No name
Study of the Spanish tax resistance campaign against military expenditure, launched in the early 1980s and still continuing.
An extensive examination of the possibilities and implications of artificial intelligence applied to the battlefield, from drones to 'killer robots', with varying degrees of autonomous ability to make decisions without human intervention. Scharre interviewed engineers creating new weapons and those in the military who might use them. He disagrees with campaigners seeking a total ban, which he thinks impossible, arguing instead for ensuring a minimum degree of human involvement in their deployment.
See also: Trying to Restrain the Robots', The Economist, 19 Sept. 2019, pp. 26-27.
A succinct examination of autonomous weapons and of issues arising, starting with the 'Harop' drone produced by Israeli Aerospace Industries, which can be classed as either a remote-controlled weapon or as an autonomous robot, depending on its software at the time. The article reports briefly on the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, a coalition of 89 NGOs, and concludes by noting that in 2017 the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (also known as the Inhumane Weapons Convention, agreed in 1980) appointed an expert group to examine the implications of autonomous weapons and different approaches to controlling their use.
Combines two earlier collections of songs and participant memoirs, We Shall Overcome (1963) and Freedom is a Constant Struggle (1968). Compiled by veterans of the Highlander Folk School (later Center), Tennessee – the adult education centre described as an ‘incubator’ for the Civil Rights movement.
Includes interesting material on Solidarity’s underground period after December 1981.
Describes the cultural project of musician Arnold Ap in the 10 years before he was killed by Indonesian troops, how at first it exploited the limited radio space granted by Indonesia and later became a more open challenge to Indonesian repression.
suggesting a non-western interpretation of events.
Mamonova and three others in the group were forced into exile by the KGB.
Report of conference of that title bringing together nonviolent activists from different campaigns and different generations.
Interview with Fatima Sadiqi, professor of Linguistics and Gender Studies, on the discourse around feminism, Islam, gender equality, social justice and democracy in Morocco.
This report sets out Amnesty International’s concerns about the Mexican state’s failure to comply with observations of the Committee (in the combined seventh and eighth periodic reports) on violence against women. Amnesty notes in particular the murder of women for gender-based motives, also known as “femicides”, the gender alert mechanism, disappearances of women, and the torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of women during detention, which is exacerbated in the context of a militarization of public security.
The author’s research spans the period 1998 -2012 to chart the impact of the economic reforms on rural women drawn into urban areas, often employed in domestic service or in hotels and office cleaning. She notes how this migration of cheap and flexible labour from the countryside has underpinned high levels of urban consumption, and both helped to empower the women migrants and to perpetuate gendered forms of difference and inequality.
See also: Chang, Leslie T., Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China, New York, Penguin Random House, 2009, pp. 448 (pb).
Chang, who was a journalist for the Wall Street Journal inside China, revealed the lives of migrant women working on assembly lines in an industrial city, primarily by focusing on the experiences of two young women for three years. Her book which won awards in the USA, threw light on a previously unknown area, and illustrated the very mixed impact of the economic reforms and migration from the countryside on women’s opportunities.
Survey of youth climate activism in schools and universities in Canada, focused on the climate impacts of excess consumption and fast fashion, symbolized by the November 2019 'Black Friday' shopping spree. Based on interviews with six young Canadians involved in a rang e of environmental activism.
Scholarly, interdisciplinary analysis of the Assad regime and of the first two years of the uprising. The book explores the nature of the uprising, reasons for the lack of success, and why it turned into an increasingly sectarian civil war.
See also: Hinnenbusch, Raymond, Omar Imady and Tina Zintl, 'Civil Resistance in the Syrian Uprising: From Peaceful Protest to Sectarian Civil War', in Adam Roberts, Michael J. Willis, Rory McCarthy and Timothy Garton Ash, eds. Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring (E.V.B.a.), pp. 223-47.
An overview with a focus on the role, possibilities and limitations of civil resistance in the specific context of the Assad regime, and the realities of the civil war from 2012 and the rise of ISIS.
Reports on three-day demonstration spearheaded by the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) calling for an end to fossil fuel subsidies.
Critical assessment of western support for civil society groups, noting that it can create a backlash and needs to be considered in the historical, social and cultural context of the country involved. Also makes comparisons with other post-Soviet states.
Includes comments on the role of the French government in supporting Biya.
Firsthand account from Irish libertarian socialist, looking beyond parties and discussing agrarian and urban social struggles.
Covers Lebanon since the mass movement in response to Hariri’s assassination, covering the role of Hizbollah and other political groupings.
Covers the London Squatters Campaign 1968-71, but notes background of the mass movement by homeless people in Britain at the end of the Second World War to occupy military bases, and later luxury flats, in 1945-46.