As activists strategize, build resistance, and foster solidarity, they also call for better dialogue between researchers and movements and for research that can aid their causes. In this volume, contributors examine how research can produce knowledge for social transformation by using political activist ethnography, a unique social research strategy that uses political confrontation as a resource and focuses on moments and spaces of direct struggle to reveal how ruling regimes are organized so activists and social movements can fight them. Featuring research from Aotearoa (New Zealand), Bangladesh, Canada, Poland, South Africa, and the United States on matters as diverse as anti-poverty organizing, prisoners' re-entry, anti-fracking campaigns, left-inspired think-tank development, non-governmental partnerships, involuntary psychiatric admission, and perils of immigration medical examination, contributors to this volume adopt a “bottom-up” approach to inquiry to produce knowledge for activists, not about them. A must-read for humanities and social sciences scholars keen on assisting activists and advancing social change.

What happens when people with HIV apply to settle in Canada? Screening Out takes readers through the process of seeking permanent residency, demonstrating how mandatory HIV testing and the medical inadmissibility regime are organized to make such applications impossible. This ethnographic inquiry into the medico-legal and administrative practices governing the Canadian immigration system shows how it works from the perspective of the very people toward whom this exclusionary health policy is directed. Laura Bisaillon provides a vital corrective to state claims about mandatory HIV screening, pinpointing how and where things need to change.

What happens when people with HIV apply to settle in Canada? Screening Out takes readers through the process of seeking permanent residency, demonstrating how mandatory HIV testing and the medical inadmissibility regime are organized to make such applications impossible. This ethnographic inquiry into the medico-legal and administrative practices governing the Canadian immigration system shows how it works from the perspective of the very people toward whom this exclusionary health policy is directed. Laura Bisaillon provides a vital corrective to state claims about mandatory HIV screening, pinpointing how and where things need to change.