Emma Craddock
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781529205701
- eISBN:
- 9781529205749
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781529205701.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
With austerity’s disproportionately heavy impact on women now apparent, this engaging book considers activism against it from a feminist perspective. Emma Craddock goes deep inside activist culture ...
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With austerity’s disproportionately heavy impact on women now apparent, this engaging book considers activism against it from a feminist perspective. Emma Craddock goes deep inside activist culture to explore the many cultural and emotional dimensions of political participation. She questions what motivates and sustains protest, considering the enabling aspects of solidarity and empathy, as well as the constraining factors of negative emotions and gendered barriers associated with activism, examining the role of gender and emotion within protest. This is a lived-in study that gets to the heart of what it means to be an anti-austerity activist and an important addition to social justice debate. The book is organised into four parts. The first part establishes the theoretical and empirical context; the second part explores the enabling and constraining factors of political participation (‘doing activism’); the third part discusses the two main activist identity constructions in the local anti-austerity activist culture and the ‘dark side’ of activist culture that these feed (‘being activist’); the fourth and final part provides concluding remarks about the ambivalence of anti-austerity activist culture and the difficulty of resisting such a pervasive force as neoliberal capitalism.Less
With austerity’s disproportionately heavy impact on women now apparent, this engaging book considers activism against it from a feminist perspective. Emma Craddock goes deep inside activist culture to explore the many cultural and emotional dimensions of political participation. She questions what motivates and sustains protest, considering the enabling aspects of solidarity and empathy, as well as the constraining factors of negative emotions and gendered barriers associated with activism, examining the role of gender and emotion within protest. This is a lived-in study that gets to the heart of what it means to be an anti-austerity activist and an important addition to social justice debate. The book is organised into four parts. The first part establishes the theoretical and empirical context; the second part explores the enabling and constraining factors of political participation (‘doing activism’); the third part discusses the two main activist identity constructions in the local anti-austerity activist culture and the ‘dark side’ of activist culture that these feed (‘being activist’); the fourth and final part provides concluding remarks about the ambivalence of anti-austerity activist culture and the difficulty of resisting such a pervasive force as neoliberal capitalism.
James L. Marsh and Anna Brown (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823239825
- eISBN:
- 9780823239863
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823239825.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The book presents Daniel Berrigan’s contributions and challenge to Catholic social thought. His contribution lies in his consistent, comprehensive, theoretical, and practical approach to issues of ...
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The book presents Daniel Berrigan’s contributions and challenge to Catholic social thought. His contribution lies in his consistent, comprehensive, theoretical, and practical approach to issues of peace and justice over the last fifty years. His challenge lies in his criticism of capitalism, imperialism, and militarism, inviting Catholic activists and thinkers to undertake not just a reformist but a radical critique and alternative to these realities. The aim of this book is, for the first time, to make Berrigan’s thought and life available to the Catholic academic community, so that a fruitful interaction takes place. How does his work enlighten and challenge such a community? How can this community enrich and criticize his work? To these ends, the editors have recruited thinkers, scholars, thinker-activists already familiar with and sympathetic with Berrigan’s work and those who are less so identified. The result is a rich, receptive, and critical treatment of the meaning nd impact of his work. What kind of challenge does he present to academic business-as-usual in Catholic universities? How can the life and work of individual Catholic academics be transformed if such persons took Berrigan’s work seriously, theoretically and practically? Do Catholic universities need Berrigan’s vision to fulfill more integrally and completely their own mission? Does the self-knowing subject and theorist need to become a radical subject and theorist? In light of the world’s current social, political, economic, and environmental crises, doesn’t Berrigan’s call for a pacific and prophetic community of justice rooted in the Good News of the Gospel make compelling sense?Less
The book presents Daniel Berrigan’s contributions and challenge to Catholic social thought. His contribution lies in his consistent, comprehensive, theoretical, and practical approach to issues of peace and justice over the last fifty years. His challenge lies in his criticism of capitalism, imperialism, and militarism, inviting Catholic activists and thinkers to undertake not just a reformist but a radical critique and alternative to these realities. The aim of this book is, for the first time, to make Berrigan’s thought and life available to the Catholic academic community, so that a fruitful interaction takes place. How does his work enlighten and challenge such a community? How can this community enrich and criticize his work? To these ends, the editors have recruited thinkers, scholars, thinker-activists already familiar with and sympathetic with Berrigan’s work and those who are less so identified. The result is a rich, receptive, and critical treatment of the meaning nd impact of his work. What kind of challenge does he present to academic business-as-usual in Catholic universities? How can the life and work of individual Catholic academics be transformed if such persons took Berrigan’s work seriously, theoretically and practically? Do Catholic universities need Berrigan’s vision to fulfill more integrally and completely their own mission? Does the self-knowing subject and theorist need to become a radical subject and theorist? In light of the world’s current social, political, economic, and environmental crises, doesn’t Berrigan’s call for a pacific and prophetic community of justice rooted in the Good News of the Gospel make compelling sense?
Máire Fedelma Cross
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781789622454
- eISBN:
- 9781800341401
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789622454.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Social History
Through the use of the tropes of intersectionality and transnationalism, this first-ever study of Jules Puech (1879–1957), is a double biography as it makes an intergenerational journey through his ...
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Through the use of the tropes of intersectionality and transnationalism, this first-ever study of Jules Puech (1879–1957), is a double biography as it makes an intergenerational journey through his life’s work on Flora Tristan (1803–1844), feminist and socialist. Materials from the mid-nineteenth century press found from digitised searches extends knowledge of the advance of Flora Tristan’s political reputation. Its transmission beyond her notoriety as a radical during her lifetime was conveyed by both political activists and scholars. A key feature of the success of Puech is that he considered knowledge of her legacy as a significant ingredient of the nascent labour history of France of which he was part. My work claims that his biography was a major contribution to scholarship. It began when, as a postgraduate student in Paris in the 1900s, he completed his first doctoral thesis on Proudhonian influence on the first internationalist labour movements in France. My book explains the circumstances of how he embarked on the first in-depth biography of Flora Tristan and published it sixteen years later in 1925. By then Puech was unmatched in his knowledge of networks of activists who sustained the memory of early socialists, among them Flora Tristan. An independent scholar with a full-time job he was equally committed elsewhere. He and his suffragist feminist wife Marie-Louise, née Milhau, (1876–1966), also from a Protestant family of the Tarn, worked tirelessly for the pacifist movement, La Paix par le Droit. How his Flora Tristan study was thwarted by the wars of 1914–1918 and 1939–1945 is equally significant. In 1939, he handed both the original Flora Tristan journal and the typed manuscript of his edited Flora Tristan journal Tour de France to the newly established International Institute of Social History in Paris on the understanding that it would publish his work but was powerless to prevent their war-time disappearance. Their eventual recovery in Amsterdam came after his death, too late for him to see the fruition of his cherished project but available for trade-unionist Michel Collinet to publish his annotated edition in 1973, 130 years after Flora Tristan had begun to record her political campaign for a workers’ universal union. The double biography reveals both the multifaceted nature of feminism, socialism and pacifism in activism and the shaping of labour history as an academic subject in France of the first half of the twentieth century.Less
Through the use of the tropes of intersectionality and transnationalism, this first-ever study of Jules Puech (1879–1957), is a double biography as it makes an intergenerational journey through his life’s work on Flora Tristan (1803–1844), feminist and socialist. Materials from the mid-nineteenth century press found from digitised searches extends knowledge of the advance of Flora Tristan’s political reputation. Its transmission beyond her notoriety as a radical during her lifetime was conveyed by both political activists and scholars. A key feature of the success of Puech is that he considered knowledge of her legacy as a significant ingredient of the nascent labour history of France of which he was part. My work claims that his biography was a major contribution to scholarship. It began when, as a postgraduate student in Paris in the 1900s, he completed his first doctoral thesis on Proudhonian influence on the first internationalist labour movements in France. My book explains the circumstances of how he embarked on the first in-depth biography of Flora Tristan and published it sixteen years later in 1925. By then Puech was unmatched in his knowledge of networks of activists who sustained the memory of early socialists, among them Flora Tristan. An independent scholar with a full-time job he was equally committed elsewhere. He and his suffragist feminist wife Marie-Louise, née Milhau, (1876–1966), also from a Protestant family of the Tarn, worked tirelessly for the pacifist movement, La Paix par le Droit. How his Flora Tristan study was thwarted by the wars of 1914–1918 and 1939–1945 is equally significant. In 1939, he handed both the original Flora Tristan journal and the typed manuscript of his edited Flora Tristan journal Tour de France to the newly established International Institute of Social History in Paris on the understanding that it would publish his work but was powerless to prevent their war-time disappearance. Their eventual recovery in Amsterdam came after his death, too late for him to see the fruition of his cherished project but available for trade-unionist Michel Collinet to publish his annotated edition in 1973, 130 years after Flora Tristan had begun to record her political campaign for a workers’ universal union. The double biography reveals both the multifaceted nature of feminism, socialism and pacifism in activism and the shaping of labour history as an academic subject in France of the first half of the twentieth century.
Chris Rossdale
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474443036
- eISBN:
- 9781474465335
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474443036.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Conflict Politics and Policy
In the past 15 years, anti-militarist activists in the UK have auctioned off a tank outside an arms fair, superglued themselves to Lockheed Martin’s central London offices and stopped a battleship ...
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In the past 15 years, anti-militarist activists in the UK have auctioned off a tank outside an arms fair, superglued themselves to Lockheed Martin’s central London offices and stopped a battleship with a canoe. They have also challenged militarism on an everyday level in many other ways. This book tells the story of their resistance. It explores why anti-militarists take part in such actions, considers the politics of different tactics and examines the tensions and debates within the movement.
Resisting Militarism draws on a range of critical theoretical traditions including anarchist, feminist, postcolonial, poststructural and queer theory. These are engaged to both animate and interrogate anti-militarist politics, with particular emphasis placed on activists’ use of prefigurative direct action.
As it explores the multifaceted, imaginative and highly subversive world of anti-militarism, the book also makes two overarching arguments. First, that anti-militarists can help us to understand militarism in novel and useful ways. And secondly, that the methods and ideas used by anti-militarists can be a potent force for radical political change.Less
In the past 15 years, anti-militarist activists in the UK have auctioned off a tank outside an arms fair, superglued themselves to Lockheed Martin’s central London offices and stopped a battleship with a canoe. They have also challenged militarism on an everyday level in many other ways. This book tells the story of their resistance. It explores why anti-militarists take part in such actions, considers the politics of different tactics and examines the tensions and debates within the movement.
Resisting Militarism draws on a range of critical theoretical traditions including anarchist, feminist, postcolonial, poststructural and queer theory. These are engaged to both animate and interrogate anti-militarist politics, with particular emphasis placed on activists’ use of prefigurative direct action.
As it explores the multifaceted, imaginative and highly subversive world of anti-militarism, the book also makes two overarching arguments. First, that anti-militarists can help us to understand militarism in novel and useful ways. And secondly, that the methods and ideas used by anti-militarists can be a potent force for radical political change.
Fraser Raeburn
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474459471
- eISBN:
- 9781474491365
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474459471.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Scottish Studies
Few causes before or since have inspired such passion, determination and sacrifice than the Spanish Civil War (1936-9). This book explores the many ways in which Scots responded to the war in Spain, ...
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Few causes before or since have inspired such passion, determination and sacrifice than the Spanish Civil War (1936-9). This book explores the many ways in which Scots responded to the war in Spain, covering the activists and humanitarians who raised funds and awareness at home, as well as the hundreds of Scots who journeyed to Spain to fight as part of the International Brigades that fought for the Republican cause. Their stories reflect much larger narratives of the rise of European fascism, the networks and cultures of international communism and the wider modern phenomenon of transnational foreign war volunteering.
Scots and the Spanish Civil War is a groundbreaking study of Scottish involvement in one of the 20th century’s most famous and divisive conflicts, drawing on newly-declassified government documents and international archives in Spain and beyond. As well as shedding new light on Scottish politics in the 1930s, it is argued that this case study – part of the largest wave of foreign war volunteers in the 20th century – can help us understand other such mobilisations, past and present.Less
Few causes before or since have inspired such passion, determination and sacrifice than the Spanish Civil War (1936-9). This book explores the many ways in which Scots responded to the war in Spain, covering the activists and humanitarians who raised funds and awareness at home, as well as the hundreds of Scots who journeyed to Spain to fight as part of the International Brigades that fought for the Republican cause. Their stories reflect much larger narratives of the rise of European fascism, the networks and cultures of international communism and the wider modern phenomenon of transnational foreign war volunteering.
Scots and the Spanish Civil War is a groundbreaking study of Scottish involvement in one of the 20th century’s most famous and divisive conflicts, drawing on newly-declassified government documents and international archives in Spain and beyond. As well as shedding new light on Scottish politics in the 1930s, it is argued that this case study – part of the largest wave of foreign war volunteers in the 20th century – can help us understand other such mobilisations, past and present.
Nina Gren
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9789774166952
- eISBN:
- 9781617976568
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- American University in Cairo Press
- DOI:
- 10.5743/cairo/9789774166952.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Migration Studies (including Refugee Studies)
Media coverage of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict does not necessarily enhance one’s knowledge or understanding of the Palestinians; on the contrary, they are often reduced to either victims or ...
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Media coverage of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict does not necessarily enhance one’s knowledge or understanding of the Palestinians; on the contrary, they are often reduced to either victims or perpetrators. Similarly, while many academic studies devote considerable effort to analyzing the political situation in the occupied territories, there have been few sophisticated case studies of Palestinian refugees living under Israeli rule. An ethnographic study of Palestinian refugees in Dheisheh refugee camp, Occupied Lives looks closely at the attempts of the camp inhabitants to survive and bounce back from the profound effects of political violence and Israeli military occupation. Based on the author’s extensive fieldwork conducted inside the camp, this study examines the daily efforts of camp inhabitants to secure survival and meaning during the period of the al-Aqsa Intifada. It argues that the political developments and experiences of extensive violence at the time, which left most refugees outside of direct activism, caused many camp inhabitants to disengage from traditional forms of politics. Instead, they became involved in alternative practices aimed at maintaining their sense of social worth and integrity by focusing on processes to establish a ‘normal’ order, social continuity, and morality. Coming from Social Anthropology, Nina Gren explores these processes and the ambiguities and dilemmas that necessarily arose from them and the ways in which the political and the existential are often intertwined in Dheisheh.Less
Media coverage of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict does not necessarily enhance one’s knowledge or understanding of the Palestinians; on the contrary, they are often reduced to either victims or perpetrators. Similarly, while many academic studies devote considerable effort to analyzing the political situation in the occupied territories, there have been few sophisticated case studies of Palestinian refugees living under Israeli rule. An ethnographic study of Palestinian refugees in Dheisheh refugee camp, Occupied Lives looks closely at the attempts of the camp inhabitants to survive and bounce back from the profound effects of political violence and Israeli military occupation. Based on the author’s extensive fieldwork conducted inside the camp, this study examines the daily efforts of camp inhabitants to secure survival and meaning during the period of the al-Aqsa Intifada. It argues that the political developments and experiences of extensive violence at the time, which left most refugees outside of direct activism, caused many camp inhabitants to disengage from traditional forms of politics. Instead, they became involved in alternative practices aimed at maintaining their sense of social worth and integrity by focusing on processes to establish a ‘normal’ order, social continuity, and morality. Coming from Social Anthropology, Nina Gren explores these processes and the ambiguities and dilemmas that necessarily arose from them and the ways in which the political and the existential are often intertwined in Dheisheh.
Osizwe Raena Jamila Harwell
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781496807588
- eISBN:
- 9781496807625
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496807588.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Politics, Social Movements and Social Change
This Woman’s Work: The Writing and Activism of Bebe Moore Campbell is a social history and critical biography based on the life of award-winning writer Bebe Moore Campbell. This manuscript examines ...
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This Woman’s Work: The Writing and Activism of Bebe Moore Campbell is a social history and critical biography based on the life of award-winning writer Bebe Moore Campbell. This manuscript examines Bebe Moore Campbell’s life and activism in two periods: first, as a student at the University of Pittsburgh during the 1960s Black Student Movement; and second, as a mental health advocate near the end of her life in 2006. Primarily known as a bestselling novelist, Campbell’s first and final novels, Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine (1992) and 72 Hour Hold (2005) reveal a direct relationship to her lesser-known activist work. As a writer and activist, Bebe Moore Campbell used frame shifting within each of her works. Her writing thus becomes a powerful vehicle through which subject matter is enlivened and expanded, immersing her readers in relevant historical and sociopolitical phenomena. As a novelist, Bebe Moore Campbell utilized recurring signature themes within each novel to theorize and to connect popular audiences with African American historical memory and current sociopolitical issues. Similarly, Campbell’s bridge leadership, charismatic personality, and writing merge within two social movement organizations as she aids in significant grassroots/local and institutional change.Less
This Woman’s Work: The Writing and Activism of Bebe Moore Campbell is a social history and critical biography based on the life of award-winning writer Bebe Moore Campbell. This manuscript examines Bebe Moore Campbell’s life and activism in two periods: first, as a student at the University of Pittsburgh during the 1960s Black Student Movement; and second, as a mental health advocate near the end of her life in 2006. Primarily known as a bestselling novelist, Campbell’s first and final novels, Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine (1992) and 72 Hour Hold (2005) reveal a direct relationship to her lesser-known activist work. As a writer and activist, Bebe Moore Campbell used frame shifting within each of her works. Her writing thus becomes a powerful vehicle through which subject matter is enlivened and expanded, immersing her readers in relevant historical and sociopolitical phenomena. As a novelist, Bebe Moore Campbell utilized recurring signature themes within each novel to theorize and to connect popular audiences with African American historical memory and current sociopolitical issues. Similarly, Campbell’s bridge leadership, charismatic personality, and writing merge within two social movement organizations as she aids in significant grassroots/local and institutional change.
Kevin J. Mumford
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469626840
- eISBN:
- 9781469628073
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469626840.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
A historical study of black gay activism and identities from the 1950s to the present based on research in printed and archival sources. It examines both the construction of racism and homophobia and ...
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A historical study of black gay activism and identities from the 1950s to the present based on research in printed and archival sources. It examines both the construction of racism and homophobia and the gradual mobilization by black gay men against oppression. To do so it surveys shifting representations in magazines, newspapers, film, pornography, and analyses the ways in which black gay men succumbed to and resisted negative stereotypes. In the era of civil rights, James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin spoke out for social justice, as well as critiqued some tenets of the new black power ideology. But the stigma surrounding black gay identities undermined their place in the movement. In the 1950s, black periodicals ran frank discussions of black homosexuality—often associated with deviance and crime--but this trend slowed by the 1960s, giving way to respectable images. But in 1967 a white filmmaker directed a film about the life of a black gay hustler, while the increase in gay pulp fiction presented yet another image of black gayness. After Stonewall, black gay activists organized for sexual liberation, gay rights, and religious freedom in their own right. Some joined coalitions between black and gay liberation, while others created black queer identities. Brother Grant-Michael Fitzgerald, a member of a Catholic order, worked to bridge black and gay liberation, while seeking full inclusion in the church. By the 1980s, a new generation settled in predominantly white gay communities, and sought recognition through writing, performing, and speaking out. Joseph Beam organized readings at the local gay bookstore, wrote for the local press, and edited the first black gay anthology. The Howard University professor, James Tinney, struggled against black homophobia but also founded the first black gay and lesbian church. By the 1980s, the AIDS crisis disproportionately hit black gay men, but new organizations, such as Black and White Men Together also formed to combat prejudice and overcome social isolation. By the 2000s, social media, legal change, and further acceptance created a veritable revolution in gay black history, even as racism and homophobia continued to impact the lives of black men who have sex with men.Less
A historical study of black gay activism and identities from the 1950s to the present based on research in printed and archival sources. It examines both the construction of racism and homophobia and the gradual mobilization by black gay men against oppression. To do so it surveys shifting representations in magazines, newspapers, film, pornography, and analyses the ways in which black gay men succumbed to and resisted negative stereotypes. In the era of civil rights, James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin spoke out for social justice, as well as critiqued some tenets of the new black power ideology. But the stigma surrounding black gay identities undermined their place in the movement. In the 1950s, black periodicals ran frank discussions of black homosexuality—often associated with deviance and crime--but this trend slowed by the 1960s, giving way to respectable images. But in 1967 a white filmmaker directed a film about the life of a black gay hustler, while the increase in gay pulp fiction presented yet another image of black gayness. After Stonewall, black gay activists organized for sexual liberation, gay rights, and religious freedom in their own right. Some joined coalitions between black and gay liberation, while others created black queer identities. Brother Grant-Michael Fitzgerald, a member of a Catholic order, worked to bridge black and gay liberation, while seeking full inclusion in the church. By the 1980s, a new generation settled in predominantly white gay communities, and sought recognition through writing, performing, and speaking out. Joseph Beam organized readings at the local gay bookstore, wrote for the local press, and edited the first black gay anthology. The Howard University professor, James Tinney, struggled against black homophobia but also founded the first black gay and lesbian church. By the 1980s, the AIDS crisis disproportionately hit black gay men, but new organizations, such as Black and White Men Together also formed to combat prejudice and overcome social isolation. By the 2000s, social media, legal change, and further acceptance created a veritable revolution in gay black history, even as racism and homophobia continued to impact the lives of black men who have sex with men.
Kevin A. Morrison (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781789620351
- eISBN:
- 9781789623901
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789620351.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
In the 1880s and 1890s, Walter Besant was one of Britain’s most lionized living novelists. Like many popular writers of the period, Besant suffered from years of critical neglect. Yet his centrality ...
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In the 1880s and 1890s, Walter Besant was one of Britain’s most lionized living novelists. Like many popular writers of the period, Besant suffered from years of critical neglect. Yet his centrality to Victorian society and culture all but ensured a revival of interest. While literary critics are now rediscovering the more than forty works of fiction that he penned or co-wrote, as part of a more general revaluation of Victorian popular literature, legal scholars have argued that Besant, by advocating for copyright reform, played a crucial role in consolidating a notion of literary property as the exclusive possession of the individuated intellect. For their part, historians have recently shown how Besant – as a prominent philanthropist who campaigned for the cultural vitalization of impoverished areas in east and south London – galvanized late Victorian social reform activities. The expanding corpus of work on Besant, however, has largely kept the domains of authorship and activism, which he perceived as interrelated, conceptually distinct. Analysing the mutually constitutive interplay in Besant’s career between philanthropy and the professionalization of authorship, Walter Besant: The Business of Literature and the Pleasures of Reform highlights their fundamental interconnectedness in this Victorian intellectual polymath’s life and work.Less
In the 1880s and 1890s, Walter Besant was one of Britain’s most lionized living novelists. Like many popular writers of the period, Besant suffered from years of critical neglect. Yet his centrality to Victorian society and culture all but ensured a revival of interest. While literary critics are now rediscovering the more than forty works of fiction that he penned or co-wrote, as part of a more general revaluation of Victorian popular literature, legal scholars have argued that Besant, by advocating for copyright reform, played a crucial role in consolidating a notion of literary property as the exclusive possession of the individuated intellect. For their part, historians have recently shown how Besant – as a prominent philanthropist who campaigned for the cultural vitalization of impoverished areas in east and south London – galvanized late Victorian social reform activities. The expanding corpus of work on Besant, however, has largely kept the domains of authorship and activism, which he perceived as interrelated, conceptually distinct. Analysing the mutually constitutive interplay in Besant’s career between philanthropy and the professionalization of authorship, Walter Besant: The Business of Literature and the Pleasures of Reform highlights their fundamental interconnectedness in this Victorian intellectual polymath’s life and work.
Eliza Wing-yee Lee
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9789888083497
- eISBN:
- 9789882209107
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083497.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter examines political organisation in Hong Kong from the point of view of local governance, and argues that the post-colonial government has continued to rely on structures and machinery ...
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This chapter examines political organisation in Hong Kong from the point of view of local governance, and argues that the post-colonial government has continued to rely on structures and machinery created by the colonial state for support and legitimacy. Her study of citizens' mobilisation in reaction to urban renewal plans in Wanchai is a case study of how a defensive concern group centring originally on compensation and relocation transformed itself into an activist body demanding, albeit without immediate success, a voice in urban planning.Less
This chapter examines political organisation in Hong Kong from the point of view of local governance, and argues that the post-colonial government has continued to rely on structures and machinery created by the colonial state for support and legitimacy. Her study of citizens' mobilisation in reaction to urban renewal plans in Wanchai is a case study of how a defensive concern group centring originally on compensation and relocation transformed itself into an activist body demanding, albeit without immediate success, a voice in urban planning.
Jens Eder and Charlotte Klonk (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781526107213
- eISBN:
- 9781526120984
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526107213.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
Still and moving images are crucial factors in contemporary political conflicts. They not only have representational, expressive or illustrative functions, but also augment and create significant ...
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Still and moving images are crucial factors in contemporary political conflicts. They not only have representational, expressive or illustrative functions, but also augment and create significant events. Beyond altering states of mind, they affect bodies, and often life or death is at stake. Various forms of image operations are currently performed in the contexts of war, insurgency and activism. Photographs, videos, interactive simulations and other kinds of images steer drones to their targets, train soldiers, terrorise the public, celebrate protest icons, uncover injustices, or call for help. They are often parts of complex agential networks and move across different media and cultural environments. This book is a pioneering interdisciplinary study of the role and function of images in political life. Balancing theoretical reflections with in-depth case studies, it brings together renowned scholars and activists from different fields to offer a multifaceted critical perspective on a crucial aspect of contemporary visual culture.Less
Still and moving images are crucial factors in contemporary political conflicts. They not only have representational, expressive or illustrative functions, but also augment and create significant events. Beyond altering states of mind, they affect bodies, and often life or death is at stake. Various forms of image operations are currently performed in the contexts of war, insurgency and activism. Photographs, videos, interactive simulations and other kinds of images steer drones to their targets, train soldiers, terrorise the public, celebrate protest icons, uncover injustices, or call for help. They are often parts of complex agential networks and move across different media and cultural environments. This book is a pioneering interdisciplinary study of the role and function of images in political life. Balancing theoretical reflections with in-depth case studies, it brings together renowned scholars and activists from different fields to offer a multifaceted critical perspective on a crucial aspect of contemporary visual culture.
Jessica Smartt Gullion
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262029766
- eISBN:
- 9780262329798
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029766.001.0001
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
When natural gas drilling moves into an urban or a suburban neighborhood, a two-hundred-foot-high drill appears on the other side of a back yard fence and diesel trucks clog a quiet two-lane ...
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When natural gas drilling moves into an urban or a suburban neighborhood, a two-hundred-foot-high drill appears on the other side of a back yard fence and diesel trucks clog a quiet two-lane residential street. Children seem to be having more than the usual number of nosebleeds. There are so many local cases of cancer that the elementary school starts a cancer support group. In this book, Jessica Smartt Gullion examines what happens when natural gas extraction by means of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” takes place not on wide-open rural land but in a densely populated area with homes, schools, hospitals, parks, and businesses. Gullion focuses on fracking in the Barnett Shale, the natural-gas–rich geological formation under the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. She gives voice to the residents—for the most part educated, middle class, and politically conservative—who became reluctant anti-drilling activists in response to perceived environmental and health threats posed by fracking. Gullion offers an overview of oil and gas development and describes the fossil-fuel culture of Texas, the process of fracking, related health concerns, and regulatory issues (including the notorious “Halliburton loophole”). She chronicles the experiences of community activists as they fight to be heard and to get the facts about the safety of fracking. Touted as a greener alternative and a means to reduce dependence on foreign oil, natural gas development is an important part of American energy policy. Yet, as this book shows, it comes at a cost to the local communities who bear the health and environmental burdens.Less
When natural gas drilling moves into an urban or a suburban neighborhood, a two-hundred-foot-high drill appears on the other side of a back yard fence and diesel trucks clog a quiet two-lane residential street. Children seem to be having more than the usual number of nosebleeds. There are so many local cases of cancer that the elementary school starts a cancer support group. In this book, Jessica Smartt Gullion examines what happens when natural gas extraction by means of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” takes place not on wide-open rural land but in a densely populated area with homes, schools, hospitals, parks, and businesses. Gullion focuses on fracking in the Barnett Shale, the natural-gas–rich geological formation under the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. She gives voice to the residents—for the most part educated, middle class, and politically conservative—who became reluctant anti-drilling activists in response to perceived environmental and health threats posed by fracking. Gullion offers an overview of oil and gas development and describes the fossil-fuel culture of Texas, the process of fracking, related health concerns, and regulatory issues (including the notorious “Halliburton loophole”). She chronicles the experiences of community activists as they fight to be heard and to get the facts about the safety of fracking. Touted as a greener alternative and a means to reduce dependence on foreign oil, natural gas development is an important part of American energy policy. Yet, as this book shows, it comes at a cost to the local communities who bear the health and environmental burdens.
Halifu Osumare
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813056616
- eISBN:
- 9780813053530
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813056616.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
Dancing in Blackness: A Memoir explores a black female dancer’s personal journey over four decades across three continents and numerous countries. The author situates herself in the 1960s Black Arts ...
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Dancing in Blackness: A Memoir explores a black female dancer’s personal journey over four decades across three continents and numerous countries. The author situates herself in the 1960s Black Arts Movement in the S.F. Bay Area, the dynamics of being a black woman dancing in Europe in the late 1960s, and dancing professionally in New York City in the early 1970s, while participating in racial inroads into important arts venues like Lincoln Center. She recounts friendships and collaborations with major artistic figures like Katherine Dunham, Ntozake Shange, Rod Rodgers, Diane McIntyre, Donald McKayle, Dr. Kwabena Nketia, and many others. She explores dancing in Ghana for almost a year, the inspiration for her return to the Oakland Bay Area in the late 1970s to help create the city’s black dance scene while being an adjunct dance lecturer at Stanford University. She also considers how her arts activism helped to engender more cultural equity in the arts nationally. She remembers the 1980s national multicultural arts movement and regional community dance activism, including her own national dance initiative, Black Choreographers Moving Toward the 21st Century. Finally, she ponders her self-reinvention in her 50s into a noted black studies and hip-hop scholar in academia.Less
Dancing in Blackness: A Memoir explores a black female dancer’s personal journey over four decades across three continents and numerous countries. The author situates herself in the 1960s Black Arts Movement in the S.F. Bay Area, the dynamics of being a black woman dancing in Europe in the late 1960s, and dancing professionally in New York City in the early 1970s, while participating in racial inroads into important arts venues like Lincoln Center. She recounts friendships and collaborations with major artistic figures like Katherine Dunham, Ntozake Shange, Rod Rodgers, Diane McIntyre, Donald McKayle, Dr. Kwabena Nketia, and many others. She explores dancing in Ghana for almost a year, the inspiration for her return to the Oakland Bay Area in the late 1970s to help create the city’s black dance scene while being an adjunct dance lecturer at Stanford University. She also considers how her arts activism helped to engender more cultural equity in the arts nationally. She remembers the 1980s national multicultural arts movement and regional community dance activism, including her own national dance initiative, Black Choreographers Moving Toward the 21st Century. Finally, she ponders her self-reinvention in her 50s into a noted black studies and hip-hop scholar in academia.
Simon Peplow
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781526125286
- eISBN:
- 9781526144690
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526125286.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Politics, Social Movements and Social Change
In 1980–1, anti-police collective violence spread across England. This was the earliest confrontation between the state and members of the British public during Thatcher’s divisive government. This ...
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In 1980–1, anti-police collective violence spread across England. This was the earliest confrontation between the state and members of the British public during Thatcher’s divisive government. This powerful and original book locates these disturbances within a longer struggle against racism and disadvantage faced by black Britons, which had seen a growth in more militant forms of resistance since World War II. In this first full-length historical study of 1980–1, three case studies – of Bristol, Brixton, and Manchester – emphasise the importance of local factors and the wider situation, concluding that these events should be viewed as ‘collective bargaining by riot’ – as a tool attempting increased political inclusion for marginalised black Britons. Focussing on the political activities of black Britons themselves, it explores the actions of community organisations in the aftermath of disorders to highlight dichotomous valuations of state mechanisms. A key focus is public inquiries, which were contrastingly viewed by black Britons as either a governmental diversionary tactic, or a method of legitimising their inclusion with the British constitutional system. Through study of a wide range of newly-available archives, interviews, understudied local sources, and records of grassroots black political organisations, this work expands understandings of protest movements and community activism in modern democracies while highlighting the often-problematic reliance upon ‘official’ sources when forming historical narratives. Of interest to researchers of race, ethnicity, and migration history, as well as modern British political and social history more generally, its interdisciplinary nature will also appeal to wider fields, including sociology, political sciences, and criminology.Less
In 1980–1, anti-police collective violence spread across England. This was the earliest confrontation between the state and members of the British public during Thatcher’s divisive government. This powerful and original book locates these disturbances within a longer struggle against racism and disadvantage faced by black Britons, which had seen a growth in more militant forms of resistance since World War II. In this first full-length historical study of 1980–1, three case studies – of Bristol, Brixton, and Manchester – emphasise the importance of local factors and the wider situation, concluding that these events should be viewed as ‘collective bargaining by riot’ – as a tool attempting increased political inclusion for marginalised black Britons. Focussing on the political activities of black Britons themselves, it explores the actions of community organisations in the aftermath of disorders to highlight dichotomous valuations of state mechanisms. A key focus is public inquiries, which were contrastingly viewed by black Britons as either a governmental diversionary tactic, or a method of legitimising their inclusion with the British constitutional system. Through study of a wide range of newly-available archives, interviews, understudied local sources, and records of grassroots black political organisations, this work expands understandings of protest movements and community activism in modern democracies while highlighting the often-problematic reliance upon ‘official’ sources when forming historical narratives. Of interest to researchers of race, ethnicity, and migration history, as well as modern British political and social history more generally, its interdisciplinary nature will also appeal to wider fields, including sociology, political sciences, and criminology.
Regis M. Fox
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813056586
- eISBN:
- 9780813053431
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813056586.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
A reimagining of liberal ideologies of selfhood, privilege, and consent is a significant legacy of nineteenth-century black feminist knowledge production. Yet, analyses of black women’s critical ...
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A reimagining of liberal ideologies of selfhood, privilege, and consent is a significant legacy of nineteenth-century black feminist knowledge production. Yet, analyses of black women’s critical engagement with theliberal problematic—the disjunction between democratic promise and dispossession, between freedom and subjection in the American nation-state—remain incomplete. Resistance Reimagined: Black Women’s Critical Thought as Survival repositions a spectrum of discourses, from canonical nineteenth-century American literary studies to black women’s history, to interrogate black women’s disruptions of the liberal problematic as a medium of resistance. It deploys African-Americanist and feminist literary criticism by scholars such as Saidiya Hartman and Lindon Barrett, post-1960s histories of enslavement and black political consciousness by Stephanie M. H. Camp, and rhetorical theories developed by Shirley Wilson Logan and Vorris Nunley, to expand the bounds of contemporary critical inquiry in two key ways. First, Resistance Reimagined spotlights nineteenth-century black women’s intervention into the effects of liberalism as juridical, economic, and affective performance. This unsettles sedimented perspectives of black resistance as inherently militant, male, and vernacular, while problematizing how scholars have read nineteenth-century African-American women’s activism—against Sojourner Truth or Ida B. Wells-Barnett, for instance—as inauthentic or accommodationist. Second, the text juxtaposes early writers and thinkers, including Harriet Wilson, Elizabeth Keckly, and Anna Julia Cooper, with authors of modern neo-slave narrative, including Sherley Anne Williams, to grapple more effectively with the neoliberal present.Less
A reimagining of liberal ideologies of selfhood, privilege, and consent is a significant legacy of nineteenth-century black feminist knowledge production. Yet, analyses of black women’s critical engagement with theliberal problematic—the disjunction between democratic promise and dispossession, between freedom and subjection in the American nation-state—remain incomplete. Resistance Reimagined: Black Women’s Critical Thought as Survival repositions a spectrum of discourses, from canonical nineteenth-century American literary studies to black women’s history, to interrogate black women’s disruptions of the liberal problematic as a medium of resistance. It deploys African-Americanist and feminist literary criticism by scholars such as Saidiya Hartman and Lindon Barrett, post-1960s histories of enslavement and black political consciousness by Stephanie M. H. Camp, and rhetorical theories developed by Shirley Wilson Logan and Vorris Nunley, to expand the bounds of contemporary critical inquiry in two key ways. First, Resistance Reimagined spotlights nineteenth-century black women’s intervention into the effects of liberalism as juridical, economic, and affective performance. This unsettles sedimented perspectives of black resistance as inherently militant, male, and vernacular, while problematizing how scholars have read nineteenth-century African-American women’s activism—against Sojourner Truth or Ida B. Wells-Barnett, for instance—as inauthentic or accommodationist. Second, the text juxtaposes early writers and thinkers, including Harriet Wilson, Elizabeth Keckly, and Anna Julia Cooper, with authors of modern neo-slave narrative, including Sherley Anne Williams, to grapple more effectively with the neoliberal present.
Jack Saunders
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781526133397
- eISBN:
- 9781526146649
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7765/9781526133403
- Subject:
- Sociology, Occupations, Professions, and Work
Car workers’ union activism has long held a strong grip on popular memories of the post-war period. Working in the quintessential industry of modernity their labour militancy has been linked to ...
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Car workers’ union activism has long held a strong grip on popular memories of the post-war period. Working in the quintessential industry of modernity their labour militancy has been linked to narratives of economic decline and of rising working-class living standards.
Yet despite their centrality to understanding of this period, car workers’ capacity for collective action has often been taken for granted, with mobilisation attributed to uncomplicated economic motivations or the last gasps of a declining “traditional class consciousness”, and the effects of the post-war settlement.
This book looks at the changing forms of agency and subjectivity expressed by labour militancy, considering workplace activism in the motor industry as a specific historical creation of post-war Britain, rather than a reflection of “tradition”. It traces the origins of shop-floor organisations which first emerged in the 1950s, studying the processes by which workers built their union cultures, and exploring the capacity of car workers to generate new solidarities and collective values in this period. Focus then turns to the 1960s and 1970s and the social practices and cultural norms that resulted from this cultural assembling, looking to understand how worker activism shaped the agency of car workers in post-war Britain, influencing the forms that strike action took. Through a mixture of oral history interviews, letters, meeting minutes and periodicals, this book analyses the meanings workers attributed to industrial conflict, asking whether factory activism generated attitudes distinct from the dominant values of wider British society.Less
Car workers’ union activism has long held a strong grip on popular memories of the post-war period. Working in the quintessential industry of modernity their labour militancy has been linked to narratives of economic decline and of rising working-class living standards.
Yet despite their centrality to understanding of this period, car workers’ capacity for collective action has often been taken for granted, with mobilisation attributed to uncomplicated economic motivations or the last gasps of a declining “traditional class consciousness”, and the effects of the post-war settlement.
This book looks at the changing forms of agency and subjectivity expressed by labour militancy, considering workplace activism in the motor industry as a specific historical creation of post-war Britain, rather than a reflection of “tradition”. It traces the origins of shop-floor organisations which first emerged in the 1950s, studying the processes by which workers built their union cultures, and exploring the capacity of car workers to generate new solidarities and collective values in this period. Focus then turns to the 1960s and 1970s and the social practices and cultural norms that resulted from this cultural assembling, looking to understand how worker activism shaped the agency of car workers in post-war Britain, influencing the forms that strike action took. Through a mixture of oral history interviews, letters, meeting minutes and periodicals, this book analyses the meanings workers attributed to industrial conflict, asking whether factory activism generated attitudes distinct from the dominant values of wider British society.
Jennifer Thomson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781469651996
- eISBN:
- 9781469651668
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469651996.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Environmental History
Health figures centrally in late twentieth-century environmental activism. There are many competing claims about the health of ecosystems, the health of the planet, and the health of humans, yet ...
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Health figures centrally in late twentieth-century environmental activism. There are many competing claims about the health of ecosystems, the health of the planet, and the health of humans, yet there is little agreement among the likes of D.C. lobbyists, grassroots organizers, eco-anarchist collectives, and science-based advocacy organizations about whose health matters most, or what health even means. In this book, Jennifer Thomson untangles the complex web of political, social, and intellectual developments that gave rise to the multiplicity of claims and concerns about environmental health.
Thomson traces four strands of activism from the 1970s to the present: the environmental lobby, environmental justice groups, radical environmentalism and bioregionalism, and climate justice activism. By focusing on health, environmentalists were empowered to intervene in the rise of neoliberalism, the erosion of the regulatory state, and the decimation of mass-based progressive politics. Yet, as this book reveals, an individualist definition of health ultimately won out over more communal understandings. Considering this turn from collective solidarity toward individual health helps explain the near paralysis of collective action in the face of planetary disaster.Less
Health figures centrally in late twentieth-century environmental activism. There are many competing claims about the health of ecosystems, the health of the planet, and the health of humans, yet there is little agreement among the likes of D.C. lobbyists, grassroots organizers, eco-anarchist collectives, and science-based advocacy organizations about whose health matters most, or what health even means. In this book, Jennifer Thomson untangles the complex web of political, social, and intellectual developments that gave rise to the multiplicity of claims and concerns about environmental health.
Thomson traces four strands of activism from the 1970s to the present: the environmental lobby, environmental justice groups, radical environmentalism and bioregionalism, and climate justice activism. By focusing on health, environmentalists were empowered to intervene in the rise of neoliberalism, the erosion of the regulatory state, and the decimation of mass-based progressive politics. Yet, as this book reveals, an individualist definition of health ultimately won out over more communal understandings. Considering this turn from collective solidarity toward individual health helps explain the near paralysis of collective action in the face of planetary disaster.
Emma Craddock
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781529205701
- eISBN:
- 9781529205749
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781529205701.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter explores what motivates and sustains anti-austerity activism within the context of continued austerity. It affirms the centrality of the affective and normative dimensions of political ...
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This chapter explores what motivates and sustains anti-austerity activism within the context of continued austerity. It affirms the centrality of the affective and normative dimensions of political engagement by demonstrating that anti-austerity activism is motivated and sustained by three core elements; emotion, morality and relationship. Individuals are motivated by an emotional response to perceived injustice combined with normative ideals about how society should be and how we should act in relation to others. They utilise notions of humanity and empathy to combat the dehumanising effect of neoliberal capitalism and its focus on individualism and competition. Participants translate such abstract, universal concepts into concrete, particular actions through a focus on everyday activism and individual choices. Rather than an outright rejection of individualism, participants seek to redefine it in ways that move away from the dominant neoliberal understanding and towards reconciling the individual with the wider collective and common good. Here, activism is conceptualised as a moral duty. Participants therefore suggest that everyone and anyone can and should do activism, with small acts making a difference. This chapter begins to unpick the ways in which activists resist, subvert and sometimes unwittingly reinforce neoliberal capitalism, as well as questioning the problematic distinction drawn between ‘non-activist’ and ‘activist’.Less
This chapter explores what motivates and sustains anti-austerity activism within the context of continued austerity. It affirms the centrality of the affective and normative dimensions of political engagement by demonstrating that anti-austerity activism is motivated and sustained by three core elements; emotion, morality and relationship. Individuals are motivated by an emotional response to perceived injustice combined with normative ideals about how society should be and how we should act in relation to others. They utilise notions of humanity and empathy to combat the dehumanising effect of neoliberal capitalism and its focus on individualism and competition. Participants translate such abstract, universal concepts into concrete, particular actions through a focus on everyday activism and individual choices. Rather than an outright rejection of individualism, participants seek to redefine it in ways that move away from the dominant neoliberal understanding and towards reconciling the individual with the wider collective and common good. Here, activism is conceptualised as a moral duty. Participants therefore suggest that everyone and anyone can and should do activism, with small acts making a difference. This chapter begins to unpick the ways in which activists resist, subvert and sometimes unwittingly reinforce neoliberal capitalism, as well as questioning the problematic distinction drawn between ‘non-activist’ and ‘activist’.
Emma Craddock
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781529205701
- eISBN:
- 9781529205749
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781529205701.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter discusses the costs (financial, physical, psychological and emotional) associated with doing activism. While participants speak about activism in terms of the everyday and suggest that ...
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This chapter discusses the costs (financial, physical, psychological and emotional) associated with doing activism. While participants speak about activism in terms of the everyday and suggest that it is something anyone can do, they often do not acknowledge the privilege required to do activism. This chapter draws out the tensions present in the notion that everyone can and should do activism by exploring the barriers and exclusions that prevent individuals from participating politically. This includes the reality that those who are hardest hit by austerity often do not have the resources to protest against it. Therefore, while lived experiences of issues are deemed to be a key and authentic motivation for doing activism (a topic that is explored further in Chapter 6), it becomes clear that those who are most affected by austerity are less able to protest against it because of its effects. Despite women being disproportionately affected by austerity, this chapter reveals the continuing and heightening gendered barriers that exist in the specific context of austerity and a local anti-austerity activist culture that privileges questions of class over those of gender. It demonstrates how, in response, women are forming their own feminist resistance to austerity, and explores how this is empowering but problematic because it upholds austerity through the provision of unpaid care in the absence of public services.Less
This chapter discusses the costs (financial, physical, psychological and emotional) associated with doing activism. While participants speak about activism in terms of the everyday and suggest that it is something anyone can do, they often do not acknowledge the privilege required to do activism. This chapter draws out the tensions present in the notion that everyone can and should do activism by exploring the barriers and exclusions that prevent individuals from participating politically. This includes the reality that those who are hardest hit by austerity often do not have the resources to protest against it. Therefore, while lived experiences of issues are deemed to be a key and authentic motivation for doing activism (a topic that is explored further in Chapter 6), it becomes clear that those who are most affected by austerity are less able to protest against it because of its effects. Despite women being disproportionately affected by austerity, this chapter reveals the continuing and heightening gendered barriers that exist in the specific context of austerity and a local anti-austerity activist culture that privileges questions of class over those of gender. It demonstrates how, in response, women are forming their own feminist resistance to austerity, and explores how this is empowering but problematic because it upholds austerity through the provision of unpaid care in the absence of public services.
Emma Craddock
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781529205701
- eISBN:
- 9781529205749
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781529205701.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter concludes the book by discussing the ambivalence and complexity of anti-austerity activist culture and the difficulty of resisting a force that is as pervasive as neoliberal capitalism, ...
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This chapter concludes the book by discussing the ambivalence and complexity of anti-austerity activist culture and the difficulty of resisting a force that is as pervasive as neoliberal capitalism, raising questions about how this can be more effectively achieved and asserting the importance of paying attention to the messy reality of social movement activism. It suggests that, moving forwards, there is a need for further in-depth ‘thick description’ of the complex processes of activist cultures that reveal the contradictions, tensions, and advantages of the internal dynamics and how they interact with the wider political context. It reminds us that resistance does not exist within a vacuum and that it is important to consider the multiple facets of political participation, and the implicit power relations that exist, in order to both better understand and change future political intervention. Finally, it considers limitations of the research this book draws on and suggests future directions for research.Less
This chapter concludes the book by discussing the ambivalence and complexity of anti-austerity activist culture and the difficulty of resisting a force that is as pervasive as neoliberal capitalism, raising questions about how this can be more effectively achieved and asserting the importance of paying attention to the messy reality of social movement activism. It suggests that, moving forwards, there is a need for further in-depth ‘thick description’ of the complex processes of activist cultures that reveal the contradictions, tensions, and advantages of the internal dynamics and how they interact with the wider political context. It reminds us that resistance does not exist within a vacuum and that it is important to consider the multiple facets of political participation, and the implicit power relations that exist, in order to both better understand and change future political intervention. Finally, it considers limitations of the research this book draws on and suggests future directions for research.
