Community Activism

In this concise introduction, Chad Kautzer demonstrates the shared emancipatory goals and methods of several radical philosophies, from Marxism and feminism to critical race and queer theory. Radical Philosophy examines the relations of theory and practice, knowledge and power, as well as the function of law in creating extralegal forms of domination. Through a critical engagement with the history of philosophy, Kautzer reconstructs important counter-traditions of historical, dialectical, and reflexive forms of critique relevant to contemporary social struggles. The result is an innovative, systematic guide to radical theory and critical resistance.

This thesis charts the role of dance improvisation performance as a practice of ecology by analyzing data collected from a series of experiments in improvisation. Conducted in a number of locations in Europe and Asia, these experiments examine the usefulness of improvisation performance practices to notions of “ecology” and common understandings of humans’ relationships to our environment. Using “ecology” to describe an investigation of interrelationship as well as a commitment to act with an awareness of one’s actions in the social, mental and natural spheres discussed by Felix Guattari (2000), I outline ways contemporary improvisation practices can facilitate this investigation.

To do this I draw on my own experience as a dancer at the Performing Arts Research and Training Studios (PARTS) in Brussels from 2004-2006, and as co- director of the TWIG Project in China in 2006. Using the experiences of improvising, learning dance, seeing dance, performing dance, creating scores for dance, and teaching movement improvisation, I argue that ecological practice is defined by its ability to instill a sense of “response ability” and personal agency in its practitioners.

As a way of observing and incorporating new knowledge, improvisation functions herein both as a research practice and as the object of study. By improvising and documenting my experiences using a phenomenological lens derived from Merleau-Ponty’s work, I reflect on how practices of awareness in dancing can constitute new ways of knowing. I discuss how improvising can assist awareness of the body’s relationship with the environment at a number of levels including sensory, spatial, temporal, conceptual, social and political. I also investigate the notion of paradox as a theme throughout the thesis and present its usefulness as a way of producing and reflecting upon a practice of bodily research.

The term “twig dances” represents an expanded understanding of what I mean by “improvising”, and points to my use of improvisation as a research process. As an action taken “to understand or realize something”, a twig dance is any of a number movement practices which take as their focus an active investigation into relationships between people and the non-human world.

As wondrous lands are represented as “wastelands” to make way for urban and industrial development in Hawaiʻi, kūpuna or elders and cultural practitioners are currently building a movement across the islands to mobilize moʻolelo (stories and histories) in huakaʻi aloha ʻāina, (physical and spiritual travels to view and remember celebrated and sacred places) in order to protect them.  On these huakaʻi, moʻolelo have critical decolonial effects as they articulate an ʻŌiwi moʻoʻāina economy of abundance that restores “wastelands” to ʻāina kamahaʻo (wondrous land) and ʻāina momona (abundant land).  In this essay, I focus on a 2010 community struggle to protect the birthplace of the kupua (supernatural hero) Māui in Lualualei valley from a developer’s proposal for a light industrial park. The Concerned Elders of Waiʻanae organized the Huakaʻi Kākoʻo no Waiʻanae environmental justice bus tours to share the Māui moʻolelo and build a broad base of support for their struggles, enabling wonder to grow into direct action.  I discuss the ways that Indigenous and critical settler cartographies map the wonder of the Māui moʻolelo on the ground, and I look to narrative conventions of moʻolelo that compare and connect distant places, helping to grow affinity activism.

My family, friends and I have, as has often been noted, long bemoaned the great loss of Crater Lake and of our 2 homes, our waterfront cabin and our very belonging to it. More than a physical or temporal loss, it was a spiritual loss, a break you down and rip your heart and lungs out loss. And it wasn't just our belonging to that precious glacial Lake, but also our belonging to Buttermilk Falls and the Upper Glen and the Appalachian Trail and the Kittatinny forests-to the whippoorwill, the honeysuckle and the mountain laurel, to the red maples, red cedars and red oaks-to the ethereal starry-starry nights and dazzling pink sunsets-to Hemlock Pond, the Norway Spruces and the Flatbrook and yes, even the mighty ghosts of the Aw-Ka-Mon Inn, Buzzard's Ledge, Sedarmoc, the Stone Cabin and Glocca Morra. More importantly, it was the loss of their belonging to us – the loss of their living in us – the loss of the home that was home to our multitudes, our better selves and the spirit that made we Cassidys and Fritzkys and Varicks and Evanses and Burlingtons and Millers and Adriances and Duffys and Maddens and Caffreys and Murrays and Clausses and ever so many more, one. And it is no small thing for such a disparate, huge and extended family to go all in for one another as we did and as we were inspired to do there. Sure, we were a family, but Crater Lake made us FAMILY. And that was the miracle of the wind, the wood and the water of this holy place that was once called Harding Lake and Lake Success but ever and always, in our hearts, and still, Crater Lake. The villains in the story were ignorance and arrogance, lack of vision and lack of foresight and a good old chunk of selfishness and greed tossed in on the edges. Public policy and greed are all too often kindred spirits. There are those like the Haliburtons who got rich on our debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan-and real estate moguls who get rich on public and affordable housing-and brokerage houses and investment firms who ever get rich moving our bonds, managing our trusts or administering our special public funds-and a whole ton of land speculators who bought low and sold high and celebrated Tocks Island-and energy movers and shakers who long licked their chops in anticipation of the fact that private energy companies were to tap into the hydroelectric power generated. The barbarians are always at the gates, looking to take advantage of the fruits put on the plate for them by our people's representatives.

This article examines the intersections of community activism and wilderness in the sprawling suburban and industrial landscapes of Houston, Texas, in the United States. The Houston metropolitan region's rapid urban development, laissez-faire land use planning, and world-class petrochemical industries provide a critical context to explore the material and conceptual relations of wilderness. Building upon recent debates regarding the production of nature, the article argues that wilderness is and always has been integrated into our everyday suburban landscapes. The empirical data discussed reveals the practices and processes (re)producing wilderness materially and conceptually within the contemporary relations of urban life. It challenges us to envision wilderness as internal to society and society as internal to wilderness. The results suggest that wilderness, instead of being external and in need of protection, is internal to the human experience and therefore internal to our urban landscapes.

Cet article examine les intersections de l'activisme communautaire et en pleine nature dans les paysages suburbains et industriels que l'étalement autour de Houston, Texas, USA. Le développement urbain rapide de ses régions métropolitaines, la planification du laissez-faire, et les industries pétrochimiques de classe mondiale fournissent un contexte critique pour explorer la matière et les relations conceptuelles de l'espace naturel. Se fondant sur les débats récents concernant la production de la nature, l'article soutient que l'espace naturel a toujours été intégré dans nos banlieues. Les données empiriques examinées révèle les pratiques et les processus (re)produisant l'espace naturel matériellement et conceptuellement dans les relations contemporaines de la vie urbaine. Il nous incite à envisager l'espace naturel comme interne à la société, et la société en interne à l'espace naturel. Les résultats suggèrent que l'espace naturel, au lieu d'être externe et dans le besoin de protection, est interne à l'expérience humaine et donc interne à nos paysages urbains.

Este artículo examina las intersecciones del activismo comunitario y naturaleza en los crecientes paisajes suburbanos e industriales de Houston, Texas, en Estados Unidos. El rápido desarrollo urbano, el planeamiento liberal del uso de suelo y las industrias petroquímicas de nivel internacional en la zona metropolitana de Houston, proveen un importante contexto para analizar las relaciones materiales y conceptuales de la naturaleza. Con base en recientes debates sobre la producción de naturaleza, este artículo discute que la naturaleza es y siempre ha sido integrada en nuestro cotidiano paisaje suburbano. Los datos empíricos discutidos aquí, revelan las prácticas y los procesos que (re)producen la naturaleza material y conceptual dentro de las relaciones contemporáneas de la vida urbana. Esto nos estimula a concebir a la naturaleza como algo interno a la sociedad y a su vez, a la sociedad como interna a la naturaleza. Los resultados sugieren que la naturaleza en lugar de ser externa y en necesidad de protección, es interna a la experiencia humana y por consiguiente, interna a nuestros paisajes urbanos.

González, R. A., Rosendo-Servín, M., & Williams, D. A. (2019). The Struggle for Ethnic Studies in the Golden State: Capitol City Organizers & Activists. In R. T. Cuauhtin, M. Zavala, C. Sleeter, & W. Au. (Eds.), Rethinking Ethnic Studies (pp. 308-314). Milwaukee: Rethinking Schools.

The creation of a historic district sees four distinct phases of history. Firstly, the events which lead to the construction of historic fabric; secondly the events which threaten the historic fabric; thirdly the period of activism leading to protection of the the historic fabric, and fourthly the complacency which follows. 

The events leading to the creation of the Battery Point Planning Scheme in Tasmania saw urban activism and innovation in thinking, and a planning scheme which successfully encapsulated these values. Arguably, the scheme itself is an associated item under the Burra Charter.
Recent legislative changes will see the scheme replaced by a new interim planning scheme, and a chapter of history lost.

Geographers, cartographers, and related social scientists are increasingly locating the (geo)politics of the vernacular within volunteered geographic information, the geoweb, and other digital technologies that enable the production of new maps. We instead focus our attention on ‘old’ cartographic practices. We contend that map-based community activism and geopolitics continue to occur in ways that much research has left behind in its shifted attention toward digital geographies. We conceptualize vernacular counter-mapping, as practiced by Grow Calgary a community urban farm located on public land, by focusing on vernacular cartographic method and mode. We argue first that the vernacular exists not just in the production of new maps but also in the practice of altering and re-narrating existing maps, and, second, that the vernacular exists not just in the new modes of VGI and distributed/crowdsourced data production, but in the mode of leveraging official, static state maps to make legible situated knowledges.

We demand the Chicago Transit Authority restore Green Line elevated rail service to Jackson Park over E. 63rd Street from Cottage Grove Avenue to Stony Island Avenue.

Sign the petition online: https://www.change.org/p/mayor-emanuel-and-the-chicago-transit-authority-restore-the-e-63rd-street-green-line/.

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Sir William Macpherson’s conclusion - following his public inquiry into the racist murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993 - that the Metropolitan Police was ‘institutionally racist’, was a seminal moment for policing in Britain. The publication of the Macpherson report in 1999 has been rightly regarded as a victory for the Stephen Lawrence Family Campaign (SLFC), whose activities had been crucial in building pressure on the newly-elected Labour Government to hold a public inquiry into the Metropolitan Police’s murder investigation. However, to focus solely on the Lawrence case, and the SLFC, is to obscure the existence of a longer struggle waged by black Londoners to expose the racism that had affected their experience of policing since the Second World War.
This thesis explores the development of grassroots political activism within London’s Afro-Caribbean community around the issue of policing from 1945 to 1993. Using material from local community archives, this thesis represents the first attempt at documenting the history of race and policing in London from the perspective of the capital’s Afro-Caribbean population. Moreover, by taking the end of the Second World War as its starting point, it also breaks new ground in charting the way Afro-Caribbean people in London organised politically in opposition to racist policing prior to the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993.
Ever since people of Afro-Caribbean descent began to settle in London in increasing numbers in the aftermath of the Second World War, they have continually expressed concern about the way they were policed. While opposition to policing initially emerged in a highly unorganised form, this was fundamentally altered by the arrival of the British black power movement in the late 1960s. Despite its short existence, black power’s emphasis upon independent black grassroots political activism outlived the movement and became a feature of the way black Londoners’ challenged racist policing during the 1970s and 1980s. Therefore, this thesis contends that the grassroots political campaign that developed around the case of Stephen Lawrence cannot be viewed in isolation from the historical efforts of black people in London to expose racism within the Metropolitan Police.

"“Repensar Bonpastor – a Competition of ideas for a participative and zero-eviction urban renewal of a popular neighbourhood in Barcelona”, promoted by the International Alliance of Inhabitants and organized by an independent group of technicians from Barcelona, received 45 proposals from all over the world. The
article explains how the local struggles of the neighbours of the “casas baratas de Bon Pastor” succeeded in gathering applied anthropology, international solidarity, oral history, social architecture, political activism, into a shared attempt to find a new way of “making the city”: where inhabitants are the leading actors of the transformations, and technicians (especially anthropologists) guarantee respect towards the meanings and value that the city represents to its inhabitants.

Keywords: urban renewal, public anthropology, social architecture, community
activism."

Social justice and democracy are central themes that need to be engaged within today's educational landscape. Youth who leave school due to forms of social and educational marginalization make this explicit. They demonstrate the need to position ...

Waiheke Island is the third most populated island in Aotearoa New Zealand. Situated in the Hauraki Gulf and its Marine Park, near the most populated city, Auckland, the island has been a food basket pre colonisation, a forest to plunder, a holiday and retirement community, and a bohemian retreat  increasingly attractive to the moneyed class that has contributed to a higher cost of living. The island’s vineyards and art studios, pleasant micro-climate and many beaches attract weekend visitors and increasingly unsustainable numbers of cruise ship day-trippers throughout the year. Along with its expanding tourism, wine industry and rural gentrification, the island is also known for its growing significance as a maritime suburb as well as a “political hotbed” with an activist culture (Baragwanath 2010, 15). Waiheke was chosen as the focus for this study because festivals have always been an important and integral part of this island’s community life and often linked to the island’s rich activist culture that has used festivals as a way of community building and protesting on social issues. Waiheke’s island identity and economy also contribute in a significant way to the tourism product of the Auckland City. In recent years there has been an increase in cultural tourism events organized by the Auckland Tourism Events & Economic Development (ATEED), which has resulted in some events taken over from their local island focus to a regional, national and even global cultural festival tourism market, including the Sculptures in the Gulf  biennial festival and the Jazz Art and Music Festival that attracts thousands of visitors annually. In this chapter we explore island festivals and related forms of public culture as performance events which construct and negotiate meaning for the hosting island community and the visitors that come to the island to participate (Magliocco 2001). Through the mapping of Waiheke island’s festivalscape, we explore related concepts like festivalization and  festival reclamation and we discuss the contribution of the island’s festival culture to its identity and community organization. We conclude by linking these in our conclusions to the interconnected concepts of strange island and island imaginaries. Data for this research was collected through in depth interviews with island inhabitants who have been involved in organizing and volunteering for festivals and ethnographic observations, partly participatory, by one of the authors, John Stansfield, who has been a Waiheke island community member and activist for over three decades.

Tulare County refugee policy makers relied on male Hmong leaders to help construct social welfare and family policy for the new influx of Laotian refugees to the region. Reliance on men only for cultural and family information was common practice in the refugee camps. The discourse about "cultural preservation" that developed between Laotian men and refugee agencies, both in the camps and in California's San Joaquin Valley, selectively reinforced some aspects of Hmong culture while ignoring others. This practice justified government support for a Hmong politics centered around men. Women's exclusion from this public policy process helped to foster in them a sense of Laotianhood when women from the four Laotian ethnic groups (Hmong, Lao, Lahu and Mien) began to see their problems as similar. Here, I examine how Hmong women especially, along with other Laotian and non-Laotian women, organized against the construction of skewed policies and ethnic identities by creating the Asian American Women's Advancement Coalition (AAWAC)

In this paper, I will outline a case study of “scholar activism” that used participatory arts as a social catalyst for agency, which explores the inherent challenges of attempting to conscientisise a bridge between academic scholarly knowledge and grassroots community campaigns. I will argue how the differing sometimes conflicting epistemological starting points and agendas of these two areas makes meaningful work in this field challenging and complex, especially when working within a social justice framework. I will also argue that the neoliberal context within which the academy increasingly sits opens up important ethical questions about the form and the role of research with communities. I will briefly discuss how the market commoditisation of research and its participants can often make marginalised communities feel that they are nothing more than income generating levers whose sole purpose is to enhance the REF Impact of a university’s research profile.

Systemic therapy needs to review its understanding of what it does and how it is situated in a methodological landscape. Sometimes it feels as if we journeyed away from method led practices to the relational ethics of postmodernism and then, like tired settlers, established communities of practice on this uncertain land. Meanwhile, the neoliberal agenda has run ahead inviting, no, telling us to concretise our practices in a lineal fashion, to perform prescribed method, measure our collaborative adventures and delineate our knowledge so it can be packaged to satisfy particular stories of science and the apparently open market. This has distracted us from engaging in new theorising. I am suggesting that it is not enough to rely on terms like postmodern as if it carves out a permanent terrain in which we dwell. This leaves us isolated; our discursive tools lose their potency when we cannot realign ourselves ideologically. In this presentation, I suggest how methodological developments from across other disciplines can offer us a new paradigm for reconstituting how we understand and describe our practice, how we can carry lightly our ancestral spirits and expand the dichotomy of imagination and rigour to include ethics and aesthetics. In particular, I explore how the new metaphysics arising out of feminist and indigenous ways of knowing, can offer some pointers for framing systemic practice.