SUNY series, Praxis: Theory in Action

Provides answers to one of the enduring paradoxes of mass social change. From the events of May 1968 to the Arab Spring and Occupy, we have seen social movements develop spontaneously around the globe propelling thousands and, at times, millions of people into the streets to demand an end to oppression. "In order to make sense of such events, the authors draw on George Katsiaficas's conception of the 'eros effect,' which picks up and takes off from concepts developed by Herbert Marcuse. This effect describes moments in which the instinctual human need for justice and freedom undergoes a massive spontaneous awakening. Drawing on Marcuse, the concept foregrounds the instinctual foundation of the desire for freedom, in which a biologically-based pleasure drive-eros-is given free play." - from the Foreword by Peter Marcuse However, even as the eros effect provides a valuable framework for understanding spontaneous global uprisings, Katsiaficas has acknowledged that the concept has remained underdeveloped. Spontaneous Combustion provides an introduction to the eros effect along with a series of elaborations, applications, and critical rejoinders concerning its implications. A truly interdisciplinary venture, the book features contributions from cutting-edge scholars and activists on the frontlines of today's struggles. Jason Del Gandio is Assistant Professor at Temple University who teaches rhetoric and public advocacy. He is the author of Rhetoric for Radicals: A Handbook for 21st Century Activists. AK Thompson teaches social theory and is the author of Black Bloc, White Riot: Anti-Globalization and the Genealogy of Dissent.

Compelling case studies of groups in Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, the United States, and Canada using the arts for education, community development, and social movement building. This compelling collection of inspiring case studies from community arts projects in five countries will inform and inspire students, artists, and activists. ¡VIVA! is the product of a five-year transnational research project that integrates place, politics, passion, and praxis. Framed by postcolonial theories of decolonization, the pedagogy of the oppressed articulated by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, and the burgeoning field of community arts, this collection not only analyzes the dynamic integration of the critical and the creative in social justice movements, it embodies such a praxis. Learn from Central America: Kuna children's art workshops, a community television station in Nicaragua, a cultural marketplace in Guadalajara, Mexico, community mural production in Chiapas; and from North America: arts education in Los Angeles inner-city schools, theater probing ancestral memory, community plays with over one hundred participants, and training programs for young artists in Canada. These practices offer critical hope for movements hungry for new ways of knowing and expressing histories, identities, and aspirations, as well as mobilizing communities for social transformation. Beautifully illustrated with more than one hundred color photographs, the book also includes a DVD with videos that bring the projects to life. Deborah Barndt is Professor and Coordinator of the Community Arts Practice (CAP) Certificate Program and Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto. She is the author of Tangled Routes: Women, Work, and Globalization on the Tomato Trail, Second Edition and editor of Wild Fire: Art as Activism.

The first in-depth analysis of the radical feminist theory and coalitional praxis of scholar-activist María Lugones. Speaking Face to Face provides an unprecedented, in-depth look at the feminist philosophy and practice of the renowned Argentinian-born scholar-activist María Lugones. Informed by her identification as "nondiasporic Latina" and US Woman of Color, as well as her long-term commitment to grassroots organizing in Chicana/o communities, Lugones's work dovetails with, while remaining distinct from, that of other prominent transnational, decolonial, and women of color feminists. Her visionary philosophy motivates transformative modes of engaging cultural others, inviting us to create political intimacies rooted in a shared yearning for interdependence. Bringing together scholars and activists across fields, this volume charts her profound impact in and beyond the academy for the past thirty years. In so doing, it exemplifies a new method of coalitional theorizing-traversing racial, ethnic, sexual, national, gendered, political, and disciplinary borders in order to cultivate learning, embrace heterogeneity, and provide a unique framework for engaging contemporary debates about identity, oppression, and activism. Across thirteen original contributions, authors address issues of intersectionality, colonial and decolonial subjectivities, the multiplicity and the coloniality of gender, indigenous spiritualties and cosmologies, pluralist and women of color feminisms, radical multiculturalism, popular education, and resistance to multiple oppressions. The book also includes a rare interview with María Lugones and an afterword by Paula Moya, ultimately offering both new critical resources for longstanding admirers of Lugones and a welcome introduction for newcomers to her groundbreaking work.

Explores activist scholarship in relation to feminism and social movements in the Americas. Taking Risks offers a creative, interdisciplinary approach to narrating the stories of activist scholarship by women. The essays are based on the textual analysis of interviews, oral histories, ethnography, video storytelling, and theater. The contributors come from many disciplinary backgrounds, including theater, history, literature, sociology, feminist studies, and cultural studies. The topics range from the underground library movement in Cuba, femicide in Juárez, community radio in Venezuela, video archives in Colombia, exiled feminists in Canada, memory activism in Argentina, sex worker activists in Brazil, rural feminists in Nicaragua, to domestic violence organizations for Latina immigrants in Texas. Each essay addresses two themes: telling stories and taking risks. The authors understand women activists across the Americas as storytellers who, along with the authors themselves, work to fill the Latin American and Caribbean studies archives with histories of resistance. In addition to sharing the activists' stories, the contributors weave in discussions of scholarly risk taking to speak to the challenges and importance of elevating the storytellers and their histories.

Defines a new research area linking youth cultures and music with peacebuilding practice and policy. This book highlights the important role youth can play in processes of peacebuilding by examining music as a tool for engaging youth in such activities. As Lesley J. Pruitt discusses throughout the book, music-as expression, as creation, as inspiration-can provide many unique insights into transforming conflicts, altering our understandings, and achieving change. She offers detailed empirical work on two youth peacebuilding programs in Australia and Northern Ireland, countries that appear overtly peaceful, but where youth still face structural violence and related direct violence at the community level. She also pays careful attention to the ways in which gender norms might influence young people's participation in music-based peacebuilding activities. Ultimately, the book defines a new research area linking youth cultures and music with peacebuilding practice and policy.

Unique interdisciplinary analysis of gendered and racialized economies of care in South Asia and the Americas. South Asia and Latin America represent two epicenters of migrant care work and the globalized reproductive market. Yet scholars and the media continue to examine them in geographical and conceptual isolation. South of the Future closes both these gaps. It investigates nannying, elder care, domestic work, and other forms of migrant labor in the Americas together with the emerging "Wild West" of biotechnology and surrogacy in the Indian subcontinent. The volume is profoundly interdisciplinary and includes both prominent and emerging scholars from a wide variety of fields, including anthropology, law, literary and cultural studies, science and technology studies, and social policy. These contributors speak to the dynamic, continually changing facets of the nexus of care and value across these two key regions of the global south. By mobilizing specific locations and techno-economics and putting them into dialogue with one another, South of the Future rematerializes the gendered, racialized bodies that are far too often rendered invisible in structural analyses of the global south, or else are confined to particular geo- and biopolitical paradigms of emerging markets. Instead, these bodies occupy the center of a global, highly financialized economy of creating and sustaining life.

Juxtaposes Antonio Gramsci's work and critical race theory to offer a new understanding of tactics as a transformative practice. While scholars of social and political movements tend to analyze tactics in terms of their effectiveness in achieving specific outcomes, Robert F. Carley argues by contrast that tactics are, above all, what social movements do. They are not mere means to an end so much as they are a public form of expression pointing out injustices and making just demands. Rooted in a highly original analysis of the tactically mediated relationship between race and mobilization in the work of Italian philosopher and revolutionary Antonio Gramsci, Culture and Tactics demonstrates how tactics impact the organizational structures of social movements and expand the affinities of political communities. Carley looks at how Gramsci used innovative tactics to bridge perceptions of racial differences between factory workers and subaltern groups, the latter having been denigrated to the point of subhumanity by a complex Italian national racial economy. Newly envisioning Gramsci as a theorist of race within a broader context of social struggle, Carley connects Gramsci's insights into the political mobilizations of racialized subaltern groups to contemporary critical race theory and cultural studies of racialization and racism. Speaking across disciplines and drawing on a number of empirical examples, Carley offers a battery of original concepts to assist scholars and activists in analyzing the tactical practices of protests in which race is a central factor.

Explores the potential for trade unions to defend the socioeconomic rights of women. Making Globalization Work for Women explores the potential for trade unions to defend the socioeconomic rights of women in a global context. Looking at labor policies and interviews with people in unions and nongovernmental organizations, the essays diagnose the problems faced by women workers across the world and assess the progress that unions in various countries have made in responding to those problems. Some concerns addressed include the masculine culture of many unions and the challenges of female leadership within them, laissez-faire governance, and the limited success of organizations working on these issues globally. Making Globalization Work for Women brings together in a synthetic and fruitful conversation the work and ideas of feminists, unions, NGOs, and other human rights workers.

Demonstrates how activists and others use art and popular culture to strive for a more democratic future. Doing Democracy examines the potential of the arts and popular culture to extend and deepen the experience of democracy. Its contributors address the use of photography, cartooning, memorials, monuments, poetry, literature, music, theater, festivals, and parades to open political spaces, awaken critical consciousness, engage marginalized groups in political activism, and create new, more democratic societies. This volume demonstrates how ordinary people use the creative and visionary capacity of the arts and popular culture to shape alternative futures. It is unique in its insistence that democratic theorists and activists should acknowledge and employ affective as well as rational faculties in the ongoing struggle for democracy.

Explores spoken word poetry as a tool for social justice, critical feminist pedagogy, and new ways of teaching. The writing and performance of spoken word poetry can create moments of productive critical engagement. In The Fifth Element, Crystal Leigh Endsley charts her experience of working with a dynamic and diverse group of college students, who are also emerging artists, to explore the connection between spoken word and social responsibility. She considers how themes of activism, identity, and love intersect with the lived experiences of these students and how they use spoken word to negotiate resistance and to navigate through life. Endsley also examines the local and transnational communities where performances took place to shed light on concepts of social responsibility and knowledge production.

Focuses on Black women's experiences and expertise in order to advance educational philosophy and provide practical tools for social justice pedagogy. Black Women and Social Justice Education explores Black women's experiences and expertise in teaching and learning about justice in a range of formal and informal educational settings. Linking historical accounts with groundbreaking contributions by new and rising leaders in the field, it examines, evaluates, establishes, and reinforces Black women's commitment to social justice in education at all levels. Authors offer resource guides, personal reflections, bibliographies, and best practices for broad use and reference in communities, schools, universities, and nonprofit organizations. Collectively, their work promises to further enrich social justice education (SJE)-a critical pedagogy that combines intersectionality and human rights perspectives-and to deepen our understanding of the impact of SJE innovations on the humanities, social sciences, higher education, school development, and the broader professional world. This volume expands discussions of academic institutions and the communities they were built to serve.

Frames menstruation as a site of resistance, defiance, and shamelessness, showcasing the work of those who fight back against shame and silence. Winner of the 2017 Distinguished Publication Award presented by the Association for Women in Psychology Transporting the reader to worlds in which Komodo dragons prey on menstruating women, artists prowl the streets of Spain in blood-stained pants, and the myths of women bleeding in synchrony with each other are drawn and redrawn, these eleven essays on menstruation and resistance evoke thought-provoking tensions between silence and confrontation, shame and rebellion, and compliance and disobedience. Fusing together gender and feminist theory, critical body studies, political activism, and menstrual anarchy, Breanne Fahs illuminates the troubling omissions of menstrual coming-of-age narratives in the museum, the outdated terminology of "feminine hygiene," and the moral panics about blood that erupts from in and outside of our bathrooms, classrooms, and cell phones. Borrowing from a multitude of voices-single moms, trans teenagers, zine makers, menstrual artists, college students, tour guides, French philosophers, and culture jammers-Fahs forcefully argues for a new culture of menstruation, one where the joys, rhythms, and controversies of menstrual cycles collides with the defiant, shameless, and bold new possibilities of menstrual resistance.

Examines women's food cooperatives and local dining venues on the Greek island of Lesvos and how tourism, gender, and sexualities inform the creation of these alternative economies. Imaginatively interweaving literatures across a variety of subjects, Sappho's Legacy identifies the crucial role that islands and Greek economic culture play in teaching about capitalism's failures and alternatives. Marina Karides delivers a historical and ethnographic account of food cooperatives and microenterprises on the Greek island of Lesvos following the 2008 financial crisis to reveal the success stories of grassroots, traditional, and community centered economics organized by people marginalized on the basis of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. Karides offers hope to others who are working against the tide of neoliberalism and heteropatriarchy to develop alternative or convivial economic practices that serve communities by providing a trail of rhythms from ancient times to the present that showcase Greece's historical resistance. Marina Karides is Professor of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. She has written several books, including (coedited with Judith Blau) The World and US Social Forums: A Better World is Possible and Necessary and (coauthored with Jackie Smith, Marc Becker, Dorval Brunelle, Christopher Chase-Dunn, and Donatella Della Porta) Global Democracy and the World Social Forums, Second Edition.

Demonstrates how critical race theory can be useful in real-world situations. Rooted in the initial struggle of community members who staged a successful hunger strike to secure a high school in their Chicago neighborhood, David Omotoso Stovall's Born Out of Struggle focuses on his first-hand participation in the process to help design the school. Offering important lessons about how to remain accountable to communities while designing a curriculum with a social justice agenda, Stovall explores the use of critical race theory to encourage its practitioners to spend less time with abstract theories and engage more with communities that make a concerted effort to change their conditions. Stovall provides concrete examples of how to navigate the constraints of working with centralized bureaucracies in education and apply them to real-world situations. David Omotoso Stovall is Professor of Educational Policy Studies and African American Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is coeditor (with William Ayers and Therese Quinn) of Handbook of Social Justice in Education.

Examines the grassroots activism of an Internet-mediated collegiate lesbian and gay organization in Turkey. Grassroots Literacies analyzes the complex issues surrounding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender representations, technology, and grassroots activism in international contexts through the lens of Legato, a collegiate lesbian and gay association that engaged in activism in colleges and universities in Turkey from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s. Using the Internet and digital media, Legato enabled students to connect with each other on campuses across the country and introduced them to new (i.e., lesbian and gay) identity categories and community activism. Serkan Görkemli presents historical, cultural, visual, and interview-based analyses of Legato members' "coming out" experiences and uses of digital media. Members emerged as sexuality activists with the help of the Internet and engaged with negative representations of homosexuality through offline events such as film screenings, reading groups, and conferences in the challenging context of burgeoning civil society efforts in Turkey. Bridging transnational and literacy-based studies, the book ultimately traces the contours of a "transnational literacy" regarding sexuality. Serkan Görkemli is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Connecticut-Stamford.

Considers the past, present, and future of interdisciplinary fields motivated by concerns for social justice. In the 1960s and 1970s, activists who focused on the academy as a key site for fostering social change began by querying the assumptions of the traditional disciplines and transforming their curricula, putting into place women's and ethnic studies programs that changed both the subject and methods of scholarship. The pattern of scholars and activists joining forces to open fields of research and teaching continued in subsequent decades, and recent additions, including critical race studies, queer studies, cultural studies, and postcolonial studies, take as their epistemological foundation the inherently political nature of all knowledge production. Interdisciplinarity and Social Justice seizes this opportune moment in the history of interdisciplinary fields to review their effects on our intellectual and political landscape, to evaluate their ability to deliver promised social benefits, and to consider their futures. The essays collected in this volume detail histories of the interdisciplinary fields that emerged from social movements, examine how effectively they have achieved their goals of intellectual and social change, and consider the challenges they now face inside and outside the academy. Joe Parker/b> is Associate Professor of International and Intercultural Studies at Pitzer College. He is the author of Zen Buddhist Landscape Arts of Early Muromachi Japan (1336—1573), also published by SUNY Press. Ranu Samantrai is Associate Professor of English at Indiana University at Bloomington. She is the author of AlterNatives: Black Feminism in the Postimperial Nation. Mary Romero is Professor of Justice Studies at Arizona State University. She is the author of Maid in the U.S.A. and the editor of several books, including (with Eric Margolis) The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities.

Demonstrates how individuals can respond to widespread injustice and systemic militarization in society. Maternal Activism tells the stories of women who refused to ignore injustice even though many people urged them to stop their activism by claiming it would harm their children. Molly Rush, Michele Naar-Obed, Cindy Sheehan, and Diane Wilson recognized that the potential well-being of their children relates to the damage done by US militarism and environmental destruction. These women's stories illustrate feminist ethical theory and contemporary theory from peace studies. By examining their context for addressing injustice and the theoretical supports for their action, this book demonstrates that issues of injustice overlap such that critiques of nuclear weapons lead to critiques of war and militarism, which lead to critiques of environmental destruction. Danielle Poe is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dayton and editor of Communities of Peace: Confronting Injustice and Creating Justice.

Examines transnational movement building through a focus on acid attacks and organizing against acid violence in Bangladesh. Acid attacks against women and girls have captured the attention of the global media, with several high-profile reports ranging from the BBC to The Oprah Winfrey Show. In Bangladesh, reasons for the attacks include women's rejection of sexual advances from men, refusal of marriage proposals, family or land disputes, and unmet dowry demands. The consequences are multiple: permanent marks on the body, disfiguration, and potential blindness. In Transnationalism Reversed, Elora Halim Chowdhury explores the complicated terrain of women's transnational antiviolence organizing by focusing on the work done in Bangladesh around acid attacks-and the ways in which the state, international agencies, local expatriates, US media, Bangladeshi immigrants in the United States, survivor-activists, and local women's organizations engage the pragmatics and the transnational rhetoric of empowerment, rescue, and rehabilitation. Grounded in careful ethnographic work, oral history, and theoretical and filmic analysis, Transnationalism Reversed makes a significant contribution to conversations around gendered violence, transnational feminist praxis, and the politics of organizing-particularly around NGOs-in the global South. Elora Halim Chowdhury is Associate Professor of Women's Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Provides firsthand accounts of militant Puerto Rican activists in 1970s New York City. In this book Rose Muzio analyzes how structural and historical factors-including colonialism, economic marginalization, racial discrimination, and the Black and Brown Power movements of the 1960s-influenced young Puerto Ricans to reject mainstream ideas about political incorporation and join others in struggles against perceived injustices. This analysis provides the first in-depth account of the origins, evolution, achievements, and failures of El Comité-Movimiento de Izquierda Nacional Puertorriqueño, one of the main organizations of the Puerto Rican Left in the 1970s in New York City. El Comité fought for bilingual education programs in public schools, for access to quality jobs and higher education, and against health care budget cuts. The organization mobilized support nationally and internationally to end the US Navy's occupation of Vieques, denounced colonial rule in Puerto Rico, and opposed US aid to authoritarian regimes in Latin America and Africa. Muzio bases her project on dozens of interviews with participants as well as archival documents and news coverage, and shows how a radical, counterhegemonic political perspective evolved organically, rather than as a product of a priori ideology.

Investigates the theory and practice of transnational feminist approaches to scholarship and activism. Provocative, timely, and global, this volume offers a critical and grounded engagement with transnational feminism through the lens of praxis-the juncture of theory and practice. In so doing, it grapples with questions of power and representation while remaining deeply committed to radical critiques and agendas of transnational and postcolonial feminisms. Long-time activists and well-known scholars speak to a wide range of issues and practices, including women's studies curricula; NGOs; transnational and LGBTQ studies; feminist methodologies; and film. These essays similarly conceptualize ways to more effectively theorize feminist collaborative practices while subverting such rigid, established dichotomies as theory/practice, academic/activist, individual/collaborative, and the global North/South. A number of transnational projects are highlighted: the Guyanese Red Thread collective; the Ananya Dance Theater; the Philippine Women Center of British Columbia; the Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance; the VIVA! Project; and the Indian organization Sangtin. Comprehensive in scope and rigorous in critical scrutiny, these powerful essays set the twenty-first-century agenda for political engagement through feminist scholarship.