Ambiguities of Activism PDF Download

Author: Ingrid M. Hoofd
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415622077
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
When the keyboard player for the Cinnamon Roll Six jazz band is murdered after a tour bus accident on the way to Lake Eden, Minnesota, Hannah Swensen investigates and comes up with several local suspects.

Author: Ingrid M. Hoofd
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136257543
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
This volume provides a critical and in-depth investigation of the relationship between alter-globalist thinking and practices and their popular discourses. It examines the ways in which several alter-globalist activist groups (like Indymedia, no-borders campaigns, and forms of climate change activism), as well as left-wing intellectuals and academics (like Michael Hardt, Al Gore, Antonio Negri, Hakim Bey, and Geert Lovink), mobilize problematic discourses, tools, and divisions in an attempt to overcome gendered, raced, and classed oppressions worldwide. The book draws out how these mobilizations and theorizations, despite (or possibly because of) their liberatory claims, are actually implicated in the intensification of global hierarchies by repeatedly invoking narratives of transcendence, connection, progress, and in particular of speed. Hoofd argues that the humanist ideals that underlie all these practices paradoxically trigger increasing disenfranchisements worldwide.

Author: John Kinsella
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781526160065
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This volume completes John Kinsella's trilogy of critical activist poetics, begun two decades ago. It challenges familiar topoi and normatives of poetic activity as it pertains to environmental, humanitarian and textual activism in 'the world-at-large': it shows how ambiguity can be a generative force when it works from a basis of non-ambiguity of purpose. The book shows how there is a clear unambiguous position to have regarding issues of justice, but that from that confirmed point ambiguity can be an intense and useful activist tool. The book is an essential resource for those wishing to study Kinsella, and for those with an interest in twentieth and twenty-first-century poetry and poetics, and it will stand as an inspiring proclamation of the author's faith in the transformative power of poetry and literary activity as a force for good in the world.

Author: Nato Thompson
Publisher: Melville House
ISBN: 1612190456
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
In our chaotic world of co-opted imagery, does art still have power? A fog of images and information permeates the world nowadays: from advertising, television, radio, and film to the glut produced by the new economy and the rise of social media . . . where even our friends suddenly seem to be selling us the ultimate product: themselves. Here, Nato Thompson—one of the country’s most celebrated young curators and critics—investigates what this deluge means for those dedicated to socially engaged art and activism. How can anyone find a voice and make change in a world flooded with such pseudo-art? How are we supposed to discern what’s true in the product emanating from the ceaseless machine of consumer capitalism, a machine that appropriates from art history, and now from the methods of grassroots political organizing and even social networking? Thompson’s invigorating answers to those questions highlights the work of some of the most innovative and interesting artists and activists working today, as well as institutions that empower their communities to see power and reimagine it. From cooperative housing to anarchist infoshops to alternative art venues, Seeing Power reveals ways that art today can and does inspire innovation and dramatic transformation . . . perhaps as never before.

Author: Caroline Heldman
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 150171211X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Protest Politics in the Marketplace examines how social media has revolutionized the use and effectiveness of consumer activism. In her groundbreaking book, Caroline Heldman emphasizes that consumer activism is a democratizing force that improves political participation, self-governance, and the accountability of corporations and the government. She also investigates the use of these tactics by conservatives. Heldman analyzes the democratic implications of boycotting, socially responsible investing, social media campaigns, and direct consumer actions, highlighting the ways in which such consumer activism serves as a countervailing force against corporate power in politics. In Protest Politics in the Marketplace, she blends democratic theory with data, historical analysis, and coverage of consumer campaigns for civil rights, environmental conservation, animal rights, gender justice, LGBT rights, and other causes. Using an inter-disciplinary approach applicable to political theorists and sociologists, Americanists, and scholars of business, the environment, and social movements, Heldman considers activism in the marketplace from the Boston Tea Party to the present. In doing so, she provides readers with a clearer understanding of the new, permanent environment of consumer activism in which they operate.

Author: Eika Tai
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
ISBN: 9888528459
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
Comfort Women Activism follows the movement championed by pioneer activists in Japan to demonstrate how their activism has kept a critical interpretation of the atrocities against women committed before and during World War II alive. The book shows how the challenges faced by the activists have evolved from the beginning of their uphill battles all the way to contemporary times. They were able to change social attitudes and get their message across. Yet the ambiguous position of post–World War II Japan’s government—which has consistently rejected any sign of guilt over its imperialist past—has kept the activists on their toes. Pivotal and serendipitous turning points have also played a crucial role. In particular, in the early 1990s, the post-Soviet world order assisted in creating the appropriate conditions for the movement to gather transnational support. These conditions have eroded over time; yet due to the activists’ fidelity to survivors, the movement has persisted to this day. Tai uses the activists’ narratives to show the multifaceted aspects of the movement. By measuring these narratives against scholarly debates, she argues that comfort women activism in Japan could be called a new form of feminism. “A manuscript of this depth covering such a range of material about the comfort women movement has not previously been available in English. I am deeply impressed by the author’s scholarly commitment and humanitarian compassion. The accounts provided in the book are particularly moving, putting a human face on the transnational comfort women movement that has had a global impact.” —Peipei Qiu, Vassar College “Eika Tai urges a postcolonial understanding of how activists in Japan came to embrace the issue of ‘comfort women,’ make it their own, and engage on a transnational, multigenerational effort. Her book is an absolutely clear rejection of those who portray this historical topic as activism meant to ‘hate Japan.’ Instead, she claims that this issue is at the heart of a divided Japan.” —Alexis Dudden, University of Connecticut

Author: Emiliano Treré
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315438151
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This book is an extensive investigation of the complexities, ambiguities and shortcomings of contemporary digital activism. The author deconstructs the reductionism of the literature on social movements and communication, proposing a new conceptual vocabulary based on practices, ecologies, imaginaries and algorithms to account for the communicative complexity of protest movements. Drawing on extensive fieldwork on social movements, collectives and political parties in Spain, Italy and Mexico, this book disentangles the hybrid nature of contemporary activism. It shows how activists operate merging the physical and the digital, the human and the non-human, the old and the new, the internal and the external, the corporate and the alternative. The author illustrates the ambivalent character of contemporary digital activism, demonstrating that media imaginaries can be either used to conceal authoritarianism, or to reimagine democracy. The book looks at both side of algorithmic power, shedding light on strategies of repression and propaganda, and scrutinizing manifestations of algorithms as appropriation and resistance. The author analyses the way in which digital activism is not an immediate solution to intricate political problems, and argues that it can only be effective when a set of favourable social, political, and cultural conditions align. Assessing whether digital activism can generate and sustain long-term processes of social and political change, this book will be of interest to students and scholars researching radical politics, social movements, digital activism, political participation and current affairs more generally.

Author: Alastair Fuad-Luke
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136568476
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Design academics and practitioners are facing a multiplicity of challenges in a dynamic, complex, world moving faster than the current design paradigm which is largely tied to the values and imperatives of commercial enterprise. Current education and practice need to evolve to ensure that the discipline of design meets sustainability drivers and equips students, teachers and professionals for the near-future. New approaches, methods and tools are urgently required as sustainability expands the context for design and what it means to be a 'designer'. Design activists, who comprise a diverse range of designers, teachers and other actors, are setting new ambitions for design. They seek to fundamentally challenge how, where and when design can catalyse positive impacts to address sustainability. They are also challenging who can utilise the power of the design process. To date, examination of contemporary and emergent design activism is poorly represented in the literature. This book will provide a rigorous exploration of design activism that will re-vitalise the design debate and provide a solid platform for students, teachers, design professionals and other disciplines interested in transformative (design) activism. Design Activism provides a comprehensive study of contemporary and emergent design activism. This activism has a dual aim - to make positive impacts towards more sustainable ways of living and working; and to challenge and reinvigorate design praxis,. It will collate, synthesise and analyse design activist approaches, processes, methods, tools and inspirational examples/outcomes from disparate sources and, in doing so, will create a specific canon of work to illuminate contemporary design discourse. Design Activism reveals the power of design for positive social and environmental change, design with a central activist role in the sustainability challenge. Inspired by past design activists and set against the context of global-local tensions, expressions of design activism are mapped. The nature of contemporary design activism is explored, from individual/collective action to the infrastructure that supports it generating powerful participatory design approaches, a diverse toolbox and inspirational outcomes. This is design as a political and social act, design to enable adaptive societal capacity for co-futuring.

Author: Jamie Margolin
Publisher: Hachette Go
ISBN: 0738246670
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
"Jamie Margolin is among the powerful and inspiring youth activists leading a movement to demand urgent action on the climate crisis. With determined purpose and moral clarity, Jamie is pushing political leaders to develop ambitious plans to confront this existential threat to humanity. Youth To Power is an essential how-to for anyone of any age who feels called to act to protect our planet for future generations." --- Former Vice President Al Gore Climate change activist and Zero Hour cofounder Jamie Margolin offers the essential guide to changemaking for young people. The 1963 Children's March. The 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protests. March for Our Lives, and School Strike for Climate. What do all these social justice movements have in common?They were led by passionate, informed, engaged young people. Jamie Margolin has been organizing and protesting since she was fourteen years old. Now the co-leader of a global climate action movement, she knows better than most how powerful a young person can be. You don't have to be able to vote or hold positions of power to change the world. In Youth to Power, Jamie presents the essential guide to changemaking, with advice on writing and pitching op-eds, organizing successful events and peaceful protests, time management as a student activist, utilizing social and traditional media to spread a message, and sustaining long-term action. She features interviews with prominent young activists including Tokata Iron Eyes of the #NoDAPL movement and Nupol Kiazolu of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, who give guidance on handling backlash, keeping your mental health a priority, and how to avoid getting taken advantage of. Jamie walks readers through every step of what effective, healthy, intersectional activism looks like. Young people have a lot to say, and Youth to Power will give you the tools to raise your voice.

Author: Caty Borum Chattoo
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520299779
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
Comedy is a powerful contemporary source of influence and information. In the still-evolving digital era, the opportunity to consume and share comedy has never been as available. And yet, despite its vast cultural imprint, comedy is a little-understood vehicle for serious public engagement in urgent social justice issues – even though humor offers frames of hope and optimism that can encourage participation in social problems. Moreover, in the midst of a merger of entertainment and news in the contemporary information ecology, and a decline in perceptions of trust in government and traditional media institutions, comedy may be a unique force for change in pressing social justice challenges. Comedians who say something serious about the world while they make us laugh are capable of mobilizing the masses, focusing a critical lens on injustices, and injecting hope and optimism into seemingly hopeless problems. By combining communication and social justice frameworks with contemporary comedy examples, authors Caty Borum Chattoo and Lauren Feldman show us how comedy can help to serve as a vehicle of change. Through rich case studies, audience research, and interviews with comedians and social justice leaders and strategists, A Comedian and an Activist Walk Into a Bar: The Serious Role of Comedy in Social Justice explains how comedy – both in the entertainment marketplace and as cultural strategy – can engage audiences with issues such as global poverty, climate change, immigration, and sexual assault, and how activists work with comedy to reach and empower publics in the networked, participatory digital media age.