Bastards Of Utopia

Bastards of Utopia, the companion to a feature documentary film of the same name, explores the experiences and political imagination of young radical activists in the former Yugoslavia, participants in what they call alterglobalization or "globalization from below." Ethnographer Maple Razsa follows individual activists from the transnational protests against globalization of the early 2000s through the Occupy encampments. His portrayal of activism is both empathetic and unflinching—an engaged, elegant meditation on the struggle to re-imagine leftist politics and the power of a country's youth. More information on the film can be found at www.der.org/films/bastards-of-utopia.html.

After a summit in Belgrade in September 1961, socialist Yugoslavia, led by President Josip Broz Tito until his death in 1980, initiated a movement with states in the Global South. The Non-Aligned Movement not only offered an alternative to the Cold War polarization between NATO and the Warsaw Pact but also expressed the hopes of a world emerging from colonial domination. Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement investigates the Non-Aligned Movement both as a top-down, interstate initiative and as a site for transnational exchange in science, art and culture, architecture, education, and industry. Re-invigorating older debates by consulting newly available sources, the volume challenges studies that marginalize the role of socialist Yugoslavia in the Non-Aligned Movement. Contributors address topics such as women’s involvement, antifascism and anti-imperialism, cultural and educational exchange, tensions in Yugoslav diplomacy, competing understandings of economic development, the role of the Yugoslav construction company Energoprojekt, Yugoslav relations with Latin America and Africa, and contemporary support for refugees and asylum seekers as a kind of practical and affective afterlife of Yugoslavia’s non-aligned commitments. Socialist Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement offers an innovative approach to one of the twentieth century’s most important international movements and confronts issues of economic, social, and cultural rights that remain relevant today.

"A War on People takes up two interrelated concerns increasingly of import to political anthropologists and theorists. The first is the seemingly widespread lack of motivation for participating in political activity. The second is the political and intellectual focus on critique rather than offering alternatives for possible futures. This book addresses these concerns by offering an ethnographically and theoretically rich look at the political and ethical activity of some unlikely political actors - active and former users of heroin and crack cocaine. Despite this unlikelihood, however, this book shows and argues that the globally-networked anti-drug war movement organized and run by drug users is, in fact, at the forefront of offering an alternative political and social imaginary. In particular, the book focuses on how this anti-drug war imaginary and political activity is enacting non-normative, open, and relationally-inclusive alternatives to such key ethical-political concepts as community, freedom and care. Ultimately, A War on People argues that in a contemporary condition increasingly characterized by widely-diffused complexity and war as governance, an anthropology of potentiality is needed to discern and creatively conceptualize the emerging not-yet of the worlds we research and inhabit"--Provided by publisher.

Anthropologists working in Italy are at the forefront of scholarship on several topics including migration, far-right populism, organised crime and heritage. This book heralds an exciting new frontier by bringing together some of the leading ethnographers of Italy and placing together their contributions into the broader realm of anthropological history, culture and new perspectives in Europe.

What drives people to take to the streets in protest? What is their connection to other activists and how does that change over time? How do seemingly spontaneous activist movements emerge, endure, and evolve, especially when they lack a leader and concrete agenda? How does one analyze a changing political movement immersed in contingency? Impulse to Act addresses these questions incisively, examining a wide range of activist movements from the December 2008 protests in Greece to the recent chto delat in Russia. Contributors in the first section of this volume highlight the affective dimensions of political movements, charting the various ways in which participants coalesce around and belong to collectives of resistance. The potent agency of movements is highlighted in the second section, where scholars show how the emerging actions and critiques of protesters help disrupt authoritative political structures. Responding to the demands of the field today, the novel approaches to protest movements in Impulse to Act offer new ways to reengage with the traditional cornerstones of political anthropology.

This volume of Studies in Law, Politics and Society brings together an international and interdisciplinary array of scholars to explore issues on the cutting edge of socio-legal research.

Ideology and Utopia in China’s New Wave Cinema investigates the ways in which New Wave filmmakers represent China in this age of neoliberal reform. Analyzing this paradigm shift in independent cinema, this text explores the historicity of the cinematic form and its cultural-political visions. Through a close reading of the narrative strategy of key films in New Wave Cinema, Xiaoping Wang studies the movement’s impact on film, literature, culture and politics.

Exploring the work of three visionary auteurs deeply invested in the political possibilities of film.