Download or read book They Can t Represent Us written by Marina Sitrin and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mass protest movements in disparate places such as Greece, Argentina, and the United States ultimately share an agenda—to raise the question of what democracy should mean. These horizontalist movements, including Occupy, exercise and claim participatory democracy as the ground of revolutionary social change today. Written by two international activist intellectuals and based on extensive interviews with movement participants in Spain, Venezuela, Argentina, across the United States, and elsewhere, this book is an expansive portrait of the assemblies, direct democracy forums, and organizational forms championed by the new movements, as well as an analytical history of direct and participatory democracy from ancient Athens to Zuccotti Park. The new movements put forward the idea that liberal democracy is not democratic, nor was it ever.
Download or read book Pierre Bourdieu in Hispanic Literature and Culture written by Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-03-08 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pierre Bourdieu in Hispanic Literature and Culture is a collective reflection on the value of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s work for the study of Spanish and Latin American literature and culture. The authors deploy Bourdieu’s concepts in the study of Modernismo, avant-garde Mexico, contemporary Puerto Rican literature, Hispanism, Latin American cultural production, and more. Each essay is also a contribution to the study of the politics and economics of culture in Spain and Latin America. The book, as a whole, is in dialogue with recent methodological and theoretical interventions in cultural sociology and Latin American and Iberian studies.
Download or read book Citizen Activism and Mediterranean Identity written by Gianluca Solera and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the commonalities between the struggles of the last years around the Mediterranean and tries to find the cultural roots of this season of protests and activism against repression and a growing systemic crisis. Who are their main characters? How has mobility of ideas and persons contributed to it? Why has the Mediterranean become the cradle of civil resistance? And how can one make sure that what has begun bears fruit? The author discusses how a strategic action of social movements and activists from both Europe and the Arab world can build the basis for a grassroots project for integration between the two shores, where mobility is at the core: on the one hand, mobility of ideas, activists, men and women of culture and other key-players, and trans-national strategizing; on the other hand, challenging the paradigms of visa policies and striving for a space of safe human mobility as one of the steps of a grassroots Mediterranean citizens project. Providing argument to a new theory of social mobilization, this book will be of interest to scholars of European and Arab politics as well as to political activists in the region.
Download or read book Politicians in Hard Times written by Xavier Coller and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses the Spanish parliamentary elites in a comparative perspective within southern Europe. What has been the impact of the Great Recession on the configuration of parliaments and the diversity of legislators? Have new parties delivered better representation of citizens in terms of demographics (gender, age, social class), ideology or political attitudes and beliefs? This original research is based on a 2018 survey on members of two national chambers and 17 regional parliaments. Comparing these data with those of a simultaneous survey carried out on Spanish citizens and with data from previous research a decade ago, the book examines the changes that have occurred in representation during the course of the Great Recession and provides evidence of the growing distance between citizens and parliamentary elites. Additionally, using data from the Comparative Candidates Survey, the book compares the ideological congruence between citizens and their representatives in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece.
Download or read book Connecting Women written by Valérie Schafer and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-10-08 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This important volume examines European perspectives on the historical relations that women have maintained with information and communication technologies (ICTs), since the telegraph. Features: describes how gendered networks have formed around ICT since the late 19th Century; reviews the gendered issues revealed by the conflict between the actress Ms Sylviac and the French telephone administration in 1904, or by ‘feminine’ blogs; examines how gender representations, age categories, and uses of ICT interact and are mutually formed in children’s magazines; illuminates the participation of women in the early days of computing, through a case study on the Rothamsted Statistics Department; presents a comparative study of women in computing in France, Finland and the UK, revealing similar gender divisions within the ICT professions of these countries; discusses diversity interventions and the part that history could (and should) play to ensure women do not take second place in specific occupational sectors.
Download or read book Trompetas de paladio written by Albert Siré and published by Caligrama. This book was released on 2019-04-18 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cuando la humanidad se convierta en un juego de apariencias e intereses confrontados, ¿a quién confiaremos el futuro? Roy Stark es un ingeniero en robótica, superdotado y librepensador, que oculta sus altas capacidades trabajando en una ONG. Sin embargo, una crisis interminable le obliga a convertirse en miembro de un partido populista americano con el objetivo de seguir ayudando a los demás. Frente a los políticos que toman las decisiones pensando en su beneficio a corto plazo, surge el personaje de Roy, que está interesado en solucionar los problemas de la sociedad, aunque para ello aplique una visión muy particular del mundo: «sugestionado por Moore, el hombre ha logrado evolucionar un ordenador portátil de principios de siglo, que tenía el cerebro de un mosquito, hasta computadores como los de ahora, capaces de emular un cerebro humano. El cofundador de Intel podría haber usado el poder de la sugestión para conseguir mejores cosas. Por ejemplo, podría haber dicho: "Compañeros del planeta Tierra, sabed que hay un tipo ocioso y bendito que vive en el cielo, a miles de kilómetros sobre nosotros, que nos observa permanentemente". ¿Qué habría conseguido con esta afirmación? Un mundo más civilizado, porque ya se sabe que nos portamos mejor cuando alguien nos está mirando». En su aventura como político, Roy tendrá que enfrentarse a Deus Ex Machina, una todopoderosa corporación tecnológica que pretende inundar las calles de robots inteligentes de aspecto humano, sin tener en cuenta el impacto que tendrán sobre los enfermos del shock del futuro. Las luchas de poder y los conflictos de intereses desembocarán en una alocada carrera de Roy por su supervivencia. En sus aventuras, le acompañarán Denisse, una valiente activista cuyo padre se suicidó por culpa del shock, junto con dos robots llamados R y D. También contará con el apoyo de unas peculiares estrellas de la música antisistema que le asesorarán en la toma de decisiones políticas, sirviéndose para ello de las frases de algunos de sus míticos temas. Albert Siré se sirve de los elementos de la ciencia ficción clásica y el humor para desarrollar una historia de amores imposibles, política y música punk, que se resuelve en un sorprendente desenlace que muestra la importancia de mantenerse fiel a uno mismo.
Download or read book The Kurdish Model of Political Community written by Hanifi Baris and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-01-28 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Kurdish Model of Political Community: A Vision of National Liberation Defiant of the Nation-State undertakes a task long due in Kurdish studies: addressing common misunderstandings about and outlining theoretical implications of Kurdish politics. Hanifi Baris develops his arguments with an historical examination and finds apathy towards and a resistance to state-building in Kurdistan. Accordingly, Baris argues, this tendency to establish self-government with distaste to state-building has enabled major Kurdish movements in Turkey and Syria to develop a form of political community that constitutes a viable alternative to those based on theocratic, imperial and national sovereignty. Thus, Baris concludes, rather than being a conflict between competing nationalisms, the current Kurdish conflict in Turkey and Syria is between competing visions of political community.
Download or read book Challenging Austerity written by Beltrán Roca and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-22 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses social movements and radical political parties’ strategies in Spain, Greece, Portugal and Italy from 2008 to today. Events in 2011 such as the Arab Spring and the indignados movement in Spain initiated a new cycle of social protest. This book explores how the economic crisis and policies of austerity have transformed and continue to transform social movements, trade unions and radical political parties in Southern Europe. The economic crisis has led to a rise in protest movements, which confront political institutions and conventional forms of democracy, and develop new spatial and organisational strategies. This book examines these cases, in addition to those groups who, contrastingly, have used institutional politics to achieve their aims, such as new political parties like Podemos in Spain or Movimento 5 Stelle in Italy. Analysing the extent to which there has been a change in approach when it comes to contesting neo-liberal capitalism, this book makes an important contribution to the study of social movements and radical politics. With a comparative perspective and an emphasis on studying the largely unexplored recent social and political dynamics in the European periphery, this book is essential reading for students, scholars and activists interested in social movements, radical politics and European politics more generally.
Download or read book Beyond Crisis written by John Holloway and published by PM Press. This book was released on 2020-02-15 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The government led by Syriza in Greece, elected in January 2015, at first seemed to be the most radical European government in recent history. It proclaimed itself the “Government of Hope” and throughout the world symbolized the hope that radical change could be achieved through institutional politics. The referendum of July 2015 rejected the austerity imposed by the banks and the European Union but was followed by a complete reversal of the government’s position and its acceptance of that austerity. The collapse of hope that accompanied the failure of the institutional Left opened the way to the return of the right-wing New Democracy Party, with a more aggressive program than ever. The essays collected in Beyond Crisis, among other things, form a case study of the “Greek experiment” that points to deeper implications concerning the global upsurge of disillusioned anger that has spurred the rise of far-right populism and support for strong leaders, exclusion of ethnic minorities, and greater “racial purity.” The Syriza government’s dramatic crash showed the limits of institutional politics, a lesson apparently overlooked by the enthusiastic followers of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders. But it also poses profound questions for those who reject state-centered politics. The anarchist or autonomist movement in Greece has been one of the strongest in the world, yet it has failed to have a significant impact in opening up alternative perspectives. So how do we pick up the pieces? What direction should we follow from now on? How do we understand what happened and learn from it? The essays in this collection do not point to a single conclusion or path forward but rather raise questions that remain open about how to move beyond the current crisis amid a darkening sky of seeming impossibility.
Download or read book Social Movements in Times of Austerity Bringing Capitalism Back Into Protest Analysis written by Donatella della Porta and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-06-03 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent years have seen an enormous increase in protests across the world in which citizens have challenged what they see as a deterioration of democratic institutions and the very civil, political and social rights that form the basis of democratic life. Beginning with Iceland in 2008, and then forcefully in Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, Greece and Portugal, or more recently in Peru, Brazil, Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Ukraine, people have taken to the streets against what they perceive as a rampant and dangerous corruption of democracy, with a distinct focus on inequality and suffering. This timely new book addresses the anti-austerity social movements of which these protests form part, mobilizing in the context of a crisis of neoliberalism. Donatella della Porta shows that, in order to understand their main facets in terms of social basis, strategy, and identity and organizational structures, we should look at the specific characteristics of the socioeconomic, cultural and political context in which they developed. The result is an important and insightful contribution to understanding a key issue of our times, which will be of interest to students and scholars of political and economic sociology, political science and social movement studies, as well as political activists.
Download or read book Feminism and Protest Camps written by Catherine Eschle and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2024-05-14 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the wake of a global wave of mobilisation, this book offers an unprecedented interrogation of protest camps as sites of gendered politics and feminist activism. Using international case studies, it develops an intersectional analysis of protest camps and tells new and inspiring stories of feminist organising and agency.
Download or read book Protest Analysing Current Trends written by Matthew Johnson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-22 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The politics of the twenty-first century is marked by dissent, tumult and calls for radical change, whether through food riots, anti-war protests, anti-government tirades, anti-blasphemy marches, anti-austerity demonstrations, anti-authoritarian movements and anti-capitalist occupations. Interestingly, contemporary political protests are borne of both the Right and Left and are staged in both the Global North and South. Globally, different instances of protest have drawn attention to the deep fissures which challenge the idea of globalisation as a force for peace. Given the diversity of these protests, it is necessary to examine the particular nature of grievances, the sort of change which is sought and the extent to which localised protest can have global implications. The contributions in this book draw on the theoretical work of Hardt and Negri, David Graeber and Judith Butler, among others, in order explore the nature of hegemony, the Occupy movement, the Arab Spring, the responses of authorities to protest and emotion and public performance in, and representation of, protest. The book concludes with David Graeber’s reply to reviews of his recent The Democracy Project: A History, A Crisis, A Movement. This book was published as a special issue of Global Discourse.
Download or read book Democracy Here and Now written by Pablo Ouziel and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2022-03-01 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Spain, on May 15, 2011, a movement against austerity measures began. In a time when representative democracies were under threat, 15M came to life as a virtuous and democratic response to the slide into far-right populism and authoritarianism. More than a social movement, 15M became a mode of being with transformative, democratizing potential. In Democracy Here and Now, Pablo Ouziel offers a grounded analysis of 15M. At the time of the movement and during the ensuing encampments, Ouziel travelled extensively, speaking to participants, and keeping an ongoing record of his conversations. Presenting an original participatory mode of research, the book reveals six types of intersubjective, "joining hands" relationships that 15M has brought into being and works to carry on in creative ways. The book shows how the movement’s way of being and temporality persists in Spain following the square occupations, while 15M citizens continue to learn and move forward in less perceptible ways. Democracy Here and Now sheds light on a deeply relational, intersectional, and eco-social mode of democracy, and shows how 15M’s ongoing democratization practices are exemplary of similar grassroots movements around the world, broadening our understandings of what it means to be democratic in the here and now.
Download or read book Spanish Cinema against Itself written by Steven Marsh and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-11 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanish Cinema against Itself maps the evolution of Spanish surrealist and politically committed cinematic traditions from their origins in the 1930s—with the work of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, experimentalist José Val de Omar, and militant documentary filmmaker Carlos Velo—through to the contemporary period. Framed by film theory this book traces the works of understudied and non-canonical Spanish filmmakers, producers, and film collectives to open up alternate, more cosmopolitan and philosophical spaces for film discussion. In an age of the post-national and the postcinematic, Steven Marsh's work challenges conventional historiographical discourse, the concept of "national cinema," and questions of form in cinematic practice.
Download or read book Evaluating Identities Online written by Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Performing Populism written by Ruben Perez Hidalgo and published by Vanderbilt University Press. This book was released on 2023-10-20 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether or not it constituted a complete break from the past, the 15-M movement’s most important legacy was a more expansive notion of the popular political, one that recognized cultural representation as a mode of political articulation and as part of a political culture. In an effort to understand the populist cycle inaugurated by 15-M, and to do so beyond a series of narrated events, Performing Populism sets out to explain Spanish populism in relation to the performances of its visual politics. The book's first part examines how the 15-M movement created a new way of seeing that in turn led to a new way of doing politics in Spain. Part Two focuses on the multiple ramifications of that new vision once the people stopped marching and the movement became less visible. From electoral posters to fiction films, documentaries, and internet memes, Performing Populism traces the ways that collective Spanish identities evolved from a period when "the people" seemed to have been willingly subsumed under the apathetic ideation of the middle-class consumer to the moment in 2011 when a crisis of representation forced many into political consciousness. This rude awakening kickstarted the reconstruction of a Spanish "us" that staged exhibitions of popular will on par with and parallel to the Arab Spring, but in a European register that embraced the countercultural through art that disremembered its political past but could not escape the ghostly shadow of its history.
Download or read book Political Representation in Southern Europe and Latin America written by André Freire and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-06-03 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collective volume - with contributions from experts on these regions - examines broader questions about the current crises (The Great Recession and The Commodity Crisis) and the associated changes in political representation in both regions. It provides a general overview of political representation studies in Southern Europe and Latin America and builds bridges between the two traditions of political representation studies, affording greater understanding of developments in each region and promote future research collaboration between Southern Europe and Latin America. Finally, the book addresses questions of continuity and change in patterns of political representation after the onset of the two economic crises, specifically examining issues such as changes in citizens’ democratic support and trust in political representatives and institutions, in-descriptive representation (in the sociodemographic profile of MPs) and in-substantive representation (in the link between voters and MPs in terms of ideological congruence and/or policy/issue orientations). This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political elites, political representation, European and Latin American politics/studies, and more broadly to comparative politics.
