Social Strategies – serie

For more than a decade, the Balkans have been a centre of crisis – armed conflicts have brought death, expulsion, destruction and untold suffering to the people. The postwar efforts of the West have failed to bring lasting stability and real progress so far.The Symposium at Basel University was an interdisciplinary event where complex issues were elucidated by historians, geographers, sociologists and political scientists. The event enabled East and West European scholars and their American counterparts to exchange their somewhat divergent views. The speakers covered a broad range of subjects: historical causes, aspects of postwar economic and social development as well as sociocultural consequences of the democratization process. Special attention was devoted to the situation of minorities, the refugee problem and the security situation in the fragile states of the West Balkans and also to the responsibility of the EU and USA for the general stagnation in the area.The Symposium was intended to illustrate differing interpretations of the events of the past ten years and to encourage discussion between speakers and participants at the event.

Seit der Jahrtausendwende ist eine Vielzahl von Widerstandsbewegungen in Städten weltweit zu beobachten. Die bekanntesten unter ihnen sind der Arabische Frühling, Occupy Wallstreet, die Bewegung des 15M/Indignados oder die zahlreichen Recht auf Stadt-Bewegungen. Die Widerstandsbewegungen unterscheiden sich in ihren Zielsetzungen, Vorgehensweisen und Manifestationen. Der Sammelband vereint Beiträge, die sich anhand unterschiedlicher empirischer und theoretischer Forschungszugänge mit der Analyse von städtischen Protest- und Widerstandsbewegungen auseinandersetzen. Es interessieren die Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede dieser sozialen Bewegungen sowie die übergeordneten gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhänge, in denen sie sich manifestieren. Die vorliegende Sammlung von hauptsächlich empirischen Forschungsarbeiten ermöglicht einen aufschlussreichen Blick auf das aktuelle Feld der Bewegungs- und Widerstandsforschung im städtischen Kontext.Since the turn of the millennium, an increasing number of resistance movements in urban spaces have been observed worldwide. The best known among them are the Arab spring, the Occupy Wallstreet movement, the movement of the 15M/Indignados as well as numerous right to the city initiatives. These resistance practices differ in their goals, approaches and manifestations. The anthology presents articles about urban protest and resistance movements with a variety of different empirical and theoretical research approaches. A special focus lies on the differences and the similarities of these social movements as well as on their larger societal context. The collection of mainly empirical studies assembled in this anthology provides an insightful overview of the current field of research on social and resistance movements in an urban context.

The main objective of this book is to describe how educational initiatives are emerging that are hopeful in terms of strengthening democracy in a real way in a convulsive world like the current one. Recently, some of the neoliberal educational reforms that have been implemented in many countries have fostered, in a macro-systemic way, the weakening of democratic practice in various ways. It is also true that bureaucratization of public school in modern states has also tended to defeat the purpose of community and family participation in schools. But there is evidence of schools and educational contexts that have been able to institutionalize participation mechanisms in which students, families and the community have a voice and participate actively in the majority of the decisions of the centres. The contributors of this book highlight the challenges and the opportunities democratic education faces while commemorating the centenary of John Dewey’s contributions.