Informal politics and local labor activism in Indonesia

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Nurlinah ◽  
Haryanto ◽  
Sukri ◽  
Sunardi
Keyword(s):  
Labor Activism ◽  
Informal Politics

On Strike and On Stage: Migration, Mobilization, and the Cultural Work of El Teatro Campesino

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-121
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Rodriguez Fielder
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Cultural Work ◽  
Integrated Analysis ◽  
Stage Migration ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Labor Activism ◽  
Picket Line ◽  
A Performance ◽  
Teatro Campesino

This essay looks at the role of labor activism through the cultural work of El Teatro Campesino, the theater company that emerged from the farmworkers’ strike led by Cesear Chavez in Delano, California, during the mid-1960s. Through makeshift performances along the picket line, the farmworkers and their creative visionary, Luis Valdez, innovated Chicano/a performance and created an activist aesthetic that has continued to influence Chicano/a performance and art. Their productions, which started as small improvisational actos, drew from a wealth of transnational influences as well as from a larger proletariat and activist theater tradition. However, El Teatro Campesino adapted these techniques to their local resources. The result created a unique forum that enabled promotional education about unions and workers’ rights to exist side-by-side with themes of self-reflection and criticism concerning the risks of identity politics. The essay explores the methods by which El Teatro Campesino questioned and critiqued ethnic identity and argues for a more complex approach to their earlier picket-line entertainment. It proceeds to consider the importance of cultural production for labor mobilization, and argues for a more integrated analysis of the relationship between activism and art.

The Small State Challenge

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Corbett ◽  
Wouter Veenendaal
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Small States ◽  
Small State ◽  
Informal Politics ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Approach Method ◽  
Key Terms ◽  
First Time

Chapter 1 introduces the main arguments of the book; outlines the approach, method, and data; defines key terms; and provides a chapter outline. Global theories of democratization have systematically excluded small states, which make up roughly 20 per cent of countries. These cases debunk mainstream theories of why democratization succeeds or fails. This book brings small states into the comparative politics fold for the first time. It is organized thematically, with each chapter tackling one of the main theories from the democratization literature. Different types of data are examined—case studies and other documentary evidence, interviews and observation. Following an abductive approach, in addition to examining the veracity of existing theory, each chapter is also used to build an explanation of how democracy is practiced in small states. Specifically, we highlight how small state politics is shaped by personalization and informal politics, rather than formal institutional design.

Informal Politics in East Asia

2001 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 412
Author(s):  
Joseph Yu-shek Cheng ◽  
Lowell Dittmer ◽  
Haruhiro Fukui ◽  
Peter N. S. Lee
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Informal Politics

Blaming Martin Irons: Leadership and Popular Protest in the 1886 Southwest Strike

2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-81
Author(s):  
Theresa A. Case
Keyword(s):  
Personal History ◽  
Knights Of Labor ◽  
Popular Protest ◽  
Labor Activism ◽  
Social Anxieties

The story of the Great Southwest strike, a textbook example of the upheavals of 1886, has long been told as an epic battle between railway millionaire Jay Gould, national Knights of Labor head Terence Powderly, and Martin Irons, with many historians and contemporaries casting strike leader Irons as the epitome of impatient, romantic, and even deluded labor activism. District Assembly 101's call to walk out on Gould's southwestern system of roads was, arguably, strategically ill-advised. It vastly overestimated the Knights' power in the wake of two victories against Gould in 1885 and certainly ignored the district's lack of funds, lax support among skilled trainmen, and the terms of an historic agreement between the national Knights and Gould. A closer look at Irons's life and leadership, however, reveals a more complicated explanation of the strike and takes into fuller account the experiences and perceptions of striking railroaders. This essay holds that events on the ground, combined with the heady context of the Great Upheaval, influenced Irons and his supporters' decisions to strike, to expand the effort, and to defend it with violence. The ensuing attacks on Irons stemmed partly from his unstable personal history but largely from the broader social anxieties that the conflict had exposed.

Gender Research as Labor Activism: The Women's Bureau in the New Era

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 482-515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Hendrickson
Keyword(s):  
Women Workers ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
New Era ◽  
Gender Research ◽  
Labor Activism ◽  
Unique Site ◽  
Wage Earning ◽  
The Right ◽  
Harsh Reality ◽  
Women's Bureau

On June 5, 1920, Congress established the Women's Bureau, charging it to “formulate standards and policies which shall promote the welfare of wage-earning women, improve their working conditions, increase their efficiency, and advance their opportunities for profitable employment.” Support for the bureau was such that the House passed the bill by a vote of 255 to 10, and the Senate passed it without a recorded vote, though theMonthly Labor Reviewnoted that “there was some opposition.” During a decade when policymakers celebrated the fruits of economic abundance garnered with only the lightest touch from the state, bureau leaders and investigators saw gender research as a form of labor activism that would advance the cause of all workers. The bureau provided a unique site for discourse and deliberation concerning labor standards that did not exist in any other branch of the federal government. No other organization in the federal government thought harder about how policies could be constructed to protect workers, irrespective of gender, from the continued harsh reality of employment in American industry. Along the way, advocates of protective legislation for women sought not only to protect the particular interests of women workers, but also to drive a wedge through a post-Adkinsunderstanding of the “right to contract” and to expand the number of issues that should be seen as affected with a public interest.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document