Pressure groups Books

Book SynopsisOn a grey winter morning in Seattle, in February 1919, 110 local unions shut down the entire city. Shut it down and took it over, rendering the authorities helpless. For five days, workers from all trades and sectors—streetcar drivers, telephone operators, musicians, miners, loggers, shipyard workers—fed the people, ensured that babies had milk, that the sick were cared for. They did this with without police—and they kept the peace themselves. This had never happened before in the United States and has not happened since. Those five days became known as the General Strike of Seattle. Chances are you’ve never heard of it. In Radical Seattle, Cal Winslow explains why. Winslow describes how Seattle’s General Strike was actually the high point in a long process of early twentieth century socialist and working-class organization, when everyday people built a viable political infrastructure that seemed, to governments and corporate bosses, radical—even “Bolshevik.” Drawing from original research, Winslow depicts a process that, in struggle, fused the celebrated itinerants of the West with the workers of a modern industrial city. But this book is not only an account of the heady days of February 1919, it is also about the making of a class capable of launching one of America’s most gripping strikes—what E.P. Thompson once referred to as "the long tenacious revolutionary tradition of the common people."Trade Review“With a writing style of vigor and virility, this book is part of the experience of our class, both bold and free, that we need now.”—Peter Linebaugh, author, Red Round Globe Hot Burning

Read more less

Book SynopsisOn a grey winter morning in Seattle, in February 1919, 110 local unions shut down the entire city. Shut it down and took it over, rendering the authorities helpless. For five days, workers from all trades and sectors—streetcar drivers, telephone operators, musicians, miners, loggers, shipyard workers—fed the people, ensured that babies had milk, that the sick were cared for. They did this with without police—and they kept the peace themselves. This had never happened before in the United States and has not happened since. Those five days became known as the General Strike of Seattle. Chances are you’ve never heard of it. In Radical Seattle, Cal Winslow explains why. Winslow describes how Seattle’s General Strike was actually the high point in a long process of early twentieth century socialist and working-class organization, when everyday people built a viable political infrastructure that seemed, to governments and corporate bosses, radical—even “Bolshevik.” Drawing from original research, Winslow depicts a process that, in struggle, fused the celebrated itinerants of the West with the workers of a modern industrial city. But this book is not only an account of the heady days of February 1919, it is also about the making of a class capable of launching one of America’s most gripping strikes—what E.P. Thompson once referred to as "the long tenacious revolutionary tradition of the common people."Trade Review“With a writing style of vigor and virility, this book is part of the experience of our class, both bold and free, that we need now.”—Peter Linebaugh, author, Red Round Globe Hot Burning

Read more less

Book SynopsisMobilization against apartheid, the campaign against blood diamonds, the women's movement in Liberia where Africa's first female head of state was elected in 2005: these are all examples of socially based movements that have had a major effect on Africa's recent history. Yet the most influential theories concerning social movements worldwide have paid little heed to Africa, basing themselves more often on cases drawn from other continents. This volume draws together contributions from some leading writers on social movements in Africa, setting empirical studies alongside a couple of theoretical chapters. Africa’s social movements have distinctive features that are related to the continent’s specific history.Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgements THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES 1 Introduction: African social movements or social movements in Africa? Stephen Ellis & Ineke van Kessel 2 Social movement theory: Past, presence & prospects Jacquelien van Stekelenburg & Bert Klandermans 3 Speaking to global debates through a national and continental lens: South African and African social movements in comparative perspective Adam Habib & Paul Opoku-Mensah CASE STUDIES 4 African civil society, ‘Blood Diamonds’ and the Kimberley Process Lansana Gberie 5 The Islamic Courts Union: The ebb and flow of a Somali Islamist movement Jon Abbink 6 Liberia’s women acting for peace: Collective action in a war-affected country Veronika Fuest 7 Nurtured from the pulpit: The emergence and growth of Malawi’s democracy movement Boniface Dulani 8 Bare-foot activists: Transformations in the Haratine movement in Mauritania Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem 9 An Islamic social movement in contemporary West Africa: NASFAT of Nigeria Benjamin Soares 10 The United Democratic Front’s legacy in South Africa: Mission accomplished or vision betrayed? Ineke van Kessel 11 ‘Campus Cults’ in Nigeria: The development of an anti-social movement Stephen Ellis Bibliography List of authors

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book uses empirical research to bring together a broad range of protest contexts in twelve chapters. From the formation of Maroon societies in the early colonial period, to female mobilisation in authoritarian contexts, via urban youth culture, women or mineworkers in trade unionism, as well as pro- and anti- gay rights activists, the protagonists here all insist upon their rights to protest in a variety of ways. Sometimes popular protest is expressed through religion, often (and sometimes violently) by young people, exasperated by their long wait for social achievement. Electoral wars and the formation of militias reveal a geography of violence in urban areas, which, in some sectarian excesses, can be displaced to rural areas, as described in the study on Boko Haram. Cet ouvrage regroupe un éventail comprenant douze contextes de contestation. De la formation de communautés marronnes au début de la colonisation, aux mobilisations féminines en contexte autoritaire, en passant par les cultures urbaines, les cultures syndicales des femmes et des travailleurs dans les mines, les contestations pro ou contre la liberté des homosexuels, tous font prévaloir leur pouvoir de contestation de manière plurielle. La voie religieuse est un domaine où s’exerce parfois de manière violente, les protestations de populations souvent jeunes, en attente de mobilité sociale. Les guerres électorales et la constitution de milices dessinent une géographie de la violence en milieu urbain, violence qui trouve à se déplacer en milieu rural dans certaines dérives sectaires comme en témoigne l’étude sur Boko Haram. Contributors are: Rémy Bazenguissa-Ganga, Raphaël Botiveau, Christophe Broqua, Michel Cahen,Thomas Fouquet, Adam Hizagi, Alcinda Honwana, Alexander Keese, Marie-Nathalie LeBlanc, Dominique Malaquais, Marie-Emmanuelle Pommerolle, Ophélie Rillon, Johanna Siméant, Benjamin Soares, Kadya Tall.Table of ContentsNotes on Contributors Introduction 1. On the banality of mobilisation in Africa / De la banalité des mobilisations en Afrique Michel Cahen, Marie-Emmanuelle Pommerolle, Kadya Tall Part I De l’attente des jeunes et leurs formes de contestation / Waithood or youth longing for real changes 2. Alcinda Honwana : “Enough is enough!”: Youth protests and political change in Africa. 3. Benjamin Soares & Marie-Nathalie Leblanc: Islam, jeunesse et trajectoires de mobilisation en Afrique de l’Ouest à l’ère néolibérale : un regard anthropologique. 4. Kadya Tall : Dieu, le Pape et la Sainte Vierge : un mouvement de contestation de l’Église catholique au Bénin. 5. Thomas Fouquet : La trame politique des cultures urbaines : motifs dakarois. Part II Quand des minorités sociales manifestent / When social minorities demonstrate 6. Alexander Keese : Colonialism and fugitive communities in West Central Africa, 1920-1955 : Seeking parallels with Maroon societies. 7. Ophélie Rillon : Mobilisations féminines en contexte autoritaire : la “dépolitisation” comme outil d’émancipation dans le Mali des années 1970. 8. Christophe Broqua : Les pro, les anti et l’international : mobilisations autour de l’homosexualité en Afrique de l’Ouest. 9. Raphaël Botiveau : Changing leadership representations and loss of union authority in South Africa’s mineworkers’ strikes. Part III Violence et état d’exception / Violence and state of exception 10. Dominique Malaquais: Geographies of violence: Urban imaginaries in Douala. 11. Johanna Siméant: Shadow of the state, fear of violence, and the memory of 1991 : Marches and riots in Bamako, Mali (1992-2011). 12. Rémy Bazenguissa-Ganga : Les “guerres électorales” et les mobilisations violentes au Congo-Brazzaville. 13. Adam Higazi : Mobilisation into and against Boko Haram in North-East Nigeria. Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe international “Atheist Bus Campaign” generated news coverage and controversy, and this volume is the first to systematically and thoroughly explore and analyze each manifestation of that campaign. It includes a chapter for each of the countries which enacted – or attempted to enact – localized versions of the original United Kingdom campaign which ran the slogan, “There’s Probably No God. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life,” prominently on public buses. Its novel focus, using a singular micro-level event as a prism for analysis, allows for cross-country comparison of legal and social reactions to each campaign, as well as an understanding of issues pertaining to the historical and contemporary status of religion and the regulation of nonreligion in various national settings.

Read more less

Book SynopsisWinner of the 2020 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award Guy Debord, the Situationist International, and the Revolutionary Spirit presents a history of the two avant-garde groups that French filmmaker and subversive strategist Guy Debord founded and led: the Lettrist International (1952–1957) and the Situationist International (1957–1972). Debord is popularly known for his classic book The Society of the Spectacle (1967), but his masterwork is the Situationist International (SI), which he fashioned into an international revolutionary avant-garde group that orchestrated student protests at the University of Strasbourg in 1966, contributed to student unrest at the University of Nanterre in 1967–1968, and played an important role in the occupations movement that brought French society to a standstill in May of 1968. The book begins with a brief history of the Lettrist International that explores the group’s conceptualization and practice of the critical anti-art practice of détournement, as well as the subversive spatial practices of the dérive, psychogeography, and unitary urbanism. These practices, which became central to the Situationist International, anticipated many contemporary cultural practices, including culture jamming, critical media literacy, and critical public pedagogy. This book follows up the edited book Détournement as Pedagogical Praxis (Sense Publishers, 2014), and together they offer readers, particularly those in the field of Education, an introduction to the history, concepts, and critical practices of a group whose revolutionary spirit permeates contemporary culture, as can be seen in the political actions of Pussy Riot in Russia, the “yellow vest” protesters in France, the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and the striking teachers and student protesters on campuses throughout the U.S. See inside the book.

Read more less

Book SynopsisWinner of the 2020 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award Guy Debord, the Situationist International, and the Revolutionary Spirit presents a history of the two avant-garde groups that French filmmaker and subversive strategist Guy Debord founded and led: the Lettrist International (1952–1957) and the Situationist International (1957–1972). Debord is popularly known for his classic book The Society of the Spectacle (1967), but his masterwork is the Situationist International (SI), which he fashioned into an international revolutionary avant-garde group that orchestrated student protests at the University of Strasbourg in 1966, contributed to student unrest at the University of Nanterre in 1967–1968, and played an important role in the occupations movement that brought French society to a standstill in May of 1968. The book begins with a brief history of the Lettrist International that explores the group’s conceptualization and practice of the critical anti-art practice of détournement, as well as the subversive spatial practices of the dérive, psychogeography, and unitary urbanism. These practices, which became central to the Situationist International, anticipated many contemporary cultural practices, including culture jamming, critical media literacy, and critical public pedagogy. This book follows up the edited book Détournement as Pedagogical Praxis (Sense Publishers, 2014), and together they offer readers, particularly those in the field of Education, an introduction to the history, concepts, and critical practices of a group whose revolutionary spirit permeates contemporary culture, as can be seen in the political actions of Pussy Riot in Russia, the “yellow vest” protesters in France, the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and the striking teachers and student protesters on campuses throughout the U.S. See inside the book.

Read more less

Book SynopsisWords of the Prophets treats graffiti as a form of political prophecy. Whether we consider austerity in Thessaloniki, Camorra infiltration in Naples, the fall of Communism in Gdansk, or the rise of gang warfare in Chicago, graffiti is a form of democratic self-expression that dates back to Periclean Athens and the Book of Daniel. Words of the Prophets offers close readings of 400 original photographs taken between 2014 and 2021 in Philadelphia, Venice, Milan, Florence, Syracuse, and Warsaw, alongside literary works by Pawel Huelle, films by Andrezj Wajda, Antonio Capua, and music videos by Natasha Bedingfield and Beyoncé. A third of the book is dedicated to interviews with Krik Kong, Iwona Zajac, Ponchee.193, Jay Pop, Ser, Simoni Fontana, and Mattia Campo Dall’Orto.Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments List of Figures Introduction: from “Kilroy Was Here” to Krik Kong Part 1 Four Murals and Their Environs 1 Thessaloniki: a Born-Again Faith in Graffiti  1 Graffiti in Thessaloniki, 2014  2 Athens, Exarchia, and Missolonghi  2.1 The Street Is My Gallery  3 Exarchia  3.1 St. Paul Six Years Later: Graffiti Has Now Become Inartistic Sloganeering  3.2 Messolonghi  4 Conclusion 2 Naples, Graffiti in Naples, or Rubbish Is Gold  1 Two Visits to Naples  2 “Rubbish Is Gold”: Three Films on Neapolitan Garbage  2.1 “We Want to Breathe! It’s Our Right!”  3 Parking among the Corpses of Syracuse  4 Approaching Florence  4.1 Florence: Masterworks outside the Uffizi  4.2 On Bullshit in Florence  5 Venice  6 Between Venice and Milan, 2020  7 Approaching Milan  8 Roma Termini 3 Gdańsk: Remembering Solidarity  1 An Unguided Tour of Gdańsk  2 Krik Kong  3 Solidarity Museum  4 Courtesy Solidarity Museum, Gdańsk  5 Fonts of Fascism, or the Heaviness of the Solidarity Museum  5.1 Westerplatte Tour  5.2 A Closer Look at Krik Kong  6 My Interview with Krik Kong  6.1 Art School vs. Street Knowledge  7 Conclusion: from Andrez Wajda’s Man of Iron to Warsaw 4 Welcome to Chicago  1 Welcome to Chicago/ We Can Change the World (1971)  1.1 Welcome to Chicagoland: Redux  1.2 Is Rap a Black Art Form  2 Conclusion: Chicago, Philadelphia, New York  2.1 Philadelphia  2.2 New York  2.3 One Last Mural Part 2 Graffiti as Narrative Art 5 Byron, Blake, and the George Floyd Protests: the Evolution of Fonts  1 Lord Byron: Graffiti Artist  1.1 Byron’s Name at Ferrara  1.2 Graffiti: Local and Global Practices  2 Graffiti Practices in England  3 Visions of Belshazzar: Ortygia, Syracuse, and the Book of Daniel  4 Graffiti in the South Bronx  5 Who’s John Lennon?  6 Lady Pink and Lord Byron: the Museum of Graffiti in Miami Beach 6 Orozco, Pomona College’s Prometheus  1 Blake, Orozco, and the Graffiti/Mural Tradition  2 The Parable of the Ten Virgins  3 Lady Pink and the Art of Pointing  4 George Floyd: “Corporate Media, Graffiti, and the Visualizations of the George Floyd Protests” in 2020  5 Calligraphy: from Istanbul to the South Bronx  6 Hagia Sophia  7 Words of the Prophets on Walls and Curtains  8 Cultural Riches vs. Benign Neglect 7 Conclusion Appendix: In the Words of Contemporary Artists Notes on Artists and Interviewers References Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisA Marxist-feminist approach examining disaster relief in the USTrade Review'Tells a fascinating and insightful tale of how the state, increasingly unable and unwilling to care for its citizens, came to depend on community survival projects in the face of disaster' -- Joshua Clover, author of Riot. Strike. Riot. (Verso, 2016)'A searching enquiry, keyed to our age of pandemics and climate catastrophe, and an exemplary application of insights from Marxist Social Reproduction Theory' -- Gareth Dale, author of Reconstructing Karl Polanyi (Pluto, 2016)Table of ContentsAcknowledgements 1. 2005: The Unclaimed Corpses 2. Vulnerability Beyond Resilience 3. Disasters and Social Reproduction 4. 1930: Disasters, Natural and Federal 5. 1970: The Black Panthers' Quest for Dual Power 6. 1995: Poverty, Crime and the Heat 7. 2012: The Strange Success of Occupy Sandy 8. The Separated Society 9. 2020: I Can't Breathe Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisUsing Bourdieu to plan an activist path to victory. Anti-globalization activists have done little to slow capitalism's global march. Many of the gains made by decades of identity-based movements have been limited to privileged subgroups. The lesson of these movements is clear: struggle for change is essential, but the direction of change matters

Read more less