Identity Place Knowledge Social Movements Contesting Globalization

Identity, Place, Knowledge Looks Closely At The Knowledge That Arises From Activist Practice And Its Significance For Enacting New, Democratic Politics. The Result Is A Innovative Approach To The Study Of Social Movements That Combines Activist Ethnography With Wide-Ranging Theoretical Discussions In Political Economy, Cultural Studies, Critical Pedagogy And Urban Theory. This Allows Us To See How A Local Social Movement Interfaces With The Global Conjuncture Of The Anti-Globalization Movements, 9/11 And The Resurgence Of Empire.

What ethical challenges are faced by researchers studying social and political movements? Should scholars integrate their personal politics and identities into their research? What role should activists have in shaping the purposes or processes of social scientific research? How do changing political contexts affect the ethical integrity of a research project over time? These are some of the live issues of research ethics that face students and scholars whose research ‘subjects’ are located in contentious political terrain. The contributors to this volume expose their own ethical thinking as they have met such challenges head on. Each explores real dilemmas of ethical practice on the ground as they carry out research on social movements across the globe. Authors examining pro-democracy activists in Malaysia, sanctions-breakers in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, environmental health organisations in North America and much else find that the narrow confines of Research Ethics Committees and Institutional Review Boards offer little guidance on the questions that really matter. They offer instead a demonstration of continual reflexivity that is both personal and political in its approach. This book opens up debate on research ethics, delineating key challenges and offering hopeful and practical ways forward for real-world, ethical social science. This bookw as published as a special issue of Social Movement Studies.

Neoliberal capitalism positions us all as consumers in a hypermarket where money talks. For the majority of people around the globe, this translates as precarity and immiseration. But how can we break from this dominant ideological framework? Expose, Oppose, Propose details how, since the mid 1970s, transnational alternative policy groups (TAPGs) have functioned as think tanks of a different sort, generating resources for a globalization from below in dialogue with the critical social movements that are protagonists for global justice. Based on two years of intensive research, William Carroll not only provides a detailed examination of a variety of TAPGs – showing how each group is distinctive and autonomous in its vision, practical priorities, and ways of producing and mobilizing alternative knowledge – but also reveals how TAPGs form a master frame that advocates and envisages global justice and ecological wellbeing.

This thought-provoking volume is designed for research methods courses in sociology and the social sciences. Critical Strategies for Social Research explores ways in which several key research strategies bring an emancipatory dimension to social analysis. The new approaches recognise that social analysis is a form of knowledge production that takes place in a human-constructed world marked by injustice and persistent inequality. The book considers five influential and productive strategies of inquiry: dialectical social analysis; institutional ethnography; participatory action research; critical discourse analysis; research to invigorate the public sphere. This unique volume of 27 readings includes works by leading Canadian and international scholars.

Scholars of social movements tend to overlook the achievements and political significance of women's movements. Through theoretical discussions and empirical examples, Solidarities Beyond Borders demonstrates the creativity and dynamism of transnational feminist and women's groups around the world. These timely case studies from North America, Latin America, and Southeast Asia explore the benefits and challenges of extending ties beyond national borders and disciplinary boundaries. The contributors not only bring to light the opportunities and challenges that globalization poses for transnationalizing women's movements, they offer important strategic, conceptual, and methodological lessons for all social movements.

Are the growing oppositions to neoliberal market globalism (especially in the aftermath of global economic meltdown) able to develop meaningful alternative ideologies? Is there any substantial alternative to the world capitalist system on the horizon? How would the ideologies and ideas address the dire dilemmas of economy vs. ecology, redistribution vs. recognition, global vs. local, reform vs. revolution etc.? This book answers such important questions by examining the intellectual structure of the so-called ‘anti-globalization’ or ‘global justice’ movement. It explores the formation and transformation of ideas, identities, and solidarities in the movement. The book also develops an analytical model to explain the movement’s ideational novelties and continuities in terms of both activist social experiences and global social changes. Hosseini develops new sociological concepts, integrates opposing theoretical perspectives into one approach, and addresses the gap between critical theories and activist practices. Through this endeavor, he discovers an emerging mode of consciousness which is characterized by its cross-identity and cross-ideological nature. This is a live but quiet global revolution. Drawing on a variety of disciplines, this gourd-breaking volume will be of interest to students and scholars of global studies, political sciences, sociology and social movement studies.

The mobility of people, objects, information, ideas, services, and capital has reached levels unprecedented in human history. Such forms of mobility are manifested in continued advances in communication and transportation capacities, in the growing use of digital and biometric technologies, in the movements of Indigenous, migrant, and women's groups, and in the expansion of global capitalism into remote parts of the world. Mobilities, Knowledge, and Social Justice demonstrates how knowledge is mobilized and how people shape, and are shaped by, matters of mobility. Richly detailed and illuminating essays reveal the ways in which issues of mobility are at the centre of debates, ranging from practices of belonging to war and border security measures, from gender, race, and class matters to governance and international trade, and from citizenship and immigration policies to human rights. Contributors analyze how particular forms of mobility generate specific types of knowledge and give rise to claims for social justice. This collection reconsiders mobility as a key term in the social sciences and humanities by delineating new ways of understanding how mobility informs and shapes lives as well as social, cultural, and political relations within, across, and beyond states. Contributors include Rob Aitken (Alberta), Tanya Basok (Windsor), Janine Brodie (Alberta), William Coleman (Waterloo), Ronjon Paul Datta (Alberta), Karl Froschauer (Simon Fraser), Daniel Gorman (Waterloo), Amanda Grzyb (Western), Suzan Ilcan (Waterloo), Eleonore Kofman (Middlesex), Anita Lacey (Auckland), Theresa McCarthy (Buffalo), Daniel J. Paré (Ottawa), Nicola Piper (Sydney), Parvati Raghuram (Open), Kim Rygiel (Wilfrid Laurier), Leslie Regan Shade (Toronto), Sandra Smeltzer (Western ), Daiva Stasiulis (Carleton), Myra Tawfik (Windsor), and Lloyd Wong (Calgary).

Praxis and Politics explores the knowledge arising from activist praxis and its significance for reimagining radical and democratic politics. It is based on five years of direct involvement in the Toronto-based Metro Network for Social Justice and their work in coalition building, campaign-organizing and 'economic and political literacy' work in the aftermath of the signing of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement. The book breaks new theoretical and methodological ground in social movement studies in drawing on a wide range of traditions including cultural studies, urban studies, political economy and feminism.