Transnational Social Movements

The limits of the planet and of natural  resources  impede  pursuing  the  modern  project  based  on  permanent
growth  and  represent  a  major  challenge  for  humanity.  Drawing on an  agency-centred  approach,  this paper addresses two two  major  questions:
‘Who are the social actors who challenge the normative orientation at the core of modernization and promote alternative values and practices that may contribute to the rise of a global age, or may embody glimpses of a global age society?’ and ‘Can we grasp some dimensions of life and society in the global age  by studying current social movements?  ’

In this paper, my aim is to elaborate disability movement praxis so that transnational struggles for justice over the production of impairment emerging from the Global South can be represented within the transnational frame of disability politics. The paper seeks to explore the potential of deepening socio-political understandings of impairment as a means to radically democratize disability movement politics at the transnational scale to encompass pluralist, yet subaltern, collective claims for justice. I am guided by the question: if impairment is the place that makes visible invisible debts, can the global disability rights movement begin a process of re-identification to open the boundaries of disability justice claims and develop a strategic orientation which recognizes those collective justice claims for geopolitically produced impairments?

This thesis examines the central driver of recent mobilizations to be the need felt by society to seek a reinterpretation of democracy. This need for change is seen to emerge due to the damages caused to the social fabric by the impact of economic globalization. It is argued that every social movement has its own particular reasons. However, in the current globalization era, everything is connected to each other and drivers of recent social movements are dependent on the ‘legitimation crisis’ of the political economy. This aspect is focused through a case study on the Gezi Park movement as part of the recent wave of social movements. While investigating these aspects, it appears necessary to go beyond the new social movement theory in order to observe accurately this even newer wave of mobilizations. These issues must be addressed, and if they would be, it is argued that recent social movements can be the pioneers of an honorable social and political system in the future.

In September 2019, the third Global Climate Strike organized by the Fridays For Future (FFF) protest campaign mobilized 6000 protest events in 185 countries and brought 7.6 million participants out onto the streets. This report analyses survey data about participants from 19 cities around the world and compares it to data from an international survey conducted in 13 European cities in March 2019. Both surveys collected data following the well-established “Caught in the Act of Protest” survey methodology in order to generate representative samples. What makes FFF new and particularly interesting is the involvement of schoolchildren and students as initiators, organizers and participants in climate activism on a large scale. The September mobilizations differed from the March events in the explicit call for adults to join the movement. Although older age cohorts were more strongly represented in September, young people continued to make up a substantial portion of the protestors – alm...

full text: https://doi.org/10.13109/9783666564857
How could the ideal of a universal brotherhood of mankind be realized in an age of nationalism, colonialism and culture wars? "With God, for fatherland and humanity?" is a comprehensive study of masonic internationalism. It explores, with a focus on England, France, Germany, and Italy, how European masonic associations promoted or opposed a worldwide organisation of the "brotherhood". It argues that the transnational efforts before and after the First World War ended up reinforcing the differences they set out to overcome.

Wie ließ sich das Ideal einer umfassenden Menschheitsverbrüderung im Zeitalter von Nationalismus, Kolonialismus und Kulturkämpfen organisatorisch umsetzen? »Mit Gott, für Vaterland und Menschheit?« ist eine umfassende Studie zum Internationalismus von Freimaurern. Sie untersucht, mit Fokus auf Deutschland, England, Frankreich und Italien, wie sich europäische Freimaurerverbände für oder gegen eine weltweite organisatorische Vereinigung der »Bruderschaft« einsetzten. Dabei zeigt sich, dass die transnationalen Organisationsversuche vor und nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg die Gegensätze verstärkten, die sie eigentlich überwinden wollten.

In this article, we explore the wraparound approach of service delivery as a model for transnational social work. The wraparound model, used primarily within community-based children's mental health services and child protection initiatives, has been effective when planning services for clients and their families with complicated needs, whose care has to be provided within a multiple provider context. Most social work is delivered nationally or internationally rather than transnationally. In the article we outline how the model could be structured to meet the particular needs of transmigrants, including the involvement of NGOs and INGOs, and identify key obstacles and limitations.

This essay posits American journalism as a particular realm of public knowledge production, inflected with its own professional practices as well as the way in which those practices subjugate technologies of representation. Taking the Arab Spring of 2011 as a case study in journalistic knowledge production, this article analyzes three epistemological conditions underscoring the Arab Spring’s development as an object of knowledge: the use of social media tools within the practice of journalism, the representational authority of the individual reporter, and the articulation of journalistic knowledge to broader institutions of liberal democratic power. While these are by no means the only possible themes of investigation, by looking at how journalistic practices rendered the Arab Spring sensible and worthy of public consideration, this essay hopes to reveal them as temporally and technologically contingent, but also linked to the values of liberal democracy that undergird journalism’s role in American public life.

This paper examines the politics of scale in the commemorative work undertaken by the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (ICJB), a coalition of social movement organisations seeking justice for the victims of the Bhopal Gas Disaster of 1984. The argument traces how the ICJB attempted to contest the localisation of the disaster by the Indian state and the transnational corporations involved. I outline how the disaster, which had been scaled down from an extraordinary global event to a private non-issue, was re-scaled successfully across multiple scales of meaning and regulation through ICJB's mobilisation of the frame of 'second/ongoing poisoning'. This contestation over the scaling of the disaster crucially involved multiple processes of memory-work. Drawing on archival research and ethnographic fieldwork, this paper reveals how the remembrance of the disaster functioned as a key site of the discursive and performative re-framings required to reinstate multi-scalar accountability for the disaster. Overall, the paper establishes the utility of the politics of scale approach in mapping the dynamics of the transnational mobilisations of memory by social movement organisations in pursuit of justice.

Reviewers comments:
• ‘This is a long needed, finely researched, and admirably presented work of scholarship. It is required reading not just for scholars and researchers, but also those with any interest in the changing, emergent, future Indian society.’ Arun Agrawal, Professor and Associate Dean for Research, School of Natural Resources & Environment, University of Michigan.

• ‘A very readable, succinct and excellent synthesis of the experiences of a number of organizations and advocacy movements. India’s dynamic and complex civil society is captured well and includes linkages at the local, national and global levels.’ Sushma Ganguly, Former Sector Manager, Agriculture and Rural Development, World Bank.

• ‘…the strengths of the book are its lucid exposition, its coverage of a number of contrasting case studies, and its clear and unromantic acknowledgment of the limitations and constraints on activist action.’ Prof David Gellner. Asian Studies Review, 37(1), pp. 112-113.

Democratizing processes in Latin America are giving way to new citizen demands. As the political process opens, more actors find access to the public sphere. This paper analyzes the growing demands for LGBT rights in Latin America. The region stands out as remarkable changes have taken place throughout with legalization of domestic partnerships in Colombia, Ecuador, northern Mexico, Brazil and Uruguay and same-sex marriage in Argentina, Mexico City. The paper explores the range of policy changes throughout the region, and how these developments have changed the landscape of rights-based discourses in Latin America. Is there something intrinsically different about Latin American societies that have given rise to LGBT rights and political recognition of this marginalized group? Have democratization processes favored LGBT groups or are their demands consistent with processes of political development in the region? Given the degree of social mobilization of LGBT political actors, relatively little attention has been paid to the advances through persuasive tactics of this smaller group. Nonetheless, meaningful policy changes have taken place within the last decade, in particular with regards to the extension of same-sex marriage or recognition of civil unions. The trend is significant and surprising since not until recently this same population was prosecuted, victimized and to the very least discriminated against. Do these policy changes symbolize a transformation of societal configurations? Or have social mobilizations by LGBT groups been effective in framing policy issues? This paper will explore these questions while taking on the task of summarizing the underlying trends in the changing political landscape of sexual politics in Latin America.

California is home to approximately one-third of the Cambodian American population, many of whom came to the United States as refugees. In a chapter from her book, Southeast Asian Migration: People on the Move in Search of Work, Refuge and Belonging, BIMI-affiliate and Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies Khatharya Um, explores how Cambodian American youth participate in artistic expression and political engagement to navigate the burdens of transgenerational trauma and forced migration. Drawing on Prof. Um’s research, this policy brief makes recommendations for activists, educators, policy makers, and service providers to support the empowerment of young Cambodian Americans and other refugee communities.

In this article, I compare the origins and early development of the Occupy movement with that of the Spanish 15M, the Indignados or ‘outraged,’ movement. How movements are integrated into longer-lived global networks has been insufficiently studied. The ‘hyperlink’ can serve as a material representation of more durable affiliations between entities with a shared collective identity, in this case activist websites, reflecting underlying network structures. Combining qualitative analysis of movement identities and narratives with analysis of hyperlinking patterns provides a more holistic understanding of the interrelations between the 15M and Occupy movements. I argue that similarities in the structural hyperlinked network properties of the 15M and Occupy movements, and their transnational interlinkages can be explained in part by commonalities in the two movements’ collective identities and dominant narratives.

East-West German Transborder Entanglements through the Nuclear Waste Sites in Gorleben and Morsleben
Author: Astrid Mignon Kirchhof
Pages: pp. 145-173
Available open access:
https://doi.org/10.1484/J.JHES.5.116797
Open-access
Abstract

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Abstract
This article examines the porosity of national borders using the examples of two nuclear facilities at Gorleben and Morsleben located at the West German municipality in the state of Lower Saxony as well as the former Börde district of Saxony-Anhalt (former East Germany). Gorleben and Morsleben became known for their final nuclear waste repositories located directly at the German-German border. Debates and protests surrounding the facilities began in the 1970s and continued after the wall came down. Since opponents had to deal with two different political systems, protests differed in their duration, effect, and methods, even though the border as such was not the problem since West Germans were allowed into the GDR. Transboundary relations were much rather limited by the dictatorial regime on the one side, by the absence of anti-nuclear groups in the GDR until the mid-1980s, and by sufficient coalition partners for West German activists in their own country. Since the disclosure of environmental data by the East German government and the Chernobyl accident a few years later, transboundary relations increased and activists interconnected in many ways. With their protest they indicated that even if the border was a fact, concerns of people in both states transcended it and that borderlands are often characterized by relationality and entanglement.

Este trabajo estudia la protesta estudiantil en 2011. En la primera parte se analizan las movilizaciones del estudiantado y en las tres siguientes se estudia
la estructura de oportunidad política (EOP), las estructuras de movilización y
los marcos de la acción colectiva y discursos políticos. El ciclo de protesta se explica, en buena parte, por una EOP favorable debido al apoyo que consiguió
el movimiento en diversos sectores sociales y en algunos de la clase política. Sin embargo, tal grado de movilización no se habría producido sin la Mesa Amplia Nacional Estudiantil (MANE), que aglutinó las principales organizaciones estudiantiles y, al plantearse como un espacio amplio, fue desbordada por el enrolamiento de estudiantes no organizados. El éxito del movimiento fue coronado por unas estrategias discursivas, basadas en la reivindicación de la educación como derecho, que contrarrestaron la argumentación del Gobierno y articularon a su lucha diversos actores.

Performance Constellations maps transnational protest movements and the dynamics of networked expressive behavior in the streets and online, as people struggle to be heard and effect long-term social justice.  Its case studies explore collective political action in Latin America, including the Zapatistas in the mid-’90s, protests during the 2001 Argentine economic crisis, the 2011 Chilean student movement, the 2014–2015 mobilizations for the disappeared Ayotzinapa students, and the 2018 transnational reproductive rights movement. The book analyzes uses of space, time, media communication, and corporeality in protests such as virtual sit-ins, flash mobs, scarfazos, and hashtag campaigns, arguing that these protests not only challenge hegemonic power but are also socially transformative. While other studies have focused either on digital activism or on street protests, Performance Constellations shows that they are in fact integrally entwined. Zooming in on protest movements and art-activism in Mexico, Argentina, and Chile, and putting contemporary insurgent actions in dialogue with their historical precedents, the book demonstrates how, even in moments of extreme duress, social actors in Latin America have taken up public and virtual space to intervene politically and to contest dominant powers.
Free to read online until June 30, 2020. https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/00000149n

This chapter focuses on the role of social media in galvanizing street protests, demonstrations, and other forms of democratic participation associated with the Iranian Green Movement, and examines how Iranian activists framed relevant events, norms, values, ideologies, issues, narratives, and symbols on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other websites.  The political, social, economic, and technological circumstances in Iran that triggered the Green Revolution and eventually contributed to its apparent demise are investigated.  In particular, the chapter explores how movement activists utilized social media to enunciate their political demands and mobilize supporters – both within Iran and around the world.  Attempts by activists to achieve a frame alignment between the Green Movement and relevant indigenous (national) and transnational discursive concepts are examined.  The chapter proposes that the use of collective action frames in social media was instrumental initially in mobilizing the Green Movement and contesting the dominant frames of the regime, but ultimately proved to be insufficient and even counterproductive at times in sustaining the necessary levels of popular support to topple the regime from power.

Los conflictos socio-ambientales vinculados a los recursos y/o bienes naturales son un rasgo creciente de la escena internacional. Si bien la historia del mundo moderno está signada por esta problemática, en la actualidad adquieren
otra dimensión por tratarse de indicios acerca de la vulnerabilidad ecosistémica del planeta y la amenaza que ello plantea para la continuidad de la vida humana en las condiciones que hoy conocemos.

Mass media might be enormously persuasive, but people’s principal main way to engage with mass media is passive receptive. According to Leah A. Lievrouw (2011), exposure to or reception of a message might or might not provoke a receiver to act.

The Handmaid’s Tale has inspired protests and became a symbol of resistance. People all over the world are wearing red cloaks and white bonnets to protest various injustices, particularly regarding women’s rights.

"Hasta que los leones tengan sus propios historiadores, las historias de las cacerías las seguirán escribiendo los cazadores." Este proverbio africano, recogido por Eduardo Galeano, sirve a las autoras para continuar una tradición que en los últimos años están llevando a cabo los activistas del Movimiento Antiglobalización (MAG): trazar sus propias coordenadas en el contexto de globalización neoliberal que rechazan. Con este objetivo, el libro está estructurado en cuatro grandes bloques: por qué surge el MAG, qué es, cuándo aparece y cómo lo hace, atendiendo especialmente a los orígenes, las dos grandes ramas que lo integran y su trayectoria desde finales de los ochenta, pasando por sus grandes eventos de propuesta y de protesta (Seattle, Praga, Génova, Porto Alegre). Se trata, por tanto, de un relato activista; una contribución al debate sobre la propia definición del MAG con una mirada general que raras veces se encuentra en la abundante literatura sobre el tema; por otro lado, ayuda a aclarar conceptos elementales que definen lo que significa la resistencia antiglobalización en la actualidad. De esta manera, cumple también con una vocación divulgativa, que trata de acercar el movimiento a públicos más amplios.

Abstract: In this interview, the writer, activist, and well-known woman of color feminist and participant in grassroots left movements Aurora Levins Morales explores the action and language of participatory social change, considered through the lens of her social location and experience. With a focus on intergenerational communication among feminist and left move- ment participants, Brooke Lober asks Levins Morales to share her method of writing and activism, based in histories of family and place; to com- ment on the term and practice of “identity politics”; to assess the current upsurge of feminist movements; and to revisit her historical and contempo- rary contributions to internationalism, women of color feminism, and Jew- ish organizing in the Palestine solidarity movement. Levins Morales offers insightful reconsideration of her life, work, and philosophy, with descrip- tions of the context and motivation of her published writing.

This article argues that the transnational anti-apartheid movement which, from a global perspective, must be seen as one of the most significant social movements during the post-war era, made an important contribution to the emergence and consolidation of a global civil society during this period. The transnational anti-apartheid movement lasted for more than three decades, from the late 1950s to 1994, when the first democratic elections in South Africa were held, and it had a presence on all continents. In this sense, the interactions of the anti-apartheid movement were part of the construction of a global political culture during the Cold War. Further, I argue that the history of the anti-apartheid struggle provides an important historical case for the analysis of present-day global politics, as it is evident that the present mobilization of a global civil society in relation to economic globalization and supranational political institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, has historical links to the post-war, transnational political culture of which the anti-apartheid movement formed an important part. Movement organizations, action forms and networks that were formed and developed in the anti-apartheid struggle are present in this contemporary context, making the transnational anti-apartheid movement an important historical resource for contemporary global civil society.

The centuries of caste practice and concomitant discrimination in the socio-political and economic life of the people are so deeply rooted in the society that it is not a matter that will wither away through mere legal provisions. If non-discrimination between castes is to be achieved, it is only possible by pulling different caste members together. Constitutional
provisions alone cannot bring behavioural changes in the neither society nor strong speeches by political leaders. Social political awareness, however, is growing among the educated members of the Dalit groups.
Proportional representation may not do full justice to some large or small groups. For substantive equality and equity, the government and local bodies should design affirmative action policy. Special measures are required in political representation, employment, education and housing. No society can be forcefully changed overnight. Social and political mobilization needs to be executed to transform the transitional society scrupulously into the modern one.

The study of football fandom is a fast-growing area of research in the sociology of sport. The first work of its kind, this book explores football fan activism and its impact on contemporary football culture in England, Italy and the Czech Republic.

Presenting a comparative study of fan activism in national and transnational contexts, it explores the characteristics of each country’s football fan culture as well as the varying and at times volatile dynamics between fans, authorities and the mass media. Its chapters address key themes and issues including: fans’ reactions to policing and security measures in football stadiums; the socio-cultural significance of symbols and rituals for fans at football games; and fans’ critical engagement with football club ownership and management. Offering original insights into the power of fan activism to influence social change, this book has wider implications for understanding social movements in other cultural and political spheres beyond Europe.

In diesem Artikel wird der Wanderhandel als Ausdruck gesellschaftlicher Konflikte des 19. Jahrhunderts am Beispiel des oberlausitzer Grenzraums beleuchtet. Die Modernisierungsprozesse des 19. Jahrhunderts hielten auch und gerade für die historisch gewachsenen Strukturen der Oberlausitz enorme Wandlungsprozesse mit großem Konfliktpotenzial bereit: Die Zentralisierung staatlicher Macht und der Aufbau eines bürokratischen Verwaltungsapparates, die Durchsetzung kapitalistischer Wirtschaftsweisen und die nationale Homogenisierung vermöge des Staatsbürgerschaftkonzeptes drangen bis in die letzten Refugien alter Ordnungen vor. Diese Transformationen spiegeln sich in vielerlei Hinsicht im Phänomen des Wanderhandels, „hinter dem sich ein Widerstreit politischer, konfessioneller und wirtschaftlicher Interessen birgt.“  In den folgenden Überlegungen wird dieser Tatsache Rechnung getragen, indem unterschiedliche Akteursgruppen, Problemwahrnehmungen und Lösungsstrategien beleuchtet werden. Im Mittelpunkt der Betrachtung steht ein soziales Konfliktfeld, das sich zwischen dem staatlichen Wunsch nach Regulierung, dem wissenschaftlichen Versuch der Kategorisierung und dem Eigenwillen der ökonomischen und mobilen Akteure aufspannt.

According to Hegel, universal history goes from the East to the West. This idea underlies the dominant conception of the 20th century as the European American Century. In this article, I submit that there has been another, subaltern 20th century, the Nuestra America American Century. The European American Century carries into the new millennium its empirical arrogance in the form of neoliberal globalization; the Nuestra America American Century, to be reinvented, bears the seeds of counter-hegemonic globalization. Counter-hegemonic globalization is understood as a set of transnational alliances and struggles focused on the dynamic equilibrium between the principle of equality and the principle of difference. The article identifies five main themes in which the clash between the two alternative globalizations will occur in the next decades.

In this article we analyse Fair Trade as a form of non-state regulation, building on the literature on the internal politics and governance of Fair Trade International (FTI) certification. We focus on recent developments in the FTI certification system, including the split of Fair Trade USA from FTI and the emergence of the Small Producer’s Symbol (SPP) as an alternative to FTI certification. We highlight the role of the three regional Producer Networks, in particular the Latin American Producer Network, the CLAC, in the politics and governance of the FTI system. In order to analyse these issues we employ an alternative reading of Karl Polanyi’s work in relation to Fair Trade. We problematise the claim made by some in the literature that FTI certification is an example of Polanyi’s concept of re-embedding. Instead, we draw on Polanyi’s concept of oversight to analyse Fair Trade certification. We argue that the emergence of the SPP out of the CLAC shows promise for being a mechanism of oversight more reflective of Polanyian re-embedding than FTI certification. We also emphasise how the growth of the SPP and the pressure from the Producer Networks have prompted governance reform within the FTI system.

This article examines how anti–corporate globalization
activists have used new digital technologies to coordinate
actions, build networks, practice media activism,
and physically manifest their emerging political ideals.
Since theWorld Trade Organization protests in Seattle,
and through subsequent mobilizations against multilateral
institutions and forums in Prague, Quebec, Genoa,
Barcelona, and Porto Alegre, activists have used e-mail
lists, Web pages, and open editing software to organize
and coordinate actions, share information, and produce
documents, reflecting a general growth in digital collaboration.
Indymedia has provided an online forum for
posting audio, video, and text files, while activists have
also created temporary media hubs to generate alternative
information, experiment with new technologies,
and exchange ideas and resources. Influenced by anarchism
and peer-to-peer networking logics, anti–corporate
globalization activists have not only incorporated
digital technologies as concrete tools, they have also
used them to express alternative political imaginaries
based on an emerging network ideal.

This research uses a resource mobilization analytic framework to undertake an empirical assessment of central and controversial claims of new social movements (NSM) theory.  Key dimensions of organizational style along which social movement organizations (SMOs) among the "new" social movements are expected to differ significantly from those within "old" social movements are specified.  These include degree of bureaucracy, (de)centralization of power and organizational operating strategy, whether participatory or professionalized.  The rich organizational level data assembled here from separate national samples of "new" and "old" SMOs enable each dimension of organizational style to be examined empirically.  Multiple regression analyses of cross-movement differences and intra-movement variation over time in these indicators of organizational style constitutes the empirical basis for assessing new social movements theory.
NSM data comes from 411 peace movement organizations (PMOs) that responded to a nationally representative 1988 mail survey of "groups working for peace" in the United States.  The PMO sample of 803 was drawn from among the 7,700 groups listed in the 1987 edition of the Grassroots Peace Directory.  "Old" movement data comes primarily from 177 poor people's empowerment organizations that responded to a 1987 mailed survey of 482 groups that received grant funding from the Campaign for Human Development (CHD) between 1982-1986.  The strengths and limitations of this unique cross-movement data set are described and its appropriateness for assessing specific claims of NSM theory claims discussed extensively.
Results of the cross movement analyses generally contradict or fail to confirm relevant expectations of NSM theory and undermine confidence in it as an explanation of the distinctiveness of the so called new social movements.  Generally only the smallest SMOs regardless of their social class base, social change goals or the broader movement to which they belong fit the NSM organizational profile.  Similarly, the age related expectations of NSM theory regarding the persistence of the NSM organizational style over time find no support in this assessment.  NSM theory undervalues the importance of meso level social structures in understanding the reflexive relationship between social movements and social change, and oversimplifies the dynamics related to the distribution, persistence, and transformation of SMO forms over time.

This article demonstrates historically and statistically that conversionary Protestants (CPs) heavily influenced the rise and spread of stable democracy around the world. It argues that CPs were a crucial catalyst initiating the development and spread of religious liberty, mass education, mass printing, newspapers, voluntary organizations, and colonial reforms, thereby creating the conditions that made stable democracy more likely. Statistically, the historic prevalence of Protestant missionaries explains about half the variation in democracy in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania and removes the impact of most variables that dominate current statistical research about democracy. The association between Protestant missions and democracy is consistent in different continents and subsamples, and it is robust to more than 50 controls and to instrumental variable analyses.

Belgian secularists were at the centre of the freethinker’s international during the Belle Epoque. In contrast, Belgian Freemasons did not succeed to be the nexus of international Freemasonry, although the Belgian leaders of the freethinkers’ international were almost all freemasons. The strength of its militant secularism, both within and outside freemasonry, gave Belgium a prominent role in the International Federation of Freethinkers, but it did not facilitate any aspiration to a similar position in a denominationally multiform Masonic field. Towards the end of the period, the central position of the Belgians in the freethinkers’ movement became less self-evident, notably because of its vigorous refusal of reconciliation with German seculars. Whatever the differences, Belgian freethinkers and freemasons were both able to act as intermediaries for ideas and information in transit, whether through an organizational modus or through individual brokers.

The chapter aims at providing a set of interpretive tools to analyze the outcomes of consumer activism when performed through collective action. In the last years, in fact, we have witnessed a shifting from political consumerism understood as a practice of the individual 'citizen-consumer' to political consumerism performed by a growing number of organized collectives like solidarity purchasing groups, consumer-producer cooperatives, ecological communities etc. This implies that a re-conceptualization of political consumerism should be accompanied by renewed interpretive frameworks and methodologies. Drawing from the literature on social movements and their outcomes, the authors come forth with an interpretive 'compass' composed by six main features (type, domain, nature, target, timing, duration) that help understanding the effectiveness of consumer activism in light of the recent developments. In the second and final part of the chapter, the authors underline the importance of taking into account factors like resources, media outreach and alliances as well as the political, socioeconomic and cultural context.

Abstract: The developmentalist gaze of the Fair Trade movement is on Global South producers. In this article we turn our analytic gaze toward North American fair traders to explore the racialized, neocolonial power relations in which these movement actors are implicated. Section One is a brief historical sketch of Fair Trade certification. We argue that the certification system is a multi-sited, global institution that is shaped by and shapes neocolonial power relations in Fair Trade by exploring the consolidation and more recent splintering of the international certification system. Section Two provides a postcolonial critique of developmentalism, with a focus on the timing of development, in order to lay a foundation for the remaining sections. In Section Three we analyze the spatiality of Fair Trade, with an emphasis on what and who are missing from or erased by the structural and conceptual frameworks of Fair Trade. In Section Four we explore the relationship between Fair Trade, commodity fetishism, and the developmentalist conception of space/time propagated by Fair Trade advocates. Section Five is a critical analysis of the neocolonialist and racist discourse of Fair Trade, with a focus on the “helping” discourse. We contend that as Global North fair traders strive to “help” Global South producers, they re-entrench neocolonial narratives of white supremacy and the desire to develop.

Advocates for Palestinian rights who operate outside the Fatah-Hamas binary have emerged as a third political tendency in recent years. Palestinian and international activists have advanced an alternative framework through which to act on the Palestine question. Their campaigns, consisting of education, advocacy and direct action, have managed to advance a rights-based understanding of the Palestinian plight. One area that global Palestine activism has not delved into is that of offering a critique of Palestinian armed resistance, as practiced primarily by groups in Gaza. Drawing on the public positions of prominent Palestinian commentators and on media statements made by organizations within the movement, as well as my own participation in Palestine advocacy, I propose that activists have largely evaded a critique of the armed strategy. This paper explores possible reasons for this and argues that activists should engage on this issue. I explicate why this is a legitimate, necessary and feasible task.