Download or read book Cultural Activism written by Begüm Özden Firat and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2011-03 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume addresses contemporary activist practices that aim to interrupt and reorient politics as well as culture. The specific tactics analyzed here are diverse, ranging from culture jamming, sousveillance, media hoaxing, adbusting, subvertising, street art, to hacktivism, billboard liberation, and urban guerilla, to name but a few. Though indebted to the artistic and political movements of the past, this form of activism brings a novel dimension to public protest with its insistence on humor, playfulness, and confusion. This book attempts to grasp both the old and new aspects of contemporary activist practices, as well as their common characteristics and internal varieties. It attempts to open up space for the acknowledgement of the ways in which contemporary capitalism affects all our lives, and for the reflection on possible modes of struggling with it. It focuses on the possibilities that different activist tactics enable, the ways in which those may be innovative or destructive, as well as on their complications and dilemmas. The encounter between the insights of political, social and critical theory on the one hand and activist visions and struggles on the other is urgent and appealing. The essays collected here all explore such a confrontational collaboration, testing its limits and productiveness, in theory as well as in practice. In a mutually beneficial relationship, theoretical concepts are rethought through activist practices, while those activist practices are developed with the help of the insights of critical theory. This volume brings scholars and activists together in the hope of establishing a productive dialogue between the theorizations of the intricacies of our times and the subversive practices that deal with them.

Download or read book AIDS written by Douglas Crimp and published by MIT Press (MA). This book was released on 1988-01 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The literature on AIDS has attempted to teach us the "facts" about this new disease or to provide a narrative account of scientific discovery and developing public health policy. But AIDS has precipitated a crisis that is not primarily medical, or even social and political; AIDS has precipitated a crisis of signification the "meaning" of AIDS is hotly contested in all of the discourses that conceptualize it and seek to respond to it. AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism is the first book on the subject that takes this battle over meaning as its premise. Contributors include Leo Bersani, author of The Freudian Body; Simon Watney, who serves on the board of the Health Education Committee of London's Terrence Higgens Trust; Jan Zita Grover, medical editor at San Francisco General Hospital; Suki Ports, former executive director of the New York City Minority Task Force on AIDS; and Sander Gilman, author of Difference and Pathology. Also included are essays by Paula A. Treichler, who teaches in the Medical School and in communications at the University of Illinois; Carol Leigh, a member of COYOTE and contributor to Sex Work; and Max Navarre, editor of the People With AIDS Coalition monthly Newsline. In addition to these essays, the book contains a portfolio of manifestos, articles, letters, and photographs from the publications of the PWA Coalition, an interview with three members of the AIDS discrimination unit of the New York City Commission on Human Rights; and presentations for the independent video documentaries on AIDS, Testing the Limits and Bright Eyes.

Download or read book Asian American Media Activism written by Lori Kido Lopez and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2016-05-17 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Choice Top 25 Academic Title How activists and minority communities use media to facilitate social change and achieve cultural citizenship. Among the most well-known YouTubers are a cadre of talented Asian American performers, including comedian Ryan Higa and makeup artist Michelle Phan. Yet beneath the sheen of these online success stories lies a problem—Asian Americans remain sorely underrepresented in mainstream film and television. When they do appear on screen, they are often relegated to demeaning stereotypes such as the comical foreigner, the sexy girlfriend, or the martial arts villain. The story that remains untold is that as long as these inequities have existed, Asian Americans have been fighting back—joining together to protest offensive imagery, support Asian American actors and industry workers, and make their voices heard. Providing a cultural history and ethnography, Asian American Media Activism assesses everything from grassroots collectives in the 1970s up to contemporary engagements by fan groups, advertising agencies, and users on YouTube and Twitter. In linking these different forms of activism, Lori Kido Lopez investigates how Asian American media activism takes place and evaluates what kinds of interventions are most effective. Ultimately, Lopez finds that activists must be understood as fighting for cultural citizenship, a deeper sense of belonging and acceptance within a nation that has long rejected them.

Download or read book Cultural Activisms written by Gertrude M. James Gonzalez and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text presents art and writing which is political rather than theorizing about how art and writing might be political. The wide array of voices and styles is one of the book’s strengths as it not only offers a multi-faceted approach toward activism and positive change, but also speaks a range of emotions from anger, passion, and fear, to joy and courage. This book also opens and creates space for the humor and hope which can come even in the presence of violence and despair.

Download or read book The Art of Protest written by T. V. Reed and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2019-01-22 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A second edition of the classic introduction to arts in social movements, fully updated and now including Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and new digital and social media forms of cultural resistance The Art of Protest, first published in 2006, was hailed as an “essential” introduction to progressive social movements in the United States and praised for its “fluid writing style” and “well-informed and insightful” contribution (Choice Magazine). Now thoroughly revised and updated, this new edition of T. V. Reed’s acclaimed work offers engaging accounts of ten key progressive movements in postwar America, from the African American struggle for civil rights beginning in the 1950s to Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter in the twenty-first century. Reed focuses on the artistic activities of these movements as a lively way to frame progressive social change and its cultural legacies: civil rights freedom songs, the street drama of the Black Panthers, revolutionary murals of the Chicano movement, poetry in women’s movements, the American Indian Movement’s use of film and video, anti-apartheid rock music, ACT UP’s visual art, digital arts in #Occupy, Black Lives Matter rap videos, and more. Through the kaleidoscopic lens of artistic expression, Reed reveals how activism profoundly shapes popular cultural forms. For students and scholars of social change and those seeking to counter reactionary efforts to turn back the clock on social equality and justice, the new edition of The Art of Protest will be both informative and inspiring.

Download or read book Commodity Activism written by Roopali Mukherjee and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2012-02 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buying (RED) products—from Gap T-shirts to Apple—to fight AIDS. Drinking a “Caring Cup” of coffee at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to support fair trade. Driving a Toyota Prius to fight global warming. All these commonplace activities point to a central feature of contemporary culture: the most common way we participate in social activism is by buying something. Roopali Mukherjee and Sarah Banet-Weiser have gathered an exemplary group of scholars to explore this new landscape through a series of case studies of “commodity activism.” Drawing from television, film, consumer activist campaigns, and cultures of celebrity and corporate patronage, the essays take up examples such as the Dove “Real Beauty” campaign, sex positive retail activism, ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover, and Angelina Jolie as multinational celebrity missionary. Exploring the complexities embedded in contemporary political activism, Commodity Activism reveals the workings of power and resistance as well as citizenship and subjectivity in the neoliberal era. Refusing to simply position politics in opposition to consumerism, this collection teases out the relationships between material cultures and political subjectivities, arguing that activism may itself be transforming into a branded commodity.

Download or read book Culture Jamming written by Marilyn DeLaure and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2017-02-28 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collaboration of political activism and participatory culture seeking to upend consumer capitalism, including interviews with The Yes Men, The Guerrilla Girls, among others. Coined in the 1980s, “culture jamming” refers to an array of tactics deployed by activists to critique, subvert, and otherwise “jam” the workings of consumer culture. Ranging from media hoaxes and advertising parodies to flash mobs and street art, these actions seek to interrupt the flow of dominant, capitalistic messages that permeate our daily lives. Employed by Occupy Wall Street protesters and the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot alike, culture jamming scrambles the signal, injects the unexpected, and spurs audiences to think critically and challenge the status quo. The essays, interviews, and creative work assembled in this unique volume explore the shifting contours of culture jamming by plumbing its history, mapping its transformations, testing its force, and assessing its efficacy. Revealing how culture jamming is at once playful and politically transgressive, this accessible collection explores the degree to which culture jamming has fulfilled its revolutionary aims. Featuring original essays from prominent media scholars discussing Banksy and Shepard Fairey, foundational texts such as Mark Dery’s culture jamming manifesto, and artwork by and interviews with noteworthy culture jammers including the Guerrilla Girls, The Yes Men, and Reverend Billy, Culture Jamming makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of creative resistance and participatory culture.

Download or read book Voices Rising written by Xiaoping Li and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This interdisciplinary inquiry examines Asian Canadian political and cultural activism around community building, identity making, racial equity, and social justice. Informed by a postcolonial and postmodern cultural critique, it traces the trajectory of progressive cultural discourse generated by Asian Canadian cultural activists over the course of several generations. Xiaoping Li draws on historical sources and personal testimonies to convincingly demonstrate how culture acts as a means of engagement with the political and social world. He addresses topical issues of "race," ethnicity, identity, and transculturalism.

Download or read book Local Actions written by Melissa Checker and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten absorbing studies present activist groups across the country--from transgender activists in New York City, to South Asian teenagers in Silicon Valley, to evangelical Christians and Palestinian Americans--and examines a social change effort as it unfolds on the ground. Through their anthropological approach these portraits of American society suggest the inherent possibilities in identity-based organizing and offer crucial in-depth perspectives on such hotly debated topics as multiculturalism and the culture wars, the environment, racism, public education, Native American rights, and the Christian right.

Download or read book Yakama Rising written by Michelle M. Jacob and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2013-09-26 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yakama Rising argues that Indigenous communities themselves have the answers to the persistent social problems they face. This book contributes to discourses of Indigenous social change by articulating a Yakama decolonizing praxis that advances the premise that grassroots activism and cultural revitalization are powerful examples of decolonization.

Download or read book Culture and Activism written by Elizabeth Cherry and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-28 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Award for Distinguished Scholarship from the Animals & Society Section of the American Sociological Association This book offers a comparison of the animal rights movements in the US and France, drawing on ethnographic and interview material gathered amongst activists in both countries. Investigating the ways in which culture affects the outcomes of the two movements, the author examines its role as a constraining and enabling structure in both contexts, showing how cultural beliefs, values, and practices at the international, national, and organizational levels shape the strategic and tactical choices available to activists, and shedding light on the reasons for which activists make the choices that they do. With attention to the different emphases placed by the respective movements on ideological purity and pragmatism, this volume provides an account of why their achievements differ in spite of their shared ultimate goals, offering policy recommendations and suggestions for activists working in a variety of cultures. Informed by the work of Giddens and Bourdieu, Culture and Activism: Animal Rights in France and the United States constitutes an empirically grounded, comparative study of activism that will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology, political science, and cultural geography with interests in social movements and social problems.

Download or read book Democracy in the Making written by Kathleen M. Blee and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2012-03-30 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Democracy in the Making, Kathleen M. Blee provides an in-depth look at modern grassroots activism, and reveals its simultaneous power and fragility. In the process, she examines the struggle between democratic vision and strategic reality that shapes each organization's trajectory and determines its ultimate success or failure.

Download or read book Heritage Movements in Asia written by Ali Mozaffari and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2019-11-04 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Heritage processes vary according to cultural, national, geographical, and historical contexts. This volume is unique in that it is dedicated to approaching the analysis of heritage through the concepts of social movements. Adapting the latest developments in the field of social movements, the chapters examine the formation, use and contestation of heritage by various official, non-official and activist players and the spaces where such ongoing negotiations and contestation take place. By bringing social movements into heritage studies, the book advocates a shift of perspective in understanding heritage, one that is no longer bound by (at times arbitrary) divisions such as those assumed between the state and people or between experts and non-experts.

Download or read book Language Activism written by Haley De Korne and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-08-02 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While top-down policies and declarations have yet to establish equal status and opportunities for speakers of all languages in practice, activists and advocates at local levels are playing an increasingly significant role in the creation of new social imaginaries and practices in multilingual contexts. This volume describes how social actors across multiple domains contribute to the elusive goal of linguistic equality or justice through their language activism practices. Through an ethnographic account of Indigenous Isthmus Zapotec language activism in Oaxaca, Mexico, this study illuminates the (sometimes conflicting) imaginaries of what positive social change is and how it should be achieved, and the repertoire of strategies through which these imaginaries are being pursued. Ethnographic and action research conducted from 2013-2018 in the multilingual Isthmus of Tehuantepec brings to light the experiences of educators, students, writers, scholars and diverse cultural activists whose aspirations and strategies of social change are significant in shaping the future language ecology. Their repertoire of strategies may inform and encourage language activists, scholars, and educators working for change in other contexts of linguistic diversity and inequality.

Download or read book The Art of Activism written by Stephen Duncombe and published by OR Books. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Art of Activism is an all-purpose guide to artistic activism, combining the creative power of the arts to move us emotionally with the strategic planning of activism necessary to bring about social change. With contemporary case studies and historical examples, chapters on cultural and cognitive theory, sections on what can be learned from unlikely sources like popular culture and marketing techniques, along with investigations into ethics and evaluation, explorations of the creative process and the importance of utopian thinking, and an attached workbook with over fifty exercises to practice, the co-founders of the Center for Artistic Activism take readers step-by-step through the process of becoming, or becoming even better, artistic activists.

Download or read book Next Wave Cultures written by Anita Harris and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-09-10 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whereas once young women’s feminist activism could be easily identified, today this resistance seems obscure, transitory, and disorganized. In Next Wave Cultures, established and emerging scholars provide an interdisciplinary examination of young women’s multilayered lives. This collection demonstrates that young women have new ways of taking on politics and culture that may not be recognizable under more traditional paradigms, but deserve to be identified as socially engaged and potentially transformative nonetheless. Exploring the ways in which girls' various cultural pursuits are tied to identity formation and relate to issues of class, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, ability, and, gender, Next Wave Cultures highlights both the limitations and opportunities afforded by globalization of youth consumer culture. This valuable collection is a necessary read across disciplines—especially to those in the fields of education, gender and cultural studies, sociology, and psychology.

Download or read book HashtagActivism written by Sarah J. Jackson and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “well-researched, nuanced” study of the rise of social media activism explores how marginalized groups use Twitter to advance counter-narratives, preempt political spin, and build diverse networks of dissent (Ms.) The power of hashtag activism became clear in 2011, when #IranElection served as an organizing tool for Iranians protesting a disputed election and offered a global audience a front-row seat to a nascent revolution. Since then, activists have used a variety of hashtags, including #JusticeForTrayvon, #BlackLivesMatter, #YesAllWomen, and #MeToo to advocate, mobilize, and communicate. In this book, Sarah Jackson, Moya Bailey, and Brooke Foucault Welles explore how and why Twitter has become an important platform for historically disenfranchised populations, including Black Americans, women, and transgender people. They show how marginalized groups, long excluded from elite media spaces, have used Twitter hashtags to advance counternarratives, preempt political spin, and build diverse networks of dissent. The authors describe how such hashtags as #MeToo, #SurvivorPrivilege, and #WhyIStayed have challenged the conventional understanding of gendered violence; examine the voices and narratives of Black feminism enabled by #FastTailedGirls, #YouOKSis, and #SayHerName; and explore the creation and use of #GirlsLikeUs, a network of transgender women. They investigate the digital signatures of the “new civil rights movement”—the online activism, storytelling, and strategy-building that set the stage for #BlackLivesMatter—and recount the spread of racial justice hashtags after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and other high-profile incidents of killings by police. Finally, they consider hashtag created by allies, including #AllMenCan and #CrimingWhileWhite.