Marcel Paret – författare

From the Arab Uprising, to anti-austerity protests in Europe and the US Occupy Movement, to uprisings in Brazil and Turkey, resistance from below is flourishing. Whereas analysts have tended to look North in their analysis of the recent global protest wave, this volume develops a Southern perspective through a deep engagement with the case of South Africa, which has experienced widespread popular resistance for more than a decade. Combining critical theoretical perspectives with extensive qualitative fieldwork and rich case studies, Southern Resistance in Critical Perspective situates South Africa’s contentious democracy in relation to both the economic insecurity of contemporary global capitalism and the constantly shifting political terrain of post-apartheid nationalism. The analysis integrates worker, community and political party organizing into a broader narrative of resistance, bridging historical divisions between social movement studies, labor studies and political sociology.

From the Arab Uprising, to anti-austerity protests in Europe and the US Occupy Movement, to uprisings in Brazil and Turkey, resistance from below is flourishing. Whereas analysts have tended to look North in their analysis of the recent global protest wave, this volume develops a Southern perspective through a deep engagement with the case of South Africa, which has experienced widespread popular resistance for more than a decade. Combining critical theoretical perspectives with extensive qualitative fieldwork and rich case studies, Southern Resistance in Critical Perspective situates South Africa’s contentious democracy in relation to both the economic insecurity of contemporary global capitalism and the constantly shifting political terrain of post-apartheid nationalism. The analysis integrates worker, community and political party organizing into a broader narrative of resistance, bridging historical divisions between social movement studies, labor studies and political sociology.

Focusing on what can be referred to as the ‘precarity-agency-migration nexus’, this comprehensive volume leverages the political, economic, and social dynamics of migration to better understand both deepening inequality and popular resistance. Drawing on rich ethnographic and interview-based studies of the United States and Latin America, the authors show how migrants are navigating and challenging conditions of insecurity and structures of power. Detailed case studies illuminate collective survival strategies along the migrant trail, efforts by nannies and dairy workers in the northeast United States to assert dignity and avoid deportation, strategies of reintegration used by deportees in Guatemala and Mexico, and grassroots organizing and public protest in California. In doing so they reveal varied moments of agency without presenting an overly idyllic picture or presuming limitless potential for change. Anchoring the study of migration in the opposition between precarity and agency, the authors thus provide a new window into the continuously unfolding relationship between national borders, global capitalism, and human freedom.

This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Citizenship Studies.

Focusing on what can be referred to as the ‘precarity-agency-migration nexus’, this comprehensive volume leverages the political, economic, and social dynamics of migration to better understand both deepening inequality and popular resistance. Drawing on rich ethnographic and interview-based studies of the United States and Latin America, the authors show how migrants are navigating and challenging conditions of insecurity and structures of power. Detailed case studies illuminate collective survival strategies along the migrant trail, efforts by nannies and dairy workers in the northeast United States to assert dignity and avoid deportation, strategies of reintegration used by deportees in Guatemala and Mexico, and grassroots organizing and public protest in California. In doing so they reveal varied moments of agency without presenting an overly idyllic picture or presuming limitless potential for change. Anchoring the study of migration in the opposition between precarity and agency, the authors thus provide a new window into the continuously unfolding relationship between national borders, global capitalism, and human freedom.

This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Citizenship Studies.