Resisting Militarism: Direct Action and the Politics of Subversion

Author(s): Chris Rossdale

Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2019, pp. 288

Rossdale has studied a range of British campaigning groups taking radical forms of direct action to resist militarism and the arms trade, including the Campaign against Arms Trade and the broad coalition involved in Stop the Arms Fair. He describes some of their protests over the previous 15 years, such as peace camps, auctioning off a tank outside an arms fair and protesters supergluing themselves to the London offices of Lockheed Martin, and argues for the 'radical and ethical potential of prefigurative direct action'. He also develops a depiction of militarism from the standpoint of those resisting it, and examines the disagreements and debates between protesters, including the interpretation of nonviolence. Chapters cover feminist and queer anti-militarism, and the lack of racial diversity among the protesters.

Abortion Across Borders: Transnational Travel and Access to Abortion Services

Editor(s): Christabelle Sethna, and Gayle Davis

Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2019, pp. 360

The authors examine how restrictive policies force women to travel both within and across national borders in order to reach abortion providers, often at great expense, over long distances and with significant safety risks. Contributors, who adopt both historical and contemporary perspectives, examine the situation culturally and politically diverse in regions that include Australia, Canada, Eastern Europe, Ireland, New Zealand, Poland, Prince Edward Island, Spain, Sweden, Texas, and post-Brexit referendum UK.

Lingering trauma in Brazil: Police violence against black women

Author(s): Christensen Smith

In: NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol 50, No 4, 2018, pp. 369-376

This article points out the necessity of resisting anti-Black women policing practices, and argues that resistance must be organised by rethinking how we understand police violence in relation to the passage of time. Smith makes use of the term sequelae, which indicates ‘a condition that is the consequence of a previous disease’, to help shed light on the effects of police brutality on women, and its medium and long-term effects that are often overlooked. The article recalls four known Black women whose murder prompted vast public outcry - Claudia Silva de Ferreira; Marielle Franco; Luana Barbosa; and Aurina Rodrigues Santana – and articulates how sequelae are the combination of both physical and emotional trauma suffered by Black women.

La Non-violence

Author(s): Jacques Sémelin, and Christian Mellon

Presse Universitaire de la France, Paris, 1994, pp. 128

The authors offer a definition of nonviolence and its main components, before reviewing the history of nonviolent struggles, as well as the past and future research agenda on civil resistance.

El Salvador kills women as the US shrugs

Author(s): Louise Donovan, and Christina Asquith

In: Foreign Policy, 2019

In El Salvador, hundreds of women marched in the capital San Salvador on this day, to protest for reproductive rights, against violence, and in celebration of the release of three women jailed on abortion charges. The article also discusses the Trump administration’s cut of funding towards programs that support women and the initiative to tackle violence against women that exists in El Salvador.

Available online at:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/07/el-salvador-kills-women-as-the-us-shrugs/

El Salvador kills women as the US shrugs

Author(s): Louise Donovan, and Christina Asquith

In: Foreign Policy, 2019

In El Salvador, hundreds of women marched in the capital San Salvador on this day, to protest for reproductive rights, against violence, and in celebration of the release of three women jailed on abortion charges. The article also discusses the Trump administration’s cut of funding towards programs that support women and the initiative to tackle violence against women that exists in El Salvador.

Available online at:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/07/el-salvador-kills-women-as-the-us-shrugs/

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