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Numerous protests took place round the world contemporaneously with the global economic crisis, but the left in Europe as a whole failed to organize. This gap should be filled by Blockupy, a European network of activists composed of trade unionists, political parties and different social movements. The article traces the history of this organization and assesses how far Blockupy has the power to create a new left movement in Germany.
This book draws on a range of theoretical traditions emerging from feminism, criminology, and sociology, to challenge the narrow idea that domestic violence and sexual assault are phenomena of interpersonal violence perpetrated by men. The authors highlight the diversity of women’s experience, discuss the role social structures play, and include discussions of workplace and state violence. The first section develops the conceptual and contextual framework, and the following three sections focus on types of victimization: interpersonal, in the workplace, and by the state. Accounts of individual experiences are used throughout to personalize the issues discussed.
Describing China’s feminist activists in relation to their political and historical circumstances, the author elucidates the development of China’s feminist movement and discusses China’s history from a feminist perspective.
Arendt is one of the most eminent political philosophers often cited by theorists of nonviolent resistance, especially in relation to her 1963 book On Revolution, and also a major theorist of totalitarianism. This book contrasts Arendt's concept of total domination under totalitarianism with the testimonies of both well known and lesser known intellectuals and writers who survived the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, as well as those of unknown survivors of the holocaust. Aharony argues that Nazi domination was less total than Arendt posited (in her 1951 book On Totalitarianism), and that morality and individual choice exist even in the most extreme conditions.
This is a special issue on women’s organized resistance to the extraction of natural resources that has a damaging impact on their lives and environment. Articles cover movements in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Mexico and also Ghana, focusing on the importance of water as a vital resource, and also on women’s embodied experience of suffering from water pollution and scarcity. The articles also discuss gendered critiques of extraction.
In the context of discussing the importance of public spaces where citizens can protest and make public speeches, this article examines how the Lebanese demonstrators have used and reshaped multipupose public spaces such as streets, open public spaces such as gardens, and abandoned urban facilites such as a partially built cinema.
Takes up the challenge that ‘most academic theories of social movements are not prepared to explain the full range of protest goals and activities, especially those of privileged rather than oppressed citizens’, specifically drawing on the US environmental, anti-nuclear energy, and animals rights movements.
See also Laurie Nathan, Force of Arms, Force of Conscience: A Study of Militarisation, the Military and the Anti-Apartheid War Resisters’ Movement in South Africa, 1970-1988, Bradford, University of Bradford, 1990 .
Nathan was a leading activist in the End Conscription Campaign.
Chapter 5, pp. 95-122, ‘Social Movements enter the Twenty-First Century’, takes as its starting point the January 2001 text message in Manila, ‘Go EDSA, Wear black’ and goes on to discuss the relationship between social movements and communications technology with further details on unrest in Manila.
Includes references to role of ‘truly peaceful resistance’ in 1983.
Brief article which details evolution of strike from 10-16 August.
Useful summary with references.
Influential account by US novelist of her visit to Vietnam, in which she argued that the US was fighting a war it could not win, and called for withdrawal.
Examines development of lesbian feminism in the US from the early 1970s and explores its collective identity and engagement in range of actions challenging status quo.
Sexual violence within minority ethnic communities is endemic in Aotearoa/New Zealand, but grossly underreported. This paper presents the results of two small-scale qualitative studies that explored why. In-depth interviews were undertaken with academics, specialist sexual violence practitioners and community/social workers. Two main factors that led to underreporting were first, internalised barriers as a result of a ‘white’ and ‘male’ gaze; and second, the cultural relativism of meanings of violence. The authors discovered that issues of stigma, defensiveness about traditional norms, especially concerning gender roles and the referencing of minority group identity were deterrents to disclosure and reporting. The paper also explored the implications of underreporting for women seeking help and for the collection of robust evidence of sexual violence among minority ethnic women. The paper concludes with recommendations for improved strategic efforts to encourage safe disclosure among women in minority ethnic communities who experience sexual violence.
This article focuses primarily on the Ugandan Women’s Parliamentary Association (UWOPA) as a key part of the wider women’s movement in Uganda. It considers how women members of parliament were able to give more prominence to women’s concerns in policy debates, but also how they were strengthened, when pressing for gender-sensitive laws and policies, by women’s collective backing. The findings also show that success in achieving laws such as Domestic Violence Act and Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation was due to collaborating with male legislators, some of whom joined UWOPA.
A study of Costa Rica, which explores the relation between its demilitarized status and its safety, independence, and social wellbeing.
This comparative study of 16 countries documents women's political resistance during and since 2011, with essays by both activists and scholars. The book stresses the diversity of the social groups and attitudes of the women involved, and gives a voice to often marginalized groups such as housewives and rural women. After an introductory chapter 'Advancing Women's Rights in the Arab World', the book is divided into five parts: What They Fight For; What They Believe; How They Express Agency; How They Use Space to Mobilize; and How They Organize.
Makes case for black separatism in the struggle for equality, to enable black people to lead their own organisations and create their own power bases. Describes the attempts to achieve these aims through the Mississippi Freedom Democrats in 1964, and the role of SNCC in voter registration 1965-66. There is also a chapter on the northern ghettoes.
Youthful personal impressions combined with later historical research on Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. Especially strong on the playful resistance of groups such as the Orange Alternative in Wroclaw.
Much of this issue analyses the previous Kuchma regime and parliamentary elections in 1994, 1998 and 2002, but there are two articles on the 2004 presidential elections and impact of the ‘Orange Revolution’, one by Taras Kuzio, From Kuchma to Yushchenko, 2005 , pp. 229-244 .
Account of evolving crisis by former US ambassador to Chile.