Handbook On World Social Forum Activism

The World Social Forum (WSF) has become the focus for a diverse array of movements advancing alternative visions of globalisation. The numerous WSF's have helped to connect activists in an increasingly dense network of advocates for radical social change. They have mobilised hundreds of thousands of people and may be one of the most important political developments of our time. The Handbook of World Social Forum Activism brings together leading scholars of the social forum process from North America and Europe. The collection contributes to the ongoing process of reflection from the WSF experience, and is accessible to activists, students and scholars alike.

The Annual World Social Forum has become a key part of the international global justice movement, attracting activists from around the world. Here Leite lays out the origins, development and challenges of this international movement for social, political and economic justice.

This is a critical anthology of essays on the theory and practice of the Forum, with essays by men and women from many parts of the world, with many different points of views.

The World Social Forum quickly became the largest political gathering in human history and continues to offer a direct challenge to the extreme inequities of corporate-led globalisation. It has expanded its presence and continues to be an exciting experiment in global and participatory democracy. The book's contributors have participated in World Social Forums around the globe. Recounting dozens of dramatic firsthand experiences, they draw on their knowledge of global politics to introduce the process, its foundations and relevance to ongoing transnational efforts toward democracy. This second edition of Global Democracy shows how the Forums have developed since their inception in 2001 and how they are now connected with other global movements including Occupy, the Arab Spring and beyond.

This Handbook is a comprehensive reference guide to the World Social Forum. The book brings together the work of social historians and scientists from a range of disciplines and countries to document and analyze the Social Forum process. It examines the theoretical and political implications of the WSF at the local and global levels. Overall, the volume furthers the understanding of the dynamics of democratization and coalition building within an era of globalization and transnational activism. Themes and topics covered include: Democracy The place of Africa in the WSF Liberalism Race Feminism Terrorism Poverty Environment and Sustainability The World Trade Organization The Handbook is an invaluable resource for all scholars of Globalization, International Organizations and International Relations.

This book explores how the World Social Forum has developed in response to the current period of profound crisis and transition in the history of Western capitalist modernity. Based on ten years of field work on three continents, this book examines social movements as knowledge producers and its arguments are grounded in sustained empirical attention to what movements are doing and saying on the terrain of the WSF over time and from place to place.

This volume provides a comprehensive examination of the World Social Forum, its relation to the US Social Forum, current debates and perspectives, and the relations involving principle actors, namely NGOS, activists, and academics.

This comprehensive study traces the transnationalization of activist networks, analyzing their changing compositions and characters and examining the roles played by the World Social Forum in this process. Comparing four of the largest global networks targeting the 'neoliberal triumvirate' of the World Bank, the IMF and the World Trade Organization: the Jubilee anti-debt campaigners Via Campesina peasant farmers Our World Is Not For Sale and the anarchistic Peoples’ Global Action. Written by a scholar-activist, the book highlights that despite their diversity, these collective actors follow a similar globalizing path and that networks in which solidarity is based on a shared identity perceived as threatened by neoliberal change are gaining strength. Social forums are depicted as a fertile ground to strengthen networks and a common ground for cooperative action among them, but also a battleground over the future of the forum process, the global anti-neoliberal struggle, and 'other possible worlds' in the making. Global Activism will appeal to students and scholars interested in globalization, international relations, IPE and social movements.