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This document is an editorial that pays tribute to the late Samir Amin, a prominent African scholar and activist. Amin was known for his Marxist perspective and his critique of capitalism and Eurocentrism. He advocated for delinking from capitalism and imperialism as a means of achieving inclusive development. The editorial highlights Amin's contributions to various fields, including development economics, political economy, and decolonization in Africa. It also introduces a special issue dedicated to Amin's legacy, which includes papers on topics such as Africa's socio-economic development, alternative development theories, and decolonization. The editorial emphasizes the continued relevance of Amin's ideas for Africa's development and the importance of implementing his recommendations. [Extracted from the article]

In this paper, I unpack how youth organizers became politicized activists through their engagement in the prefigurative practices of the fair trade movement. Prefiguration refers to the practices of a movement that are embedded in and reproduce their shared political visions; prefigurative politics allows social movement groups to embody their politics through their interactional practices, their tactical repertoires, and their outwardly oriented campaigns. As novices within United Students for Fair Trade (USFT), through their immersion in the organization's community of practice and their increasing participation in the prefigurative practices of the community, participants came to identify as and be identified as activists, shift their worldviews, and adopt new political philosophies. This paper examines the activist practices that supported legitimate peripheral participation, including group agreements, keeping stack, and antioppression interventions. The article concludes with a discussion of the ways that prefigurative politics enabled particular activist identities and philosophies and encourages further investigation into political identity development as a learning phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the place of academics in social movements, not as (predominantly) researchers or individuals but as activists acting collectively (Autonomous Geographies Collective, 2010). The notions of militant particularism and convergence space (Routledge, 2003; Cumbers et al. 2008) are deployed in relation to global justice networks, to analyze the discussions between academics planning direct action collectively and potentially with the network Climate Justice Action during the UN COP15 climate change summit in Copenhagen in December 2009. A notable tension in these debates centered on 'radical' versus 'reformist' action and how either might contribute to transformative social change. The discussions ultimately led to the action of an academic seminar blockade, analyzed as a form of constructive resistance based on mutable particularisms flowing between shifting scales of convergence space. The paper concludes with the proposal that scholar activists should make a long-term commitment to act collectively, develop our own militant particularisms, and bring these to the convergence spaces of global justice networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper offers a reflexive ethnography of a set of queer autonomous spaces created in London over the last five years. It traces the political genealogies of a recent strand of radical queer activism that is broadly aligned with the anarchist and anticapitalist wings of the global justice movement. In line with the usage of the term 'queer' by these activists themselves, to refer to a variety of states of being that challenge both homonormativity and heteronormativity, this paper utilises a definition of 'queer' that moves beyond the ways in which it has been mobilised by many sexual geographers. The ethnography poses questions about the 'queer' in 'queer geography' and what it means to be an 'activist'. This work considers the importance (as well as the limits) of these autonomous queer spaces. It suggests that the process of collective experimentation to build autonomous queer spaces is ultimately more transformative and empowering than the resulting structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses Freirean theory and field studies of counter-globalist campaigns to add greater lucidity and normative deliberateness to our understanding of resistance to neo-liberal globalism. A difficult tension exists between complete submersion in movement struggles, versus a mythical position of objective analytic detachment. We sketch out the basis for a productive dialogue between these two competing pulls of political engagement and analytic objectivity. To do this, we draw from the writings of Paulo Freire, a Brazilian thinker famous for his theories of popular education. Freire's writings have not seriously entered academic studies of globalization, even though activists in the ‘globalization-from-below’ camp frequently draw on his words for inspiration. We seek to remedy this omission, and construct a dialogue between Freire and social movement struggles on four dualisms centred on epistemology, normativity, methodology and strategy. In each dualism, we outline how Freirean concepts can help redefine these binaries as productive tensions to be developed, rather than conflicts to be suppressed. These insights are not intended as a theoretical injunctive delivered from upon high, but are used in dialogue with examples from global justice campaigns in order to clarify what is already taking place on the ground. Identifying Freirean priorities can also encourage openings for more emancipatory approaches to critical globalization scholarship. While academics cannot engineer resistance to neo-liberal globalism from the top down, they can contribute their research energy and resources, becoming more actively engaged in the process of envisaging alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ten years after the protests in Seattle in 1999, this article aims to conduct an evaluation of the anti-globalization movement. Our hypothesis is that during those years, the antiglobalization movement has shown an important ability to organize, mobilize and influence in the international scene, and that it is currently living a stage of crisis as an actor, but with a large part of its legacy having being made into a new framework for transnational collective action. Thus, this paper presents the movement and its features, including a brief terminological and conceptual discussion; an explanation about its origins, reviewing the main cycles and agendas; a study of the first signs of exhaustion of the anti-globalization movement, and the arguments that, beyond the movement's crisis, there is also a conceptual crisis in order to explain the new transnational activism; and, finally, a reflection on some of the challenges faced by global movements nowadays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Politique et Sociétés is the property of Politique et Societes and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revue Anthropologie et Sociétés is the property of Anthropologie et Societies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article considers the strategic choices that radical activists face when a cycle of contention ends. It investigates the reorientation of the autonomous anarchists or left-libertarian activist milieu in Sweden after the riots at the Gothenburg summit in 2001, which ended a cycle of anti-globalization protests in Sweden. The article identifies five strategies by which this activist milieu attempted to reconstruct collective agency, build a new alliance structure, and renew the repertoire of contention: (1) rescaling and targeting of micro-politics; (2) moving from secluded to open communities; (3) rethinking collective agency with the help of a new movement theory; (4) reversing dominant discourses and opening up discursive space; and (5) redefining militancy and shelving of violent confrontation. The study builds on activist interviews and ethnographic research in Stockholm and Malmö. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Offshoring as an element of economic globalization is contested by various social movements. Analyses of actions focus frequently on the motivation of core activists but often neglect less-involved individuals. Based on 89 in-depth interviews conducted in West Virginia and Austria, we analyze how economic changes are interpreted by the public, and if these interpretations coincide with political actions. The analysis shows that the interpretation of general economic problems is influenced strongly by the cultural context while offshoring is interpreted similarly in both countries. For actions targeting economic problems, thinking in economic models is very important in both countries. This basic frame is thus aligned with both proponents and contesters of economic globalization. Resentments, on the other hand, resonate better in Austria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the seven propositions toward a more strategic and politicized assemblage of social movement activism and academic research. It explores the relevance of assemblage theory and related ideas for social change activities that are defined as anti-authoritarian or anti-capitalist. The authors note that the academic-political work must provide resources for the push toward social and anti-capitalist transformation, with free and open circulation of knowledge.

This article examines the World Social Forum and the global social forum process it has spurred by encouraging the creation of autonomous social forums on various levels, from the local to the global. The article argues that social forums, these “open spaces” for groups, movements, and networks opposed to neoliberalism, start to function as “resistance relays.” On the basis of their common opposition to capitalism, social forums provide a catalytic context for generating exchanges, linkages, convergences and mobilizations. As such, they are strategic instruments of alter-globalization movements. While social forums seek to forge novel practices and visions over social change that point to a novel logic of social movement based resistance, they are riddled with tensions and challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the study of global politics and global political economy there has been an increase in literature within the last few years on the growth of resistance movements geared toward challenging the hegemony of US-inspired neoliberalism. This article questions much of the normative literature that is emerging, particularly from international political economy, on the nature of resistance and the anti-globalization movement. Using the case of Britain as an example, it argues that it is necessary to assess the various parts of the movement before any claim to counter-hegemony or counter-movement can be made. By looking at the various fragmented anti-globalization strategies and struggles that have been articulated within Britain, we also warn that any potential progressive or emancipatory ‘counter’ project is likely to suffer both from potential reactionary forces and from the lack of a clear transformative agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Battle of Genoa has become an iconic sign of wanton destruction, evoking images of tear gas, burning cars, and black clad protestors hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at advancing lines of heavily militarized riot police. In this article, I explore the complex relationship between performative violence and mass-mediated constructions of violence during the anti-G8 protests in Genoa. Performative violence is a specific mode of communication through which activists seek to produce social transformation by staging symbolic rituals of confrontation. Young militants enact performative violence in order to generate radical identities, while producing concrete messages challenging global capitalism and the state. At the same time, dominant media frames reinterpret the resulting images as random acts of senseless violence, undermining activists more generally. I further argue that the prevailing 'diversity of tactics' ethic reflects the broader networking logics associated with anti-corporate globalization movements themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]