Sustainability and the Politics of Materialist Action

2019 ◽  
pp. 99-126
Author(s):  
David Schlosberg ◽  
Luke Craven

Sustainable materialist movements have a very particular, and vital, understanding of the meaning and practice of sustainability. Activists are actively trying to replace a politics of separation with one of immersion and flow, a politics of the domination of nature with one that recognizes human beings as animals in embedded material relationships with ecosystems and the non-human realm. A key focus is the importance of ethically informed material action that embodies such sustainable practice. One core argument is that sustainable materialist action offers a substantive response to the misplaced critiques of the ‘apolitical’ or ‘post-political’ nature of such materialist-focused environmental and social movements.

Author(s):  
Ahmad Izudin

This article will examine how progressive Islam’s reasoning can be a reference to free human beings from the exploitation and domination of social class? So what social movements can we do in the midst of crush the nation’s problems related to the exploitation of natural resources that increasingly vine? From this point on, I hope to get a meta-theory regulation that can be implied entirely for the benefit of society, in order to be free from exploitation and domination. To answer this important position, the discourse of social movements can be mapped into two, namely old social movement and new social movement. While Islam as a universal religion, there is no need to discuss theological-transcendental issues, but how the theology should create a new, more applicable avenue of dialectics to answer the question the rulers of powers domination. In the hope of a progressive, inclusive, open-minded, and pluralist theological doctrine. The results of this study may contribute to the development of science and the movement that became a turning point and reference in social change.[Artikel ini hendak mengkaji bagaimana nalar Islam progresif yang dapat menjadi acuan untuk membebaskan manusia dari eksploitasi dan dominasi kelas sosial? Lantas gerakan sosial apa yang dapat kita lakukan di tengah himpitan persoalan bangsa terkait eksploitasi sumber daya alam yang kian menggurita? Dari titik ini, maka saya berharap mendapat satu regulasi metateori yang bisa diimplikasikan sepenuhnya untuk kepentingan masyarakat, agar bisa terbebas dari ekspolitasi dan dominasi. Untuk menjawab posisi penting ini, maka diskursus gerakan sosial dapat dipetakan menjadi dua, yakni old social movement dan new social movement. Sementara Islam sebagai agama universal, tidak perlu lagi membahas persoalan teologis-transendental, tetapi bagaimana teologi itu harus menciptakan ruang dealektika baru yang lebih aplikatif menjawab persoalan dominasi kekuasaan para penguasa. Dengan harapan munculnya doktrin teologis yang progresif, inklusif, open-minded, dan pluralis. Hasil kajian ini semoga memberikan kontribusi bagi perkembangan ilmu pengetahuan dan gerakan yang menjadi titik balik dan acuan dalam perubahan sosial.]


Daedalus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 149 (4) ◽  
pp. 25-32
Author(s):  
Robert Jay Lifton

I came to view my work with Hiroshima survivors in 1962 as not only a scientific study but a form of bearing witness to what the bomb did to human beings in that city. I tried to bring professional knowledge and experience to that effort, to become what I later called a witnessing professional. Nuclear and climate issues interacted in that early study, and have continued to be inseparable for all of us. I draw upon examples of witnessing professionals over the course of our struggles with these two planetary threats. In each case, they had to expose and combat the malignant normality, the dangerous prevailing assumptions and narratives, of their time. In that way, these professionals have contributed to important social movements. They have also deepened–as we too can–the ethical dimensions of professional work.


2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-109
Author(s):  
Katherine Bullock

This book, an exciting development in the study of Islamic activism, is destinedto become a landmark text. The reason for this, as Kurzman observesin his conclusion, is as simple as it is strange: The authors treat Islamicactivists as normal human beings who make decisions about activism inways that are similar to decision-making methods used by non-Muslimactivists. Were it not for the persistent notion in both academic and popularcircles that Islamic activists are their own species, one that is motivated byan irrational fanaticism, any such conclusion would be seen as humdrum.Such is the isolation of Islamic studies from theoretical developments inother fields that it was not until the turn of the twenty-first century that scholars began to study Islamic activists from the vantage point of state-of-the artinsights on social movements. For this, Wiktorowicz and the contributors tohis book are pioneers who deserve our appreciation.Islamic Activism is divided into three parts: “Violence and Contention,”“Networks and Alliances,” and “Culture and Framing.” It also features aforeword by Charles Tilly, an introduction by the editor, and a conclusion byCharles Kurzman. Each chapter is a strong contribution based on solidempirical research with Islamic activists from various Muslim societies.Many chapters also provide synopses of social movement theory beforemoving on to a discussion of their particular case study. Due to the profundityof social movement theory, this never becomes repetitive, and a nonspecialistreader will gain an understanding of social movement theory whilelearning more about Islamic social movements. For this reason, both Tillyand Kurzman note that the study of Islamic social movements is not just aone way street – applying theoretical insights in social movement theoryderived from the study of non-Muslims to Islamic activists. Rather, thebroadening and deepening social movement theory itself is accomplishedvia the empirical study of Islamic activists ...


Author(s):  
Natalia Catalina Valdivieso Kastner ◽  
Anna Premauer Marroquín

 Para las mujeres kichwas que habitan las cuencas de los ríos Bobonaza y Curaray en la provincia de Pastaza, Ecuador, moldear cerámica es no solo una actividad femenina por excelencia, sino que esta implica un modo de relacionamiento con los seres humanos y no humanos que habitan su entorno. En la actualidad, esta experiencia de vida se ha visto en riesgo a partir de las licitaciones petroleras que desde el 2012 se adelantan en la Amazonía ecuatoriana. Frente a la amenaza que podrían constituir las concesiones extractivas, varias mujeres kichwas -la mayoría ceramistas- se han levantado políticamente manifestando su descontento y abogando por la preservación de sus territorios. El presente artículo tiene como objetivo exponer cómo las mujeres kichwas de Pastaza, entablan relaciones con el territorio y la naturaleza a través de sus cuerpos y del tejido de la cerámica. Se plantea que el moldeamiento del barro aparece como un dispositivo que, además de evidenciar esta relación, se ha convertido en un medio económico y político a través del cual las mujeres kichwas tejen redes y obran en defensa de la reproducción de la vida tal y como ellas la conciben. Abstract For the Kichwa women living at the Bobonaza and Curaray river basins, in the Pastaza Province, Ecuador, molding ceramics is not just an activity women should take care of, but it also implies a way of relating to other human and non-human beings inhabiting in their environment. It also conveys a relationship with the materials and social and symbolic structures that give meaning to their experience. Since 2012 oil extraction tenders in the Ecuadorian Amazon have been posing a threat to their life experience. In this context of threats associated to extractive concessions, a number of Kichwa women –most of them ceramists– have become politically active and put forth their voice of disagreement to advocate the preservation of their territories. This paper seeks to illustrate how Kichwa women from Pastaza establish relationships with nature and territory through their bodies and the activity of “knitting” ceramics. It is argued that the activity of molding clay is both evidence of this relationship, and of economic and political means through which Kichwa women knit social networks and become agents in defending their territories.


Author(s):  
Elise Thorburn

In the most recent wave of struggles a changed logic of activism is evident (Dyer-Witheford, 2015). Research on this wave has often emphasised the interactions of the digital (through online forms of activism, communication, and coordination) with the embodied (in assemblies, spatial occupations, and face-to-face encounters) (Gerbaudo, 2012). Although gender has been considered in regard to these struggles (Herrera, 2014) feminist concerns over social reproduction – concerns which have also been central to the contemporary epoch of struggle (Brown, et al, 2013) – have been largely neglected.   Social reproduction refers to the capacities of populations to reproduce themselves and through this to reproduce the material basis of the economy (Bezanson and Luxton, 2006; Federici, 2012). It is a site wherein human beings and capital compete for the reproduction of living bodies, and contemporary social movements have become ground zero for such socially reproductive contestations (Thorburn, 2015). Within contemporary movements, struggles over social reproduction are increasingly channelled through digital networks as well as embodied practices. This digital-embodied convergence opens up strengths and weaknesses in the contemporary epoch of social/political contestation.   In this paper I seek to explicate how alternative feminist modes of social reproduction emerge through digital networks in contemporary social movements and compare this digital social reproduction to more embodied forms also witnessed. Using a case study of Concordia University Television’s live streaming of Quebec’s 2012 student strike, as well as the live streaming initiatives in the anti-police brutality protests in Ferguson and Baltimore 2015, this paper will suggest future horizons of digital and embodied activism around social reproduction focused on media forms within social movements. Based on ethnographic research, including participant observation and interviews, I argue that the practices and projects of live streaming can expand forms of social reproduction autonomous from both the state and capital. The digital practices of social reproduction emerging in contemporary struggles can contribute to circumventing power while at the same time constituting sites of resistance within and beyond social and political contestations.  


2017 ◽  
pp. 100-108
Author(s):  
Reyna Sánchez Estévez

RESUMENEn este trabajo se exponen datos iniciales de una investigación sobre las protestas y luchas sociales en contra de los desplazamientos forzosos de pobladores de México, se da a conocer los lugares en los que se desarrollan las movilizaciones, los motivos que las originan y características de los sujetos participantes, también se realiza un primer análisis de los objetivos de lucha y se ofrecen algunos elementos de sus repertorios de protesta. Se realiza una reflexión sobre los daños que ocasionan estos desplazamientos en los seres humanos y sobre las nociones de riesgo y vulnerabilidad.Palabras Clave: Movimientos sociales, desalojos, vulnerabilidad.RESUMONeste trabalho são expostos os dados iniciais de uma pesquisa sobre os protestos e lutas sociais contra os deslocamentos forçados de populações do México, dão-se a conhecer os locais onde são desenvolvidas as manifestações, os motivos que as originam e as características dos sujeitos participantes, também se faz uma primeira análise dos objetivos da luta y são oferecidos alguns elementos do seu repertório de protesto. Se faz uma reflexão sobre os danos que estes deslocamentos ocasionam nos seres humanos e sobre as noções de risco vulnerabilidade. Palavras-Chave: autoestradas urbanas, justiça espacial, balanças.ABSTRACTThis paper exposes initial data from an investigation into the protests and social struggles against forced displacement of people from Mexico, it is given to know the places where protests are developed, the reasons which originate them and the characteristics of the participant subjects, a first analysis of the resistance objectives is also done and some elements of their repertoires of protest are offered. A reflection on the damage caused by these displacements in human beings and on the notions of risk and vulnerability is made.Keywords: Social movements, evictions, vulnerability


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (11) ◽  
pp. 196
Author(s):  
Favio Rivas MUÑOS

Es aceptado que movimientos sociales de diferente tipo jugaron algún papel de importancia en el surgimiento de la bioética en las últimas décadas del siglo XX, junto con los avances biomédicos y la experimentación con seres humanos. Sin embargo, hoy dichos movimientos yacen en el olvido dado el énfasis de esta inter-disciplina científica en lo estrictamente biomédico y su práctica encerrada en comités éticos de asistencia e investigación donde se adelanta, a su vez, un ejercicio de democracia liberal, representativa o comisionada, el paradigma de democracia en el llamado occidente al Norte y al Sur. Latinoamérica, en particular, ha sido y sigue siendo un continente rico en movimientos sociales, según informe del sistema de Naciones Unidas. Entre ellos, los llamados Movimientos contra-hegemónicos son movimientos de resistencia en diferentes partes del mundo que ponen de manifiesto elementos de importancia hacia la construcción de una bioética más acorde con las realidades del Sur global. Como movimientos de resistencia a esa centralidad en el negocio, propia de esta época, los seres humanos a su interior han ido haciéndose a otras formas de vida, es decir, de re-existencia, que rebelan opciones para la supervivencia de la especie humana en un mundo que arrasa y depreda para sólo favorecer la rentabilidad de inversiones a escala global.Bioética. Bioética De Intervención. Movimientos Sociales Contra-Hegemónicos. América Latina.RESUMO Aceita-se que movimentos sociais de diferentes tipos tenham desempenhado papel importante no surgimento da bioética nas últimas décadas do século XX, juntamente com avanços biomédicos e experimentação com seres humanos. No entanto, hoje esses movimentos estão no esquecimento, dada a ênfase dessa interdisciplina científica no estritamente biomédico e sua prática encerrada em comitês éticos de assistência e pesquisa, onde, por sua vez, um exercício liberal, representativo ou comissário, o paradigma da democracia no chamado oeste para o norte e sul. A América Latina, em particular, tem sido e continua sendo um continente rico em movimentos sociais, de acordo com um relatório do sistema das Nações Unidas. Entre eles, os chamados movimentos contra-hegemônicos são movimentos de resistência em diferentes partes do mundo que revelam elementos importantes para a construção de uma bioética mais alinhada às realidades do sul global. Como movimentos de resistência a essa centralidade nos negócios, típicos da época, os seres humanos têm criado outras formas de vida, isto é, de re-existência, que revelam opções para a sobrevivência da espécie humana em um mundo que devasta e deprecia apenas para favorecer a lucratividade dos investimentos em escala global. Bioética. Bioética De Intervenção. Movimentos Sociais Contra-Hegemônicos. América Latina.ABSTRACT It is accepted that social movements of different types have played an important role in the emergence of bioethics in the last decades of the 20th century, together with biomedical progress and experimentation with humans. However, today these movements are in oblivion, given the emphasis of this scientific interdiscipline on strictly biomedical and its practice contained in ethical committees of assistance and research where, in turn, an exercise of liberal, representative or commissioner, the paradigm of democracy in the so-called west to north and south. Latin America in particular has been and continues to be a continent rich in social movements, according to a report by the United Nations system. Among these, the so-called counter-hegemonic movements are resistance movements in different parts of the world that reveal important elements towards the construction of a bioethics more in line with the realities of the global South. As movements of resistance to this centrality in the business world, typical of this period, human beings within them have created other forms of life, that is, of new existence, which reveal options for the survival of the human species in a world that devastates and he was only preying on the profitability of investments on a global scale. Bioethics. Bioethics of Intervention. Counter-Hegemonic Social Movements. Latin America.RIASSUNTO È accettato che movimenti sociali di diverso tipo abbiano giocato un ruolo importante nell'emergere della bioetica negli ultimi decenni del 20 ° secolo, insieme ai progressi biomedici e alla sperimentazione con gli esseri umani. Tuttavia, oggi questi movimenti si trovano nell'oblio, data l'enfasi di questa interdisciplina scientifica sul rigorosamente biomedico e la sua pratica racchiusa in comitati etici di assistenza e ricerca dove, a loro volta, un esercizio di liberale, rappresentativo o commissario, il paradigma della democrazia nel cosiddetto ovest a nord e sud. L'America Latina, in particolare, è stata e continua ad essere un continente ricco di movimenti sociali, secondo un rapporto del sistema delle Nazioni Unite. Tra questi, i cosiddetti movimenti contro-egemonici sono movimenti di resistenza in diverse parti del mondo che rivelano elementi importanti verso la costruzione di una bioetica più in linea con le realtà del Sud globale. Come movimenti di resistenza a questa centralità nel mondo degli affari, tipici di questo periodo, gli esseri umani al loro interno hanno creato altre forme di vita, cioè di nuova esistenza, che rivelano opzioni per la sopravvivenza della specie umana in un mondo che devasta e depredava solo per favorire la redditività degli investimenti su scala globale. Bioetica. Bioetica Dell'intervento. Movimenti Sociali Contro-Egemonici. America Latina.


1954 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 565-577 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F. Scholer ◽  
Charles F. Code

1949 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 970-977 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. McMahon ◽  
Charles F. Code ◽  
Willtam G. Saver ◽  
J. Arnold Bargen
Keyword(s):  

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