SUNY series, Praxis: Theory in Action – serie

Examines the grassroots activism of an Internet-mediated collegiate lesbian and gay organization in Turkey.Winner of the 2015 Lavender Rhetorics Award for Excellence in Queer Scholarship's Book Award presented by the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Grassroots Literacies analyzes the complex issues surrounding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender representations, technology, and grassroots activism in international contexts through the lens of Legato, a collegiate lesbian and gay association that engaged in activism in colleges and universities in Turkey from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s. Using the Internet and digital media, Legato enabled students to connect with each other on campuses across the country and introduced them to new (i.e., lesbian and gay) identity categories and community activism. Serkan Görkemli presents historical, cultural, visual, and interview-based analyses of Legato members' "coming out" experiences and uses of digital media. Members emerged as sexuality activists with the help of the Internet and engaged with negative representations of homosexuality through offline events such as film screenings, reading groups, and conferences in the challenging context of burgeoning civil society efforts in Turkey. Bridging transnational and literacy-based studies, the book ultimately traces the contours of a "transnational literacy" regarding sexuality.

Explores how political activism, art, and popular culture challenge the discrimination and injustice faced by "illegal" and displaced peoples.The last decade has witnessed a global explosion of immigrant protests, political mobilizations by irregular migrants and pro-migrant activists. This volume considers the implications of these struggles for critical understandings of citizenship and borders. Scholars, visual and performance artists, and activists explore the ways in which political activism, art, and popular culture can work to challenge the multiple forms of discrimination and injustice faced by "illegal" and displaced peoples. They focus on a wide range of topics, including desire and neo-colonial violence in film, visibility and representation, pedagogical function of protest, and the role of the arts and artists in the explosion of political protests that challenge the precarious nature of migrant life in the Global North. They also examine shifting practices of boundary making and boundary taking, changing meanings and lived experiences of citizenship, arguing for a noborder politics enacted through a "noborder scholarship."This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to Knowledge Unlatched-an initiative that provides libraries and institutions with a centralized platform to support OA collections and from leading publishing houses and OA initiatives. Learn more at the Knowledge Unlatched website at: https://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/, and access the book online at the SUNY Open Access Repository at http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12648/7127.

Demonstrates how critical race theory can be useful in real-world situations.Rooted in the initial struggle of community members who staged a successful hunger strike to secure a high school in their Chicago neighborhood, David Omotoso Stovall's Born Out of Struggle focuses on his first-hand participation in the process to help design the school. Offering important lessons about how to remain accountable to communities while designing a curriculum with a social justice agenda, Stovall explores the use of critical race theory to encourage its practitioners to spend less time with abstract theories and engage more with communities that make a concerted effort to change their conditions. Stovall provides concrete examples of how to navigate the constraints of working with centralized bureaucracies in education and apply them to real-world situations.

Explores spoken word poetry as a tool for social justice, critical feminist pedagogy, and new ways of teaching.The writing and performance of spoken word poetry can create moments of productive critical engagement. In The Fifth Element, Crystal Leigh Endsley charts her experience of working with a dynamic and diverse group of college students, who are also emerging artists, to explore the connection between spoken word and social responsibility. She considers how themes of activism, identity, and love intersect with the lived experiences of these students and how they use spoken word to negotiate resistance and to navigate through life. Endsley also examines the local and transnational communities where performances took place to shed light on concepts of social responsibility and knowledge production.

Provides firsthand accounts of militant Puerto Rican activists in 1970s New York City.In this book Rose Muzio analyzes how structural and historical factors-including colonialism, economic marginalization, racial discrimination, and the Black and Brown Power movements of the 1960s-influenced young Puerto Ricans to reject mainstream ideas about political incorporation and join others in struggles against perceived injustices. This analysis provides the first in-depth account of the origins, evolution, achievements, and failures of El Comité-Movimiento de Izquierda Nacional Puertorriqueño, one of the main organizations of the Puerto Rican Left in the 1970s in New York City. El Comité fought for bilingual education programs in public schools, for access to quality jobs and higher education, and against health care budget cuts. The organization mobilized support nationally and internationally to end the US Navy's occupation of Vieques, denounced colonial rule in Puerto Rico, and opposed US aid to authoritarian regimes in Latin America and Africa. Muzio bases her project on dozens of interviews with participants as well as archival documents and news coverage, and shows how a radical, counterhegemonic political perspective evolved organically, rather than as a product of a priori ideology.

Provides firsthand accounts of militant Puerto Rican activists in 1970s New York City.In this book Rose Muzio analyzes how structural and historical factors-including colonialism, economic marginalization, racial discrimination, and the Black and Brown Power movements of the 1960s-influenced young Puerto Ricans to reject mainstream ideas about political incorporation and join others in struggles against perceived injustices. This analysis provides the first in-depth account of the origins, evolution, achievements, and failures of El Comité-Movimiento de Izquierda Nacional Puertorriqueño, one of the main organizations of the Puerto Rican Left in the 1970s in New York City. El Comité fought for bilingual education programs in public schools, for access to quality jobs and higher education, and against health care budget cuts. The organization mobilized support nationally and internationally to end the US Navy's occupation of Vieques, denounced colonial rule in Puerto Rico, and opposed US aid to authoritarian regimes in Latin America and Africa. Muzio bases her project on dozens of interviews with participants as well as archival documents and news coverage, and shows how a radical, counterhegemonic political perspective evolved organically, rather than as a product of a priori ideology.

Provides answers to one of the enduring paradoxes of mass social change.From the events of May 1968 to the Arab Spring and Occupy, we have seen social movements develop spontaneously around the globe propelling thousands and, at times, millions of people into the streets to demand an end to oppression."In order to make sense of such events, the authors draw on George Katsiaficas's conception of the 'eros effect,' which picks up and takes off from concepts developed by Herbert Marcuse. This effect describes moments in which the instinctual human need for justice and freedom undergoes a massive spontaneous awakening. Drawing on Marcuse, the concept foregrounds the instinctual foundation of the desire for freedom, in which a biologically-based pleasure drive-eros-is given free play." - from the Foreword by Peter MarcuseHowever, even as the eros effect provides a valuable framework for understanding spontaneous global uprisings, Katsiaficas has acknowledged that the concept has remained underdeveloped. Spontaneous Combustion provides an introduction to the eros effect along with a series of elaborations, applications, and critical rejoinders concerning its implications. A truly interdisciplinary venture, the book features contributions from cutting-edge scholars and activists on the frontlines of today's struggles.

Provides answers to one of the enduring paradoxes of mass social change.From the events of May 1968 to the Arab Spring and Occupy, we have seen social movements develop spontaneously around the globe propelling thousands and, at times, millions of people into the streets to demand an end to oppression."In order to make sense of such events, the authors draw on George Katsiaficas's conception of the 'eros effect,' which picks up and takes off from concepts developed by Herbert Marcuse. This effect describes moments in which the instinctual human need for justice and freedom undergoes a massive spontaneous awakening. Drawing on Marcuse, the concept foregrounds the instinctual foundation of the desire for freedom, in which a biologically-based pleasure drive-eros-is given free play." - from the Foreword by Peter MarcuseHowever, even as the eros effect provides a valuable framework for understanding spontaneous global uprisings, Katsiaficas has acknowledged that the concept has remained underdeveloped. Spontaneous Combustion provides an introduction to the eros effect along with a series of elaborations, applications, and critical rejoinders concerning its implications. A truly interdisciplinary venture, the book features contributions from cutting-edge scholars and activists on the frontlines of today's struggles.

Focuses on Black women's experiences and expertise in order to advance educational philosophy and provide practical tools for social justice pedagogy.Black Women and Social Justice Education explores Black women's experiences and expertise in teaching and learning about justice in a range of formal and informal educational settings. Linking historical accounts with groundbreaking contributions by new and rising leaders in the field, it examines, evaluates, establishes, and reinforces Black women's commitment to social justice in education at all levels. Authors offer resource guides, personal reflections, bibliographies, and best practices for broad use and reference in communities, schools, universities, and nonprofit organizations. Collectively, their work promises to further enrich social justice education (SJE)-a critical pedagogy that combines intersectionality and human rights perspectives-and to deepen our understanding of the impact of SJE innovations on the humanities, social sciences, higher education, school development, and the broader professional world. This volume expands discussions of academic institutions and the communities they were built to serve.

The first in-depth analysis of the radical feminist theory and coalitional praxis of scholar-activist María Lugones.Speaking Face to Face provides an unprecedented, in-depth look at the feminist philosophy and practice of the renowned Argentinian-born scholar-activist María Lugones. Informed by her identification as "nondiasporic Latina" and US Woman of Color, as well as her long-term commitment to grassroots organizing in Chicana/o communities, Lugones's work dovetails with, while remaining distinct from, that of other prominent transnational, decolonial, and women of color feminists. Her visionary philosophy motivates transformative modes of engaging cultural others, inviting us to create political intimacies rooted in a shared yearning for interdependence.Bringing together scholars and activists across fields, this volume charts her profound impact in and beyond the academy for the past thirty years. In so doing, it exemplifies a new method of coalitional theorizing-traversing racial, ethnic, sexual, national, gendered, political, and disciplinary borders in order to cultivate learning, embrace heterogeneity, and provide a unique framework for engaging contemporary debates about identity, oppression, and activism. Across thirteen original contributions, authors address issues of intersectionality, colonial and decolonial subjectivities, the multiplicity and the coloniality of gender, indigenous spiritualities and cosmologies, pluralist and women of color feminisms, radical multiculturalism, popular education, and resistance to multiple oppressions. The book also includes a rare interview with María Lugones and an afterword by Paula Moya, ultimately offering both new critical resources for longstanding admirers of Lugones and a welcome introduction for newcomers to her groundbreaking work.

Juxtaposes Antonio Gramsci's work and critical race theory to offer a new understanding of tactics as a transformative practice.While scholars of social and political movements tend to analyze tactics in terms of their effectiveness in achieving specific outcomes, Robert F. Carley argues by contrast that tactics are, above all, what social movements do. They are not mere means to an end so much as they are a public form of expression pointing out injustices and making just demands. Rooted in a highly original analysis of the tactically mediated relationship between race and mobilization in the work of Italian philosopher and revolutionary Antonio Gramsci, Culture and Tactics demonstrates how tactics impact the organizational structures of social movements and expand the affinities of political communities. Carley looks at how Gramsci used innovative tactics to bridge perceptions of racial differences between factory workers and subaltern groups, the latter having been denigrated to the point of subhumanity by a complex Italian national racial economy. Newly envisioning Gramsci as a theorist of race within a broader context of social struggle, Carley connects Gramsci's insights into the political mobilizations of racialized subaltern groups to contemporary critical race theory and cultural studies of racialization and racism. Speaking across disciplines and drawing on a number of empirical examples, Carley offers a battery of original concepts to assist scholars and activists in analyzing the tactical practices of protests in which race is a central factor.

Unique interdisciplinary analysis of gendered and racialized economies of care in South Asia and the Americas.South Asia and Latin America represent two epicenters of migrant care work and the globalized reproductive market. Yet scholars and the media continue to examine them in geographical and conceptual isolation. South of the Future closes both these gaps. It investigates nannying, elder care, domestic work, and other forms of migrant labor in the Americas together with the emerging "Wild West" of biotechnology and surrogacy in the Indian subcontinent. The volume is profoundly interdisciplinary and includes both prominent and emerging scholars from a wide variety of fields, including anthropology, law, literary and cultural studies, science and technology studies, and social policy. These contributors speak to the dynamic, continually changing facets of the nexus of care and value across these two key regions of the global south. By mobilizing specific locations and techno-economics and putting them into dialogue with one another, South of the Future rematerializes the gendered, racialized bodies that are far too often rendered invisible in structural analyses of the global south, or else are confined to particular geo- and biopolitical paradigms of emerging markets. Instead, these bodies occupy the center of a global, highly financialized economy of creating and sustaining life.

Unique interdisciplinary analysis of gendered and racialized economies of care in South Asia and the Americas.South Asia and Latin America represent two epicenters of migrant care work and the globalized reproductive market. Yet scholars and the media continue to examine them in geographical and conceptual isolation. South of the Future closes both these gaps. It investigates nannying, elder care, domestic work, and other forms of migrant labor in the Americas together with the emerging "Wild West" of biotechnology and surrogacy in the Indian subcontinent. The volume is profoundly interdisciplinary and includes both prominent and emerging scholars from a wide variety of fields, including anthropology, law, literary and cultural studies, science and technology studies, and social policy. These contributors speak to the dynamic, continually changing facets of the nexus of care and value across these two key regions of the global south. By mobilizing specific locations and techno-economics and putting them into dialogue with one another, South of the Future rematerializes the gendered, racialized bodies that are far too often rendered invisible in structural analyses of the global south, or else are confined to particular geo- and biopolitical paradigms of emerging markets. Instead, these bodies occupy the center of a global, highly financialized economy of creating and sustaining life.

Examines women's food cooperatives and local dining venues on the Greek island of Lesvos and how tourism, gender, and sexualities inform the creation of these alternative economies.Winner of the 2023 Gourmand Cookbook Award for Greece in the Women Category Imaginatively interweaving literatures across a variety of subjects, Sappho's Legacy identifies the crucial role that islands and Greek economic culture play in teaching about capitalism's failures and alternatives. Marina Karides delivers a historical and ethnographic account of food cooperatives and microenterprises on the Greek island of Lesvos following the 2008 financial crisis to reveal the success stories of grassroots, traditional, and community-centered economics organized by people marginalized on the basis of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. Karides offers hope to others who are working against the tide of neoliberalism and heteropatriarchy to develop alternative or convivial economic practices that serve communities by providing a trail of rhythms from ancient times to the present that showcase Greece's historical resistance.

Examines women's food cooperatives and local dining venues on the Greek island of Lesvos and how tourism, gender, and sexualities inform the creation of these alternative economies.Winner of the 2023 Gourmand Cookbook Award for Greece in the Women Category Imaginatively interweaving literatures across a variety of subjects, Sappho's Legacy identifies the crucial role that islands and Greek economic culture play in teaching about capitalism's failures and alternatives. Marina Karides delivers a historical and ethnographic account of food cooperatives and microenterprises on the Greek island of Lesvos following the 2008 financial crisis to reveal the success stories of grassroots, traditional, and community-centered economics organized by people marginalized on the basis of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. Karides offers hope to others who are working against the tide of neoliberalism and heteropatriarchy to develop alternative or convivial economic practices that serve communities by providing a trail of rhythms from ancient times to the present that showcase Greece's historical resistance.

Analyzes socially engaged art practices worldwide, linking them to decolonial struggle and critique.Analyzing the confluence between coloniality and activist art, Art Activism for an Anticolonial Future argues that there is much to gain from approaching contemporary politically committed art practices from the angle of anticolonial, postcolonial, and decolonial struggles. These struggles inspired a vast yet underexplored set of ideas about art and cultural practices and did so decades before the acceptance of radical artistic practices by mainstream art institutions. Carlos Garrido Castellano argues that art activism has been confined to a limited spatial and temporal framework-that of Western culture and the modernist avant-garde. Assumptions about the individual creator and the belated arrival of derivative avant-garde aesthetics to the periphery have generated a narrow view of "political art" at the expense of our capacity to perceive a truly global alternative praxis. Garrido Castellano then illuminates such a praxis, focusing attention on socially engaged art from the Global South, challenging the supposed universality of Western artistic norms, and demonstrating the role of art in promoting and configuring a collective critical consciousness in postcolonial public spheres.This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to Knowledge Unlatched-an initiative that provides libraries and institutions with a centralized platform to support OA collections and from leading publishing houses and OA initiatives.

Analyzes socially engaged art practices worldwide, linking them to decolonial struggle and critique.Analyzing the confluence between coloniality and activist art, Art Activism for an Anticolonial Future argues that there is much to gain from approaching contemporary politically committed art practices from the angle of anticolonial, postcolonial, and decolonial struggles. These struggles inspired a vast yet underexplored set of ideas about art and cultural practices and did so decades before the acceptance of radical artistic practices by mainstream art institutions. Carlos Garrido Castellano argues that art activism has been confined to a limited spatial and temporal framework-that of Western culture and the modernist avant-garde. Assumptions about the individual creator and the belated arrival of derivative avant-garde aesthetics to the periphery have generated a narrow view of "political art" at the expense of our capacity to perceive a truly global alternative praxis. Garrido Castellano then illuminates such a praxis, focusing attention on socially engaged art from the Global South, challenging the supposed universality of Western artistic norms, and demonstrating the role of art in promoting and configuring a collective critical consciousness in postcolonial public spheres.This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to Knowledge Unlatched-an initiative that provides libraries and institutions with a centralized platform to support OA collections and from leading publishing houses and OA initiatives.

Shows how communities across the Americas transform their grief over murdered and missing trans and non-trans women, girls, and two-spirit people into powerful social movements that challenge state violence and demand justice.A groundbreaking and transnational examination of gender-based violence, Mourning and Mobilization in the Americas reimagines how we understand the relationship between grief and political action. Lydia Huerta Moreno brings together the work of activists, scholars, artists, writers, and influencers from 1994 to 2023 to chronicle the intersection of activism with the rise of social media and the eventual implementation of legislation codifying woman killing as a crime. Expanding the concept of feminicide to encompass trans women, two-spirit people, and missing and murdered women and girls across the Americas, Huerta Moreno illuminates the deep connections between different forms of gender-based violence across the Americas and weaves together questions of race, class, gender, and immigration status. Through innovative and sensitive analysis of postmortem politics, the book reveals how communities transform profound loss into powerful social movements, from Mexico to Brazil to the United States and Canada and beyond. With a foreword by Sayak Valencia, Mourning and Mobilization in the Americas is a must-read for activists, scholars, and anyone concerned with human rights, revealing how grief can spark resistance against systemic violence and government inaction.

Shows how communities across the Americas transform their grief over murdered and missing trans and non-trans women, girls, and two-spirit people into powerful social movements that challenge state violence and demand justice.A groundbreaking and transnational examination of gender-based violence, Mourning and Mobilization in the Americas reimagines how we understand the relationship between grief and political action. Lydia Huerta Moreno brings together the work of activists, scholars, artists, writers, and influencers from 1994 to 2023 to chronicle the intersection of activism with the rise of social media and the eventual implementation of legislation codifying woman killing as a crime. Expanding the concept of feminicide to encompass trans women, two-spirit people, and missing and murdered women and girls across the Americas, Huerta Moreno illuminates the deep connections between different forms of gender-based violence across the Americas and weaves together questions of race, class, gender, and immigration status. Through innovative and sensitive analysis of postmortem politics, the book reveals how communities transform profound loss into powerful social movements, from Mexico to Brazil to the United States and Canada and beyond. With a foreword by Sayak Valencia, Mourning and Mobilization in the Americas is a must-read for activists, scholars, and anyone concerned with human rights, revealing how grief can spark resistance against systemic violence and government inaction.

Examines feminist strategies of persistence and adaptation in Central America from the 1980s to 2020.A Praxis of Persistence establishes persistence as a framework for understanding methods of feminist activism in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Blending literary and ethnographic approaches, Kenna Neitch analyzes texts produced by activist movements from the 1980s to 2020—from collective testimonio to institutional publications (encuentros) to social media—and connects them to the movements' cultural impact and organizing practices, such as generative conflict, horizontal cross-border networks, and what she terms strategic adaptability. What these texts and practices have in common, Neitch argues, is feminist persistence—a balance of action, preservation, and creation adaptable across contexts. A Praxis of Persistence provides one of the first scholarly accounts of #MeToo in Central America while remaining grounded in the region's lineage of activism against sexual violence. Through the framework of persistence, this book highlights the vitality of Central American women's activism and offers a repertoire of methods for reckoning with the realities of uneven progress in feminist struggle.

A dynamic collective contribution to the field of critical feminist food studies.Over the last two decades, feminist food studies has grown significantly. Culinaria carves out new lines of intersectional and transnational analysis in this evolving field. In nineteen original essays, contributors from across the continental United States to South Africa and Pakistan show how gender, race, class, geography, and religion all shape the ways women use food. At once deeply personal and political, the stories here reflect on questions of community making, displacement, home, and loss, continually revealing food finding, making, consuming, and sharing to be a complex, culturally nuanced praxis. With a foreword by Psyche Williams-Forson and an afterword by Meredith E. Abarca, Culinaria will appeal to students and scholars of food studies, women's and gender studies, ethnic studies, and more.

Analyzes the creative activism of women and youth in Syria from 2011 to 2024.Ululating from the Underground examines the gendered, artistic, and cultural creations of Syrian women from the 2011 uprisings, through the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, and until the summer of 2025. Identifying these women as syrenas, Banah el Ghadbanah uses the metaphor of siren songs to understand how the utterances and "creative noise" of Syrian women have been overlooked, ignored, or misunderstood by global leaders and mainstream English-language media. She analyzes the protests, poetics, pedagogies, and performances that Syrian women and youth developed under siege, contextualizing them within a framework of Shamiya feminism, an earth-based network of Levantine feminized resistance. Weaving together media and historical analyses, research into the virtual archive of the Syrian Revolution, interviews with and oral histories of Syrian women activists, ethnographic notes, and autoethnographic creative self-inscriptions, el Ghadbanah argues that the protests of syrena subjects enact somatic, insurgent moments of freedom in the face of imperialist, authoritarian, and extremist violence. The book is an intervention into ethnic studies, gender studies, Middle East studies, and Syria studies, highlighting a wide range of Syrian creative work for a variety of audiences.

Investigates the theory and practice of transnational feminist approaches to scholarship and activism.Provocative, timely, and global, this volume offers a critical and grounded engagement with transnational feminism through the lens of praxis-the juncture of theory and practice. In so doing, it grapples with questions of power and representation while remaining deeply committed to radical critiques and agendas of transnational and postcolonial feminisms. Long-time activists and well-known scholars speak to a wide range of issues and practices, including women's studies curricula; NGOs; transnational and LGBTQ studies; feminist methodologies; and film. These essays similarly conceptualize ways to more effectively theorize feminist collaborative practices while subverting such rigid, established dichotomies as theory/practice, academic/activist, individual/collaborative, and the global North/South. A number of transnational projects are highlighted: the Guyanese Red Thread collective; the Ananya Dance Theater; the Philippine Women Center of British Columbia; the Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance; the VIVA! Project; and the Indian organization Sangtin. Comprehensive in scope and rigorous in critical scrutiny, these powerful essays set the twenty-first-century agenda for political engagement through feminist scholarship."The mix of styles makes for a lively read that is accessible for its extraordinary candor, its combination of theory with firmly grounded empirical examples, and an unflinching confrontation of pain and conflict. It made me think about entirely new things and about familiar things in new ways and to make connections among them." - Louise Fortmann, University of California BerkeleyAmanda Lock Swarr is Assistant Professor of Women Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. Richa Nagar is Professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She is the author (with Sangtin writers) of Playing with Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism through Seven Lives in India.

Investigates the theory and practice of transnational feminist approaches to scholarship and activism.Provocative, timely, and global, this volume offers a critical and grounded engagement with transnational feminism through the lens of praxis-the juncture of theory and practice. In so doing, it grapples with questions of power and representation while remaining deeply committed to radical critiques and agendas of transnational and postcolonial feminisms. Long-time activists and well-known scholars speak to a wide range of issues and practices, including women's studies curricula; NGOs; transnational and LGBTQ studies; feminist methodologies; and film. These essays similarly conceptualize ways to more effectively theorize feminist collaborative practices while subverting such rigid, established dichotomies as theory/practice, academic/activist, individual/collaborative, and the global North/South. A number of transnational projects are highlighted: the Guyanese Red Thread collective; the Ananya Dance Theater; the Philippine Women Center of British Columbia; the Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance; the VIVA! Project; and the Indian organization Sangtin. Comprehensive in scope and rigorous in critical scrutiny, these powerful essays set the twenty-first-century agenda for political engagement through feminist scholarship."The mix of styles makes for a lively read that is accessible for its extraordinary candor, its combination of theory with firmly grounded empirical examples, and an unflinching confrontation of pain and conflict. It made me think about entirely new things and about familiar things in new ways and to make connections among them." - Louise Fortmann, University of California BerkeleyAmanda Lock Swarr is Assistant Professor of Women Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. Richa Nagar is Professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She is the author (with Sangtin writers) of Playing with Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism through Seven Lives in India.

Considers the past, present, and future of interdisciplinary fields motivated by concerns for social justice.In the 1960s and 1970s, activists who focused on the academy as a key site for fostering social change began by querying the assumptions of the traditional disciplines and transforming their curricula, putting into place women's and ethnic studies programs that changed both the subject and methods of scholarship. The pattern of scholars and activists joining forces to open fields of research and teaching continued in subsequent decades, and recent additions, including critical race studies, queer studies, cultural studies, and postcolonial studies, take as their epistemological foundation the inherently political nature of all knowledge production. Interdisciplinarity and Social Justice seizes this opportune moment in the history of interdisciplinary fields to review their effects on our intellectual and political landscape, to evaluate their ability to deliver promised social benefits, and to consider their futures. The essays collected in this volume detail histories of the interdisciplinary fields that emerged from social movements, examine how effectively they have achieved their goals of intellectual and social change, and consider the challenges they now face inside and outside the academy.

Considers the past, present, and future of interdisciplinary fields motivated by concerns for social justice.In the 1960s and 1970s, activists who focused on the academy as a key site for fostering social change began by querying the assumptions of the traditional disciplines and transforming their curricula, putting into place women's and ethnic studies programs that changed both the subject and methods of scholarship. The pattern of scholars and activists joining forces to open fields of research and teaching continued in subsequent decades, and recent additions, including critical race studies, queer studies, cultural studies, and postcolonial studies, take as their epistemological foundation the inherently political nature of all knowledge production. Interdisciplinarity and Social Justice seizes this opportune moment in the history of interdisciplinary fields to review their effects on our intellectual and political landscape, to evaluate their ability to deliver promised social benefits, and to consider their futures. The essays collected in this volume detail histories of the interdisciplinary fields that emerged from social movements, examine how effectively they have achieved their goals of intellectual and social change, and consider the challenges they now face inside and outside the academy.

Examines transnational movement building through a focus on acid attacks and organizing against acid violence in Bangladesh.Winner of the 2012 Gloria E. Anzaldua Book Prize presented by the National Women's Studies Association Acid attacks against women and girls have captured the attention of the global media, with several high-profile reports ranging from the BBC to The Oprah Winfrey Show. In Bangladesh, reasons for the attacks include women's rejection of sexual advances from men, refusal of marriage proposals, family or land disputes, and unmet dowry demands. The consequences are multiple: permanent marks on the body, disfiguration, and potential blindness. In Transnationalism Reversed, Elora Halim Chowdhury explores the complicated terrain of women's transnational antiviolence organizing by focusing on the work done in Bangladesh around acid attacks-and the ways in which the state, international agencies, local expatriates, US media, Bangladeshi immigrants in the United States, survivor-activists, and local women's organizations engage the pragmatics and the transnational rhetoric of empowerment, rescue, and rehabilitation. Grounded in careful ethnographic work, oral history, and theoretical and filmic analysis, Transnationalism Reversed makes a significant contribution to conversations around gendered violence, transnational feminist praxis, and the politics of organizing-particularly around NGOs-in the global South.

Examines transnational movement building through a focus on acid attacks and organizing against acid violence in Bangladesh.Winner of the 2012 Gloria E. Anzaldua Book Prize presented by the National Women's Studies Association Acid attacks against women and girls have captured the attention of the global media, with several high-profile reports ranging from the BBC to The Oprah Winfrey Show. In Bangladesh, reasons for the attacks include women's rejection of sexual advances from men, refusal of marriage proposals, family or land disputes, and unmet dowry demands. The consequences are multiple: permanent marks on the body, disfiguration, and potential blindness. In Transnationalism Reversed, Elora Halim Chowdhury explores the complicated terrain of women's transnational antiviolence organizing by focusing on the work done in Bangladesh around acid attacks-and the ways in which the state, international agencies, local expatriates, US media, Bangladeshi immigrants in the United States, survivor-activists, and local women's organizations engage the pragmatics and the transnational rhetoric of empowerment, rescue, and rehabilitation. Grounded in careful ethnographic work, oral history, and theoretical and filmic analysis, Transnationalism Reversed makes a significant contribution to conversations around gendered violence, transnational feminist praxis, and the politics of organizing-particularly around NGOs-in the global South.

Compelling case studies of groups in Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, the United States, and Canada using the arts for education, community development, and social movement building.This compelling collection of inspiring case studies from community arts projects in five countries will inform and inspire students, artists, and activists. ¡VIVA! is the product of a five-year transnational research project that integrates place, politics, passion, and praxis. Framed by postcolonial theories of decolonization, the pedagogy of the oppressed articulated by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, and the burgeoning field of community arts, this collection not only analyzes the dynamic integration of the critical and the creative in social justice movements, it embodies such a praxis. Learn from Central America: Kuna children's art workshops, a community television station in Nicaragua, a cultural marketplace in Guadalajara, Mexico, community mural production in Chiapas; and from North America: arts education in Los Angeles inner-city schools, theater probing ancestral memory, community plays with over one hundred participants, and training programs for young artists in Canada. These practices offer critical hope for movements hungry for new ways of knowing and expressing histories, identities, and aspirations, as well as mobilizing communities for social transformation.Beautifully illustrated with more than one hundred color photographs, the book also includes a DVD with videos that bring the projects to life.