Environmental stories have all the elements of a good drama-villains that plunge the world into danger and heroes that fight for positive change. Industrial Disasters and Environmental Policy: Stories of Villains, Heroes, and the Rest of Us illuminates the interplay between environmental policies and the people and groups who influence their development and implementation. Through the stories of four major industrial disasters-the Union Carbide plant explosion, the BP oil spill, the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion, and the asbestos poisoning in Libby, Montana-this book examines the organizational breakdowns and regulatory lapses that caused these disasters, and how attitudes and policies changed as a result. It also explores the achievements of environmental heroes like Gaylord Nelson and Judy Bonds and how their activism has shaped US environmental politics and policies. Industrial Disasters and Environmental Policy concludes with a discussion of how the "rest of us" can participate in everyday environmental actions, hold corporations and the government accountable, and lobby for greater environmental protections. With its compelling stories and calls to action, this book helps students understand how US environmental policies have developed and transformed-and how they can continue to do so.

Let My People Go is as much Albert Luthuli's extraordinary story as that of the African National Congress, which he led for fifteen years. He gives a first-hand account of the repression and resistance that were to shape the South African political landscape forever: the Defiance Campaign, which marked the first mass challenge to apartheid, the drafting of the Freedom Charter, the Treason Trial, the Alexandra bus boycott and the 1959 potato boycott, as well as the tragedies of Sharpeville, Langa and Nyanga.

Albert Luthuli was also the first black man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and this book bears witness to Luthuli's unfailing humility, perseverance, and passionate commitment to the values of non-racialism and non-sexism. His vision, crucial to the shaping of the South Africa we live in today, continues to move and inspire.

The heart of any trade union is its reps and activists organising in the workplace. After years of membership decline across sectors, a renewed recognition of this essential fact is behind the 'turn to organising' in the union movement today. This turn to collective organising builds strength at a local as well as a national level, and also aids in mobilising around a wider range of political issues from campaigning against austerity to taking action for the environment. In recent years, this fusion of workplace organising and national campaigning has been exemplified by Europe's largest education trade union, the National Education Union (NEU). In Lessons in Organising, the authors bring together activist, academic and union official perspectives to assess the potential (and the limitations) of the 'turn to organising' and set out the case for a new transformative trade unionism for the 21st century.

“There was no definite decision on the length of the [hunger] strike – it was to go on until their demands for release were met, or until collapse. They became slow and flagging and they didn’t talk much.”

Previously banned and unavailable in South Africa, Helen Joseph writes a moving personal account of enduring the Treason Trial - one of the longest and most important trials in South African history. She shares stories of the Pony Post -the trialists' own postal service and language, the treatment of prisoners, and the ‘real heroes’ of the Trial: the wives of the accused. She writes honestly and details the trialists' perseverance, struggles, compassion and commitment to fighting oppression for all South Africans.

This edition is a vital addition to curating our South African history and to our ever-growing Pocket Series.

This book offers a vast range of grassroots perspectives on global migrant labour organisation in the twenty-first century. From workers' organisations in South African migrant worker resistance in the Gulf, from forest workers in the Czech Republic to domestic workers' structures in Hong Kong, this book brings together a wealth of lived experiences and hidden struggles for the first time. Highlighting the changing nature of frontline struggles against exploitation, Just Work? shows that migrant workers are finding new and innovative ways of resisting neoliberal immigration measures as they are forced to fight against the precarious nature of jobs from both within and outside of traditional forms of labour organisations. With contributions from scholars and activists from around the world engaged in this resistance, this will be an accessible collection based on grassroots experiences, placed in a political economy framework. The full list of regions explored are: South Africa, Latin America, Philippines, the Gulf Arab States, North America, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Japan, London, Nigeria, New Zealand, Canada and Switzerland.

The New Yorker's award-winning war correspondent returns to his own country to chronicle a story of mounting civic breakdown and violent disorder, in a vivid eyewitness narrative of revelatory explanatory power.

On the morning of January 6, a gallows was erected on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. A little after noon, as thousands of Trump supporters marched past the structure, some paused to climb its wooden steps and take pictures of the US Capitol framed within an oval noose. Up ahead, the dull thud of stun grenades could be heard, accompanied by bright flashes. Several people carried Confederate flags. Others had Tasers, baseball bats, bear spray, and truncheons. 'They need help!' a man shouted. 'It's us versus the cops!' No one seemed surprised by what was taking place. There was an eerie sense of inexorability, mixed with nervous hesitation. It reminded me of combat: the slightly shocked, almost bashful moment when bravado, fantasy, and training crash against reality.

In early 2020, Luke Mogelson, who had been living in France and covering the Global War on Terrorism, returned home to report on the social discord that the pandemic was bringing to the fore in the US. Soon, he found himself embedded with militias descending on the Michigan state capitol. From there, the story swept him on to Minneapolis, then to Portland, and ultimately to Washington, D.C. His stories for The New Yorker were hailed as essential first drafts of history. They were just the tip of the iceberg.

The Storm Is Here is the definitive eyewitness account of how--during a season of sickness, economic uncertainty, and violence--a large segment of Americans became convinced that they needed to rise up against dark forces plotting to take their country away from them, and then did just that. It builds month by month, through vivid depictions of events on the ground, from the onset of the pandemic to the attack on the US Capitol--during which Mogelson was in the Senate chamber with the insurrectionists--and its aftermath. Bravely reported and beautifully written, Mogelson's book follows the tradition of some of the essential chronicles of war and unrest of our time.

This book aims to encourage and develop understanding of the social category of gender, the concept of visual representation, and the relationship between the two, with contributions stimulating discussion within and between disciplines, research paradigms, and methods. By emphasising 'real world' issues, drawn from across the globe, the book aims to contribute towards and inspire broader feminist activism. Inviting readers to approach in an interdisciplinary spirit, the contributions suspend assumptions, and ask us to accept conceptual contradictions and tensions as they may arise, aspiring to (re)centre the concept of representation when considering the social category of gender within our dynamic and changing digital age. This book will be of interest to academics, students, and practitioners from a range of disciplines with an interest in gender studies and in particular the visual representation of gender. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Gender Studies.

The existence and urgency of global climate change is a matter of scientific consensus. Yet the global politics of climate change have been anything but consensual. In this context, a wave of global climate activism has emerged in the last decade in response to the perceived failure of the political negotiations. This book provides a unique comparative study of environmental movements in USA, Japan, Denmark and Sweden, analyzing their interaction with the international climate institutions of the United Nations, with national governments, and with currents in the global climate movement. It documents how and why the movement evolved between the Copenhagen Summit of 2009 and the Paris Summit of 2015, altering its strategies and tactics while attracting new actors to the issue area. Further, it demonstrates how the development of global environmental networks has increased contact between environmental movements in the Global North and those from the Global South, resulting in the establishment of 'climate justice' as a political cause and unifying frame for global climate activism.

What can culture, and its manifestations in artistic and creative forms, 'do'? Creativity and resistance in a hostile world draws on original collaborative research that brings together a range of stories and perspectives on the role of creativity and resistance in a hostile world. In times of racial nationalism across the world, this volume seeks to understand how creative acts have agitated for social change. The book suggests that creative actions themselves, and acting together creatively, can at the same time offer vital sources of hope. Drawing on a series of case studies, this volume focuses on the past and emergent grassroots arts work that has responded to racisms, the legacies of colonialism or the depredations of capitalist employment across several contexts and locations, including England, Northern Ireland and India. The book makes a timely intervention, foregrounding the value of creativity for those who are commonly marginalised from centres of power, including from the mainstream cultural industries. The authors also critically reflect on the possibilities and limitations of collaborative research within and beyond the academy. -- .

What would life be like if we had the courage to say, 'I want something different'? 'Elegant, thoughtful, vulnerable, and inspiring' Elizabeth Gilbert From a highly lauded modern voice in feminism and racial justice comes a deeply personal and insightful testament to the power of reimagining - the act of creating in our mind's eye that which does not but can and should exist We all experience breaking points, those moments when we realise that something must change. For activist, philanthropist, and CEO Rachel E. Cargle, reimagining - relationships, work, education, rest, faith and power - saw her through some of the most painful experiences and helped her to craft an authentic identity and become an incisive queer feminist voice of a generation. A Renaissance of Our Own offers a blueprint for how we can all use our imagination to live independent of oppressive structures and in alignment with our highest values - how we can all create a life that feels right. 'Dazzling - a loving, bold tale of imagination, bravery and radical action' Elle

This collection of essays confirms Carmen de Burgos's pivotal place in Spanish feminist history by bringing together eminent international scholars who offer new readings of Burgos's work. It includes the analyses of a number of lesser-known texts, both fictional and non-fictional, which give us a more comprehensive examination of Burgos's multipronge feminist approach. Burgos's works, especially her essays, are essential feminist reading and complement other European and North American traditions. Gaining familiarity with the breadth and depth of her work serves not only to provide an understanding of Spanish firstwave feminism, but also enriches our appreciation of cultural studies, gender studies, subaltern studies and travel literature. Looking at the entirety of her life and work, and the wide-ranging contributions in this volume, it is evident that Burgos embodied the tensions between tradition and modernity, depicting multiple representations of womanhood. Encouraging women to take ownership of their personal fashion, the design of their homes and the decorum of their families were steps towards recognizing a female population that was cognizant of its own desires.

Melissa Hekkers recounts her footsteps as she joins the journey of thousands of refugees seeking safety in Europe. Pushing the boundaries of creative non-fiction, Hekkers recreates the moments that marked her the most, whilst volunteering in refugee camps in Lesvos, Greece, and during her ongoing involvement with the refugee community in Cyprus. Amir's Blue Elephant is a glimpse into the sorrows of one of the biggest challenges faced by humanity today. Told through the eyes of a woman struggling to understand the realities asylum seekers are thrown into, this is the story of people fighting for the fragile right to freedom and liberty, the right to life itself.

The unique model of apartheid, colonisation and military occupation that Israel imposes on the Palestinians, along with myriad violations of international law, have made Palestine the moral cause of a generation. Yet many people continue to ask, 'what can we do?' Generation Palestine helps to answer this question by bringing together Palestinian and international activists in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The movement aims to pressure Israel until it complies with International Law, mirroring the model that was successfully utilised against South African apartheid. With essays written by a wide selection of contributors, Generation Palestine follows the BDS movement's model of inclusivity and collaboration. Contributors include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Ken Loach, Iain Banks, Ronnie Kasrils, Professor Richard Falk, Ilan Pappe, Omar Barghouti, Ramzy Baroud and Archbishop Attallah Hannah, alongside other internationally acclaimed artists, writers, academics and grassroots activists.

This book describes, compares, explains, and contextualises the positionings, i.e. discourses and activities, which feminists in Belgrade, Serbia and Zagreb, Croatia produced in relation to the (post-)Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Two types of positionings are analysed: those which the feminists have produced on the (sexual) war violence and those which they have produced on each other. Applying a Bourdieuian framework and using interviews with key feminist and peace activists in the region alongside a thorough examination of organisational documents and printed media articles, Ana Miskovska Kajevska challenges the common suggestion that the outbreak of the war violence in 1991 led to the same reorganisation of the Belgrade and Zagreb feminist fields. She corrects the understanding that the activists in each city, who had up until then worked together without tensions, divided at the same time and in the same manner into antinationalists and nationalists and began clashing with each other because of the different war-related positionings. Miskovska Kajevska explains further that the terms 'antinationalist' and 'nationalist' were not completely value-free and objective, and had different meanings attached to them. These designations were an essential part not only of the local and international efforts to stop the (sexual) war violence, but also of the struggle for legitimacy among the feminists in each city - endeavours in which many Western (feminist) academics, activists, and funders were involved, too. In addition to providing insights into the situation in Croatia and Serbia, this book will also help increase the understanding of intra-feminist dynamics in other regions of the world which are dominated by nationalism and war violence, and where the work of the local feminists is closely intertwined with - and often dependent on - these activists' contacts with foreign academic, funding, activist, and/or political entities.

This comprehensive study traces the transnationalization of activist networks, analyzing their changing compositions and characters and examining the roles played by the World Social Forum in this process. Comparing four of the largest global networks targeting the 'neoliberal triumvirate' of the World Bank, the IMF and the World Trade Organization: the Jubilee anti-debt campaigners Via Campesina peasant farmers Our World Is Not For Sale and the anarchistic Peoples' Global Action. Written by a scholar-activist, the book highlights that despite their diversity, these collective actors follow a similar globalizing path and that networks in which solidarity is based on a shared identity perceived as threatened by neoliberal change are gaining strength. Social forums are depicted as a fertile ground to strengthen networks and a common ground for cooperative action among them, but also a battleground over the future of the forum process, the global anti-neoliberal struggle, and 'other possible worlds' in the making. Global Activism will appeal to students and scholars interested in globalization, international relations, IPE and social movements.

This volume of Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change analyzes examples of nonviolent resistance from across the globe. It covers how regime changes, political movements and nonviolent unrest develop and then shape the political decisions of both civil society and the state. Section one is focused on the strategic interactions between nonviolent movements and the state. This includes discussions on the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland, youth movements in Post-Communist states and nonviolent Islamic movements in Turkey. The second and third sections examine regime conflicts and the global diffusion of nonviolent movements. Here chapters center on the Iranian Revolution, social psychological approaches to nonviolent civil resistance, the Palestinian human rights movements, the efforts of nonviolent INGOs and the Nashville civil rights movement. This volume introduces new analytical concepts and theoretical frameworks for understanding nonviolent resistance, merging social movement scholarship with nonviolent studies in fresh and exciting ways.

At a particularly urgent world-historical moment, this volume brings together some of the leading researchers of social movements and global social change and other emerging scholars and practitioners to advance new thinking about social movements and global transformation. Social movements around the world today are responding to crisis by defying both political and epistemological borders, offering alternatives to the global capitalist order that are imperceptible through the modernist lens. Informed by a world-historical perspective, contributors explain today's struggles as building upon the experiences of the past while also coming together globally in ways that are inspiring innovation and consolidating new thinking about what a fundamentally different, more equitable, just, and sustainable world order might look like. This collection offers new insights into contemporary movements for global justice, challenging readers to appreciate how modernist thinking both colors our own observations and complicates the work of activists seeking to resolve inequities and contradictions that are deeply embedded in Western cultural traditions and institutions. Contributors consider today's movements in the longue duree-that is, they ask how Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, and other contemporary struggles for liberation reflect, build upon, or diverge from anti-colonial and other emancipatory struggles of the past. Critical to this volume is its exploration of how divisions over gender equity and diversity of national cultures and class have impacted what are increasingly intersectional global movements. The contributions of feminist and indigenous movements come to the fore in this collective exploration of what the movements of yesterday and today can contribute to our ongoing effort to understand the dynamics of global transformation in order to help advance a more equitable, just, and ecologically sustainable world.

This book revisits and analyzes three of the most accomplished twentieth century Black Diaspora activists: Malcolm X (1925-1965), Stokely Carmichael (1941-1998) and Walter Rodney (1942-1980). All three began their careers in the Diaspora and later turned toward Africa. This became the foundation for developing and solidifying a global force that would advance the struggles of Africans and people of African descent in the Diaspora. Adeleke engages and explores this "African-centered" discourse of resistance which informed the collective struggles of these three men. The book illuminates shared and unifying attributes as well as differences, presenting these men as unified by a continuum of struggle against, and resistance to, shared historical and cultural challenges that transcended geographical spaces and historical times. Africa in Black Liberation Activism will be of interest to scholars and students of African-American history, African Studies and the African Diaspora.

They are as diverse as America. Young and old. Of color and white. Urban and rural. Immigrants and native born. They are students and teachers. Athletes and artists. Lawyers, doctors, politicians, farmers, architects, novelists, and more. Names familiar and unfamiliar. Superheroes, figuratively...and in one case real! They have founded major corporations and grassroots organizations or struck out on their own. They are institutionalizes and agitators. And in some cases both! But as diverse a lot as they may be, the people who tell their stories on these pages share one thing in common. Each is committed to fighting inequality and injustice. Each, too, can pinpoint a moment when they were moved to action, when it became impossible to sit on the sidelines and just watch: when the teacher uttered racial slurs, when no one in the college club looked like they did, when the city was on the brink of disaster, when the authorities came for their undocumented mother, when they discovered their ancestors had owned slaves, when the cop stopped them in their own driveway, when there was no fresh food in their community, when their right to vote was threatened. In The Moment, New York Times bestselling author Steve Fiffer presents an oral history from today's social justice activists-many of them still under 30-that is pitch perfect for these dissonant times. First person accounts that will inspire us to act, offer a blueprint for making change, and perhaps, most importantly, give us hope for the future.

Want to improve your village? Your town? Your city? A community planning event may be just what you have been waiting for. All over the world people are organizing dynamic collaborative events to improve their surroundings. For a few intensive days, everyone concerned gets an opportunity to have their say and be involved - residents, businesses, professionals and politicians. It's effective and it's fun. From Nick Wates, author of the hugely successful Community Planning Handbook, comes this Event Manual, the first on the subject, which explains why and how to organize community planning events. The book is aimed at anyone - from concerned individuals to community groups to professional planners in business and government - interested in the remarkable potential of community planning events. It includes a step-by-step guide, detailed checklists and other tools for event organisers. The method is user-friendly, flexible and easy to employ in any context from small neighbourhood improvements to major infrastructure and construction projects anywhere in the world. With a Foreword by HRH The Prince of Wales and Introduction by John Thompson.

This book examines the role of civil society organizations in several advanced European democracies: Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Specifically the book focuses on how voluntary organizations contribute to civic and democratic health and assesses the impact of different organizational types on social capital. Building on Citizenship and Involvement in European Democracies and Social Capital and Associations in Europe (2007), this volume seeks to widen and deepen the analysis by introducing new data on activists and combining it with the organizational data and the population data. It evaluates the impact of the organizational context on individual activity profiles and attitudes and values of activists and provides a unique assessment on the contribution that voluntary associations make to civil and democratic society. Part One deals with the consequences of associational involvement for several attitudinal and behavioural orientations and Part Two expands the scope of the effects of voluntary associations towards European attitudes. This book is essential reading for students and scholars of civil society, democracy, political participation, politics and sociology.

The liberating promise of big data and social media to create more responsive democracies and workplaces is overshadowed by a nightmare of election meddling, privacy invasion, fake news and an exploitative gig economy. Yet, while regressive forces spread disinformation and hate, 'guerrilla democrats' continue to foster hope and connection through digital technologies. This book offers an in-depth analysis of platform-based radical movements, from the online coalitions of voters and activists to the Deliveroo and Uber strikes. Combining cutting edge theories with empirical research, it makes an invaluable contribution to the emerging literature on the relationship between technology and society.

In this work, Carl Anthony shares his perspectives as an African-American child in post-World War II Philadelphia; a student and civil rights activist in 1960s Harlem; a traveling student of West African architecture; and an architect, planner, and environmental justice advocate in Berkeley. He contextualizes this within American urbanism and human origins, making profoundly personal both African American and American urban histories as well as planetary origins and environmental issues, to not only bring a new worldview to people of color, but to set forth a truly inclusive vision of our shared planetary future. The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race connects the logics behind slavery, community disinvestment, and environmental exploitation to address the most pressing issues of our time in a cohesive and foundational manner. Most books dealing with these topics and periods silo issues apart from one another, but this book contextualizes the connections between social movements and issues, providing tremendous insight into successful movement building. Anthony's rich narrative describes both being at the mercy of racism, urban disinvestment, and environmental injustice as well as fighting against these forces with a variety of strategies. Because this work is both a personal memoir and an exposition of ideas, it will appeal to those who appreciate thoughtful and unique writing on issues of race, including individuals exploring their own African American identity, as well as progressive audiences of organizations and community leaders and professionals interested in democratizing power and advancing equitable policies for low-income communities and historically disenfranchised communities.

Activists - protecting rainforests, demanding increased childcare, developing local community housing, campaigning for AIDS funding or protecting consumers - are as much part of the political landscape as the media, parliament, peak industry groups, political parties or trade unions. This collection explores the idea of policy activism and its relationship to the processes that not only set but implement and deliver the policy agenda. Policy activists operate both inside and outside government. They include community-based organisers, activist bureaucrats, service providers and professionals. Policy activism has been barely explored in existing literature. This collection puts the idea on the map. It is an innovative contribution to the literature, using case studies across a broad range of policy areas. 'This volume opens the window on an aspect of the policy process that rarely receives attention from students of politics or policy anywhere across the globe. The framework presented and the cases included in these pages provide a glimpse of the workings of a complex democracy, describing a range of actors responding creatively to the dynamics of social, political and economic change. It is fascinating to see how policy functions and social values appear to be more important to these processes than the formal structures of the government in which they are placed.' - Beryl A. Radin, Professor of Public Administration and Policy, State University of New York at Albany