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In this paper we investigate the process of carrying out ethnographic studies of organized resistance to neoliberal globalization. We do so by drawing upon the critical and public social science of Bourdieu and Santos, two highly influential opponents of neoliberalism, and by utilizing Burawoy's 'extended case method' for the investigation of two instances of resistance. The first is of a trade union, Sintraemcali, that has been engaged in a longstanding struggle over the introduction of neoliberal policies in the city of Cali in south-west Colombia. The second is of 'The European Marches against Unemployment, Job Insecurity and Social Exclusion'. We then reflect upon our approach to researching this resistance and conclude by identifying two key elements of engaged ethnography, solidarity and praxis, that together help provide new insights into the strategies and practices of social movement resistance to neoliberal globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to Appadurai's ‘Grassroots globalization and the research imagination’, this paper explores some of the theoretical, ethical, methodological and practical issues of developing a ‘strong internationalisation’ of research with and amongst grassroots globalisation movements. Drawing on five years of solidarity and research experience between Colombia and the UK working with grassroots social movements I explore issues relating to knowledge production, the dialogical process of working with social movements and the potential for reclaiming the western academy as a site of social criticism and resistance. While sympathetic to the content and objectives of Appadurai's position the paper argues for a more holistic integration of research into broader processes of popular resistance to neo‐liberal globalisation. It also promotes a greater recognition for the role, value and development of the intellectual ‘outside’ of the academy and ‘inside’ grassroots globalisation movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores processes of social movement learning within SINTRAEMCALI, a public service trade union in the South West of Colombia, which has successfully prevented a series of attempts by the national government to privatise public utilities. The paper develops the concept of 'strategic learning' and applies it to an exploration of the transformation of SINTRAEMCALI from a narrow 'corporate' trade union focused on the defence of members' particular interests, to a 'social movement union' that linked workers and local communities in the defence of public services and operated on a range of scales from the local to the global. It argues that a strategy based on a material critique of privatisation, mass mobilization and human rights defence, emerged out of a process of 'strategic learning' firmly located in a detailed analysis of the complex military, political and social relations that exist in contemporary Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]