Democracy. Free expression. Due process. Accountable government. Individualism. Americans and their institutions love their civil liberties and the activists who promote them. Or do they? This book, which is the first in a trilogy, follows the life-story of journalist-turned-professor David Demers, who discovers that three American institutions most expected to defend civil liberties -- universities, the courts and news organizations -- often fail to practice what they preach. Some of the anti-liberty actions are attributable to conservative politics. But the lion's share, Demers argues, can be explained by increasing bureaucratization of everyday life. In fact, bureaucracies often discourage individual activism and encourage consensus decision-making, even fostering an "other-directed" need for approval from others.
Essays and interviews explode the myth of apolitical motherhood by showing how 20th century women have politicized their role as mothers in a wide range of social contexts.
Writing in the wake of neoliberalism, where human rights and social justice have increasingly been subordinated to proliferating “consumer choices” and ideals of market justice, contributors to this collection argue that feminist ethnographers are in a key position to reassert the central feminist connections between theory, methods, and activism. Together, we suggest avenues for incorporating methodological innovations, collaborative analysis, and collective activism in our scholarly projects. What are the possibilities (and challenges) that exist for feminist ethnography 25 years after initial debates emerged in this field about reflexivity, objectivity, reductive individualism, and the social relevance of activist scholarship? How can feminist ethnography intensify efforts towards social justice in the current political and economic climate? This collection continues a crucial dialog about feminist activist ethnography in the 21st century—at the intersection of engaged feminist research and activism in the service of the organizations, people, communities, and feminist issues we study.
For over twenty years, Patagonia has organized a Tools Conference, where experts provide practical training to help make activists more effective. Now Patagonia has captured Tools’ best wisdom and advice into a book, creating a resource for any organization hoping to hone core skills like campaign and communication strategy, grassroots organizing, and lobbying as well as working with business, fundraising in uncertain times and using new technologies. Patagonia hopes the book will be dog-eared and scribbled in; a solid, inspiring guide and reliable companion. The book is organized in two sections: Strategies, and Tools. Each chapter, written by a respected expert in the field, covers essential principals as well as best practices. A hands-on case study accompanies each chapter and demonstrates the principles in action. Sprinkled throughout are inspirational thoughts from acclaimed activists, such as Jane Goodall, Bill McKibben, Wade Davis, Annie Leonard, and Terry Tempest Williams. An activist's companion in the environmental movement.
2023 Axiom Business Books Award Silver Medalist (Business Commentary) 2023 Nautilus Book Award Silver Medalist (Social Change & Social Justice) This is the first in-depth examination of the important ongoing fusion of activism, capitalism, and social change masterfully told through a compelling narrative filled with vivid stories and striking studies. Corporations and their executives are at the forefront of some of the most contentious and important social issues of our time. Through pronouncements, policies, boycotts, sponsorships, lobbying, and fundraising, corporations are actively engaged in issues like immigration reform, gun regulation, racial justice, gender equality, and religious freedom. Despite corporate social activism being everywhere these days-witness how quickly companies and progressives united to oppose North Carolina's bathroom bill or support the Black Lives Matter movement-there has been no in-depth examination of the far-reaching consequences of this movement. What first principles should guide businesses' approaches? How should activists engage with businesses in a way that is most beneficial to their causes? What are potential pitfalls and risks associated with corporate social activism for activists, businesses, and society at large? Weaving studies and stories, Temple University professor of law, Tom C. W. Lin offers a road map for how we got here and a compass for where we are going as a nation of capitalists and activists seeking profit and progress.
Student radicals and hippies—in Oklahoma? Though most scholarship about 1960s-era student activism and the counterculture focuses on the East and West Coasts, Oklahoma’s college campuses did see significant activism and “dropping out.” In Prairie Power, Sarah Eppler Janda fills a gap in the historical record by connecting the activism of Oklahoma students and the experience of hippies to a state and a national history from which they have been absent. Janda shows that participants in both student activism and retreat from conformist society sought connections to Oklahoma’s past while forging new paths for themselves. She shows that Oklahoma students linked their activism with the grassroots socialist radicalism and World War I–era anti-draft protest of their grandparents’ generation, citing Woody Guthrie, Oscar Ameringer, and the Wobblies as role models. Many movement organizers in Oklahoma, especially those in the University of Oklahoma’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society and the anti-war movement, fit into a larger midwestern and southwestern activist mentality of “prairie power”: a blend of free-speech advocacy, countercultural expression, and anarchist tendencies that set them apart from most East Coast student activists. Janda also reveals the vehemence with which state officials sought to repress campus “agitators,” and discusses Oklahomans who chose to retreat from the mainstream rather than fight to change it. Like their student activist counterparts, Oklahoma hippies sought inspiration from older precedents, including the back-to-the-land movement and the search for authenticity, but also Christian evangelicalism and traditional gender roles. Drawing on underground newspapers and declassified FBI documents, as well as interviews the author conducted with former activists and government officials, Prairie Power will appeal to those interested in Oklahoma’s history and the counterculture and political dissent in the 1960s.
Why are some civic associations better than others at getting-and keeping-people involved in activism? Using in-person observations, surveys, and field experiments, this book compares and describes contemporary models for engaging activists to show the effectiveness of one that combine political activism with transformative personal and collective growth.
As austerity measures continue throughout Europe, its effects are felt differently by different groups of citizens. This book looks at how minority women in France and Britain have coped with austerity. Crucially, it casts them not as passive victims, but as active agents finding ways to survive, using their race, class, gender, and legal status as resources for collective action at a moment when left-wing politics and non-governmental organizations have failed them. Making use of in-depth case studies, Minority Women and Austerity offers an unprecedented look at the changing relationship among the state, the market, and civil society, and the opportunities and dilemmas that creates for minority women.
*** THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER *** 'Destined to be a classic' Nouriel Roubini 'Brilliant, powerful and hopeful' Philippa Perry 'Explosive, timely and urgent' Daily Telegraph Even before a global pandemic introduced us to terms like social distancing, loneliness was already becoming the defining condition of the twenty-first century. But it's also one we have the power to reverse. Combining a decade of research with first-hand reporting, Noreena Hertz takes us from a 'how to communicate in real life' class for smartphone-addicted university students to bouncy castles at Belgian far-right gatherings, from paying for cuddles in the U.S. to nursing home residents knitting bonnets for their robot caregivers in Japan. The Lonely Century explores how our increasing dependence on technology, radical changes to the workplace and decades of policies that have placed self-interest above the collective good are damaging our communities and making us more isolated than ever before. With bold solutions for us as individuals as well as for businesses and governments, Noreena Hertz offers a hopeful and empowering vision for ow to heal our fractured world and come together again. 'If we could issue a reading list to 10 Downing Street, I'd put this book near the top.' Guardian 'Causing a deserved stir' Financial Times 'Revealing, empathetic and timely' Jonathan Freedland 'Read it, then pass it onto a friend.' Charlie Brooker
Pocket Change Collective was born out of a need for space. Space to think. Space to connect. Space to be yourself. And this is your invitation to join us. "Thank God we have Alok. And I'm learning a thing or two myself."--Billy Porter, Emmy award-winning actor, singer, and Broadway theater performer "When reading this book, all I feel is kindness."--Sam Smith, Grammy and Oscar award-winning singer and songwriter "Beyond the Gender Binary will give readers everywhere the feeling that anything is possible within themselves"--Princess Nokia, musician and co-founder of the Smart Girl Club "A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change."-- Kirkus Reviews, starred review "An affirming, thoughtful read for all ages." -- School Library Journal, starred review In Beyond the Gender Binary, poet, artist, and LGBTQIA+ rights advocate Alok Vaid-Menon deconstructs, demystifies, and reimagines the gender binary. Pocket Change Collective is a series of small books with big ideas from today's leading activists and artists. In this installment, Beyond the Gender Binary, Alok Vaid-Menon challenges the world to see gender not in black and white, but in full color. Taking from their own experiences as a gender-nonconforming artist, they show us that gender is a malleable and creative form of expression. The only limit is your imagination.
