Nonviolence is Two

Author(s): Judith Stiehm

In: Sociological Inquiry, Vol 38, No 2, 1968, pp. 23-30

Discusses distinction between principled and pragmatic approaches to nonviolent protest.

Setting the Truth Free: The Inside Story of the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign

Author(s): Juleann Campbell

Liberties Press, Dublin, 2014, pp. 256

Detailed account of the campaign set up by the families of the 13 people killed, and 14 injured, on ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Derry in 1972. The campaign set up in 1992 succeeded, in the face of intransigence by the British authorities and indifference or open hostility of many others, in forcing the government to institute a new inquiry under Lord Justice Saville. This concluded in 2010 that the demonstrators had been unarmed, that no stones or petrol bombs had been thrown and that the civilians were not posing any threat. British Prime Minister David Cameron made a public apology in Parliament, describing the killings as ‘unjustified and unjustifiable.’ The book is written by the niece of one of those who was killed, and includes the testimonies of eyewitnesses, and a foreword by the leading civil rights lawyer, Garreth Pierce.

Lo-TEK Design by Radical Indigenism

Author(s): Julia Watson

Taschen, Los Angeles, CA, 2020, pp. 420

This book by a landscape architect explores how local solutions to particular environmental problems, often adopted in remote parts of the planet by indigenous peoples, have a much wider relevance today, and might be alternatives to western technological solutions that can have their own destructive implications. (TEK here means traditional ecological knowledge.) Watson has compiled 18 case studies, split into the separate categories of mountains, forests, deserts and wetlands, based on 10 years of travelling and interviewing anthropologists and scientists as well as indigenous peoples. She records, for example, how traditional methods of rice growing on hill slopes in Bali have proved more lastingly productive than the 1970s 'Green Revolution' based on pesticides and fertiliser, which in a few seasons led to declining yield, a degraded soil and return of the pests.

Colectiva Matamba Resists

Author(s): Julia Zulver

In: NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol 50, No 4, 2018, pp. 377-380

This article provides an account of the Colectiva Matamba Acción Afrodiaspórica (Matamba Afro-Diasporic Action Collective)’s group of women activists fighting racism, sexism, colonialism and capitalism. They argue for an intersectional feminism and discuss a distinction between Black women’s feminism and white women’s lack of acknowledgment of white supremacy within the context of their feminist struggles. The work also establishes a comparison between displacement and sexual violence pre- and post-conflict that formally ended in 2019 with a peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC in 2016.

Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save Our Wild Places

Author(s): Julian Hoffman

Hamish Hamilton, London, 2019, pp. 416

Hoffman documents the struggles of local communities in the UK to save irreplaceable woods, marshes and other rare and beautiful habitats from roads, airports and industrial development. He stresses the historical, cultural and communal importance of these sites as well as their ecological value, and the grounds for hope provided by successful local campaigns.

Kosovo: How Truths and Myths Started a War

Author(s): Julie Mertus

University of California Press, Berkeley CA, 1999, pp. 378

Interviews with both Serbs and Albanians about key episodes in the escalation from 1981 to 1990 are juxtaposed with a written history. See also: Mertus, Julie, ‘Women in Kosovo: Contested terrains – the role of national identity in shaping and challenging gender identity’ in Sabrina P. Ramet (ed.), Gender Politics in the Western Balkans, University Park PA, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999, pp. 171-86.

Beyond Hunger Strikes: The 'Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement and Everyday Resistance

Author(s): Julie Norman

In: Journal of Resistance Studies, Vol 6, No 1, 2020, pp. 40-68

Studies how the focal points of resistance by prisoners, hunger strikes, are made possible by longer term lower key strategies. These included  encouraging forms of communication between prisoners, development of  political education, and by less dramatic acts of ‘everyday’ noncooperation, for example with strip searches or some prison routines. The article is based on interviews with former Palestinian prisoners in the West Bank and some interviews with lawyers and NGOs supporting prisoners.

Leveraging the Global to Empower Local Struggles: Resistance and Efficacy in Transnational Feminist Networks

Author(s): Julie Taylor

In: St Antony's International Review, Vol 1, No 2 (Nov), 2005, pp. 102-117

Three case studies of networks based in Latin America and Caribbean supporting garment workers (the Maquilla network created 1996) and domestic workers in Trinidad and Tobago; and promoting women’s health in rural and urban Brazil.

Available online as PDF at:

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~stair/1_2/taylor.pdf

Why Are Colombians Protesting?

Author(s): Julie Turkewitz

In: New York Times, 2021

This article provides a useful overview of the immediate and longer term causes of the May 2021 protests, the responses by the government and the international reactions. It notes that New York Times videos showed police firing on demonstrators, as well as gas canisters and other 'low lethal' devices, but also considers briefly whether the protesters too have used violence and the impact of road blocks.

Available online at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/world/americas/colombia-protests-what-to-know.html

Black and indigenous resistance in the Americas: from multiculturalism to racist Backlash

Editor(s): Juliet Hooker

Lexington Books, Lanham, U.S., 2020, pp. 340

This book is the outcome of long term research by the Antiracist Research and Action Network of the Americas into rising racial intolerance, but also increasing resistance by both Black and indigenous people throughout the Americas. It covers six Latin American countries - Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico - as well as the US, and discusses the backlash against earlier gains in rights within nation states. The book argues that this nation-based strategy, pursued in a neo-liberal capitalist context, was inadequate and that the focus should now be on resisting ‘racial capitalism’ which bolsters white supremacy. The rise of militant anti-racial activism in the US and around the world in 2020 makes the book especially relevant.

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