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Traces emergence of Students for a Democratic Society from 1960-1970, with a major focus on campaigns against the Vietnam War, including the 1965 March on Washington.
Includes a range of brief essays on the Taksim protests, but also includes Immanuel Wallerstein on ‘Turkey: Dilemma of the Kurds’, and chapters making comparisons with Mexico 1968 and with Brazil, plus an analysis of ‘Two Waves of Popular Protest in 2013 Bulgaria’.
African-American Studies scholar and policy analyst Marc Lamont Hill examines the interlocking mechanisms of unregulated capitalism, public policy, and social practice in the US. His work starts recounting one of the most salient event that gave birth to the Black Lives Matter movement: the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. More precisely, the narration spans different periods of time, starting with the grand jury testimony of Darren Wilson, the officer who killed Michael Brown, and then looks back at the 1939 World’s Fair and Le Corbusier’s lofty ideas about urban renewal. It moves forward in time again to the development of the Pruitt-Igoe public housing projects in St. Louis, completed in 1955 and demolished twenty years later, with many of the displaced residents having to move to Ferguson and face a climate of socio-cultural deprivation. Hill terminates his narration in Flint, Michigan, where the American city’s population ended up being poisoned by lead in the water.
Hill’s work is an account of the systematically disadvantaged identities - “those marked as poor, black, brown, immigrant, queer, or trans” – by a system that treats them as nobody, and makes them disposable, vulnerable and invisible. This work has been praised for enriching the contemporary canon of US civil rights literature not only because it captures the systemic nature of inequality in US society, but also because of his positive conclusion on the transformative power of organising, the most recent version of which lies in the Black Lives Matter movement.
Although originally intended to de-stigmatise abortion, the #ShoutYourAbortion Twitter campaign was hijacked by anti-abortionists who linked the hashtag to hundreds of stigmatising anti-abortion messages. Using a Twitter Search API, the authors collected these messages (1,990 tweets) to identify the discursive features of abortion stigma.
The spread of contemporary roller derby presents an opportunity to examine the ways sport can act as a form of feminist intervention. This article draws on a qualitative case study of a roller derby league in China, made up predominantly of expatriate workers, to explore some of the possibilities roller derby presents in activating global forms of feminist participatory action.
Filmed over seven years, Erika Cohn’s Belly of the Beast exposes state-sanctioned sterilizations in California prisons through the story of Kelli Dillon, who was forcibly sterilized while incarcerated at the Central California women’s facility in Chowchilla, and her lawyer Cynthia Chandler.
Ch. 9 examines the generals’ putsch in 1961 and notes responses to it both by the left and by De Gaulle, and their conflicting claims to have quashed the coup.
Evaluates claims that ‘nonviolence, if adhered to more resolutely, would have ended apartheid sooner’, reminding readers of the high level of support for the ANC’s armed wing. Suggests that despite some over-simplifications, the claims for nonviolence, though speculative, are plausible.
The main emphasis of this book is on Ayub Khan’s government, but chapter 9 ‘The last phase’ (pp. 237-71) covers the ‘132 days of uninterrupted disturbances’. Stresses the rioting and factionalised violence, but notes the importance of the urban working classes and the students.
Covers Canada, New Zealand and the USA.
Recounts debates surrounding the use of direct action and civil disobedience in anti-nuclear campaigns, noting the influence of New Left politics and feminism and the rise of nonviolence training, affinity groups and peace camps in the 1980s. Demonstrates that direct action was initiated at the grassroots level but in time accepted by CND leadership.
Assesses effectiveness of feminist resistance on movement to refuse the draft, looking primarily at experience of individual feminist COs, rather than organized women’s groups.
Describes the trajectory of resistance from largely nonviolent demonstrations, modeled on the US Civil Rights movement, to riots and finally to virtual civil war in Derry/Londonderry. O’Dochartaigh subscribes to the view that in conditions of civil disorder and conflict ‘the local environment becomes ever more important as a focus of political activity.’ A central thesis of the book is that ‘occasions of violent confrontation play a crucial role in promoting the escalation and continuation of conflict’.
The author argues that Indian agricultural policy, devised in response to food shortages in the 1960s, relied on a mix of technological solutions to increase yields and a range of pricing measures to support farmers. These policies are out of date, but changing the overall policy is difficult as farmers believe their livelihoods are at stake. This paper considers the issues behind the protests and suggests ways forward.
Chapter 1, ‘Beginnings’ examines role of women in May 1968 and the emergence of the Mouvement de Liberation des Femmes in 1970, laying of a wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldier to commemorate his wife (leading to arrests), support for women strikers (e.g. in a hat factory in Troyes) and the 5th April 1971 Manifesto by 343 prominent women who had resorted to illegal abortions. Later chapters explore ideological divisions within the movement, theoretical issues and the relationship of feminists to socialist government in France.
Analyzes varied class, age and political beliefs of the protesters (sometimes resulting in conflict between them).
Bravo and Buzzone collect biographical recounts and other documents that narrate women’s history in war. The authors argue that war cannot be a way to achieve progress, and debate the use of violence and on the rejection of violence. They also stress the importance of not underestimating civil and unorganised forms of struggle alongside more common forms of organised forms of resistance, and of including more on the contributions of women in the organisation and study of resistance movements.
This book explores social movements and forms of political activism in contemporary Japan, arguing that the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident led to a resurgence in social and protest movements and inaugurated a new era of civic engagement. Re-examines older and recent forms of activism in Japan, as well as provides studies of specific movements that developed after Fukushima. The book considers structural challenges that activists face in contemporary Japan, and how the newly developing movements have been shaped by the neo-conservative policies of the Japanese government. The authors also considers how the Japanese experience adds to our understanding of how social movements work, and whether it might challenge prevailing theoretical frameworks.
The National Movement of Rural Women (NMRW), formerly known as the Rural Women’s Movement, was established in 1990 with a focus on, among others, uniting rural women and giving them a voice. Amongst the organisation’s aims was to create forums for rural women to unite against oppression, have equal rights to land and a say in political matters. The organisation has contributed as amicus curiae – ‘a friend of the court’ – to dealing with customary law cases involving inheritance, marriage and chieftaincy disputes. This article explores the two approaches used by the NMRW as friend of the court - the custom-based and gender-based approach - and concludes that these two approaches are in direct conflict with each other.