of these southern writers.
Popular music has long been used to entertain, provoke, challenge and liberate but also to oppress and control. Can popular music be political? What types of popular music work best with politics? How can songs, videos, concerts or any other musical commodity convey ideas about power, politics and identity? Using Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies (MCDS), this book reveals the deeply political role played by popular music. Lyndon Way demonstrates how MCDS can provide important and timely insights on the political nature of popular music, due to its focus on how communication takes place, as well as its interest in discourse and how ideologies are naturalised and legitimised. The book considers the example of contemporary Turkish society, with its complex and deep ideological divisions increasingly obvious under the stewardship of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his centre-right political party, in power since 2002. It looks at how the authorities seek to harness and control popular music and considers a wide range of popular music genres including rock, rap, protest and folk music. It shows how official promotional videos, protest cut-and-paste offerings, party-political election songs, live music events and internet discussions about popular music emerge as sites of power and resistance in certain venues and particularly across social media. Throughout the book, Lyndon Way shows that popular music is also deeply political.
Gwen Lister is a world-renowned journalist, political activist and free-press advocate. Born in South Africa, she moved to Namibia to pursue her journalism career. She launched (with Hannes Smith) the Windhoek Observer and later, The Namibian. This memoir chronicles her remarkable life, brave journalism and political activism.
How do we respond in the face of evil, especially to those who inflict grave evil upon us? Abducted in Iraq is Bishop Saad Sirop Hanna’s firsthand account of his abduction in 2006 by a militant group associated with al-Qaeda. As a young parish priest and visiting lecturer on philosophy at Babel College near Baghdad, Fr. Hanna was kidnapped after celebrating Mass on August 15 and released on September 11. Hanna’s plight attracted international attention after Pope Benedict XVI requested prayers for the safe return of the young priest. The book charts Hanna’s twenty-eight days in captivity as he struggles through threats, torture, and the unknown to piece together what little information he has in a bid for survival. Throughout this time, he questions what a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq means for the future, as well as the events that lead the country on that path. Through extreme hardship, the young priest gains a greater knowledge both of his faith and of remaining true to himself. This riveting narrative reflects the experience of persecuted Christians all over the world today, especially the plight of Iraqi Christians who continue to live and hold their faith against tremendous odds, and it sheds light on the complex political and spiritual situation that Catholics face in predominantly non-Christian nations. More than just a personal story, Abducted in Iraq is also Hanna’s portrayal of what has happened to the ancient churches of one of the oldest Christian communities and how the West’s reaction and inaction have affected Iraqi Christians. More than just a story of one man, it is also the story of a suffering and persecuted people. As such, this book will be of great interest to those wanting to learn more about the violence in the Middle East and the threats facing Christians there, as well all those seeking to strengthen their own faith.
Pollsters called it a foregone conclusion. Columnists said Theresa May's snap general election wouldn't just return her a thumping majority in the House of Commons - it would plunge the opposition into existential crisis. For Labour MPs, concerns about "job security" in an age of zero-hours contracts suddenly felt uncomfortably close to home. And then something happened. Momentum got to work. Grime4Corbyn gathered steam. Clicktivists were transformed into door-knocking, flag-waving activists. Soon, a familiar chant - "Oh, Jeremy Corbyn" - was reverberating around football stadiums and venues across the country. All this while Theresa turned Maybot and the Conservatives released a manifesto that looked bad for people and even worse for animals. Featuring work by many of the UK's best-known cartoonists, including Martin Rowson, Steve Bell and Stephen Collins, The Corbyn Comic Book captures the qualities, quirks and flaws of a man whose startling rise to prominence has been the defining story of 2017. He didn't win, but he did cause a political earthquake. Corbynmania is a thing now - and so is Comix4Corbyn.
This book contains a range of original studies on one of the major
challenges in Africa today: the controversial role of youth in
politics, conflict and rebellious movements. The issue is not only
the drafting of child soldiers into insurgent armies or predatory
militias, as in Somalia, Sierra Leone or Congo, but, more
generally, that of the problematic insertion of large numbers of
young people in the socio-economic and political order of
post-colonial Africa. Even educated youths are being confronted
with a lack of opportunities, blocked social mobility, and despair
about the future. Many of the political antagonisms and conflicts
in which youths are involved do not only exist at the discursive
level but are being produced by current demographic and
socio-political contradictions in Africa. African youth, while
forming a numerical majority, largely feel excluded from power, are
socio-economically marginalized and thwarted in their ambitions.
They have little access to representative positions or political
power, which is making for a politically volatile situation in many
African countries.
The untold story of the Black nationalist group behind the growing popularity of Kwanzaa In spite of the ever-growing popularity of Kwanzaa, the story of the influential Black nationalist organization behind the holiday has never been told. Fighting for Us explores the fascinating history of the US Organization, a Black nationalist group based in California that played a leading role in Black Power politics and culture during the late 1960s and early '70s whose influence is still felt today. Advocates of Afrocentric renewal, US unleashed creative and intellectual passions that continue to fuel debate and controversy among scholars and students of the Black Power movement. Founded in 1965 by Maulana Karenga, US established an extensive network of alliances with a diverse body of activists, artists and organizations throughout the United States for the purpose of bringing about an African American cultural revolution. Fighting for US presents the first historical examination of US' philosophy, internal dynamics, political activism and influence on African American art, making an elaborate use of oral history interviews, organizational archives, Federal Bureau of Investigation files, newspaper accounts, and other primary sources of the period. This book also sheds light on factors contributing to the organization's decline in the early '70s-government repression, authoritarianism, sexism, and elitist vanguard politics. Previous scholarship about US has been shaped by a war of words associated with a feud between US and the Black Panther Party that gave way to a series of violent and deadly clashes in Los Angeles. Venturing beyond the lingering rhetoric of rivalry, this book illuminates the ideological similarities and differences between US's "cultural" nationalism and the Black Panther Party's "revolutionary" nationalism. Today, US's emphasis on culture has endured as evidenced by the popularity of Kwanzaa and the Afrocentrism in Black art and popular media. Engaging and original, Fighting for US will be the definitive work on Maulana Karenga, the US organization, and Black cultural nationalism in America.
How do progressive social movements deal with religious pluralism? In this book, Timothy Peace uses the example of the alter-globalisation movement to explain why social movement leaders in Britain and France reacted so differently to the emergence of Muslim activism.
Ensconced in the tight kinship network of a local household in Oaxaca, Mexico, the author embarked on a challenging study of a radical ethnic political movement, COCEI. An anthropologist who married a Zapotec Women, the author chronicles his fieldwork in this memoir. His research is interwoven with his personal experiences, addressing the political and ethical dilemmas of contemporary ethnography. Campbell's informants are internationally known politicians, poets, and painters who live in Juchitan, a large city controlled by indigenous activists. While adopting aspects of the postmodern critique of ethnography, the author proposes and illustrates a collaborative form of research based on partisan political commitment. Through a candid and intimate account, he portrays his informants and research site, and his direct involvement in Zapotec society. The book is both a highly readable ethnography of Southern Mexico and a contribution to debates about current anthropology.
Sol Plaatje is celebrated as one of South Africa’s most accomplished political and literary figures. A pioneer in the history of the black press, editor of several newspapers, he was one of the founders of the African National Congress in 1912, led its campaign against the notorious Natives Land Act of 1913, and twice travelled overseas to represent the interests of his people. He wrote a number of books, including – in English – Native Life in South Africa (1916), a powerful denunciation of the Land Act and the policies that led to it, and a pioneering novel, Mhudi (1930). Years after his death his diary of the siege of Mafeking was retrieved and published, providing a unique view of one of the best known episodes of the South African War of 1899–1902. At the same time Plaatje was a proud Morolong, fascinated by his people’s history. He was dedicated to Setswana, and set out to preserve its traditions and oral forms so as to create a written literature. He translated a number of Shakespeare’s plays into Setswana, the first in any African language, collected proverbs and stories, and even worked on a new dictionary. He fought long battles with those who thought they knew better over the particular form its orthography should take. This book tells the story of Plaatje’s remarkable life, setting it in the context of the changes that overtook South Africa during his lifetime, and the huge obstacles he had to overcome. It draws upon extensive new research in archives in southern Africa, Europe and the US, as well as an expanding scholarship on Plaatje and his writings. This biography sheds new light not only on Plaatje’s struggles and achievements but upon his personal life and his relationships with his wife and family, friends and supporters. It pays special attention to his formative years, looking to his roots in chiefly societies, his education and upbringing on a German-run mission, and his exposure to the legal and political ideas of the nineteenth-century Cape Colony as key factors in inspiring and sustaining a life of more or less ceaseless endeavour.
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