Grassroots

Many qiaoxiang in southern Fujian and Guangdong appear derelict, but from documenting the material heritage and interviewing people about its social significance, another image surfaces. The homeland of Overseas Chinese was not only found to be significant to the diaspora, but serve as an enduring reminder of a grassroots-based modernity in rural China. The qiaoxiang effectively became a transnational legacy of migration from southern China that has undergone the following stages of transformation: exodus-led emergence of a remittance landscape, sudden abandonment, and sometimes revival. Today, it has become a “repository” or “living museum” where tourists and scholars alike can visit and ponder about how humans adapted to post-rural life.

These are the transcripts of the Small Markets Podcast Series that are available at this link and at https://thyme.biovale.org/resources/ and at https://independent.academia.edu/IreneSotiropoulou/Videos
The Small Markets Podcast Series have been prepared within the framework of the project "Getting to know the existing bioeconomy in East Riding: The farmers’ markets case" that was conducted by Prof. Pauline Deutz and Dr Irene Sotiropoulou as part of the THYME project at the University of Hull.

Kassirer, S. (2012), Saving Palmachim Beach: Media Representations and Organizational Aspects of a Public Environmental Campaign. Thesis for M.A. degree. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, The Porter School of Environmental Studies. (in Hebrew)

Please contact me if you wish to see a English version of selected chapters.

המאבק על חוף פלמחים: ייצוגים תקשורתיים והיבטים ארגוניים של קמפיין סביבתי-ציבורי.
חיבור זה הוגש כעבודת גמר לקראת תואר מוסמך אוניברסיטה, אוניברסיטת תל אביב, בית ספר פורטר ללימודי הסביבה.
2012

Paper accepted for #aagDC American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting 2019 in Washington DC.

To cite this paper:
Calzada, I. (2018), Accepted paper ‘Is Barcelona establishing a sustainable paradigm in Europe by grassroots-led smart urban experimentation through the ‘data commons’ policy?’ in the session ‘Smart urban experimentation: Re-shaping urban knowledge politics & decision-making?’ in the American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting 2019. Retrieved from https://aag.secure-abstracts.com/AAG%20Annual%20Meeting%202019/abstracts-gallery/18071 (Accessed on October 19, 2018).

Tatar families settled since the 14th century), I focus on the relationships between Muslim organisations, the public and the authorities they depend on. Although tensions and distrust were tangible during the early days of their foundation, physical socialisation and dialogue help bridge the gap between Muslims and public services. Their work in the community and engagement in dialogue "humanises" Muslims as participant citizens, and works against perceptions of Islam as an abstract and threatening entity. The internal non-formal governance inspired by Islamic ethics also brings about a cohesive environment that appeals to volunteers of all faiths and none, enabling the building of solid bonds of trust between the various stakeholders. I thus conclude that Muslim extravert social action contributes to reducing prejudice against Islam and improves harmonious living in pluricultural areas.

Queercore is a queer and punk transmedia movement that was instigated in 1980s Toronto via the pages of the underground fanzine ("zine") J.D.s. Authored by G.B. Jones and Bruce LaBruce, J.D.s. declared "civil war" on the punk and gay and lesbian mainstreams, consolidating a subculture of likeminded filmmakers, zinesters, musicans and performers situated in pointed opposition to the homophobia of mainline punk and the lifeless sexual politics and exclusionary tendencies of dominant gay and lesbian society. More than thirty years later, queercore and its troublemaking productions remain under the radar, but still culturally and politically resonant.

This book brings renewed attention to queercore, exploring the homology between queer theory/practice and punk theory/practice at the heart of queercore mediamaking. Through analysis of key queercore texts, this book also elucidates the tropes central to queercore’s subcultural distinction: unashamed sexual representation, confrontational politics and "shocking" embodiments, including those related to size, ability and gender variance. An exploration of a specific transmedia subculture grounded in archival research, ethnographic interviews, theoretical argumentation and close analysis, ultimately, Queercore proffers a provocative, and tangible, new answer to the long-debated question, "What does it mean to be queer?"

The ECA Youth Academy Study is the biggest ever survey conducted by ECA, with 123 clubs from 42 different national associations having participated. Initiated by the ECA Youth Academies Task Force, a specialised task force under the umbrella of the ECA Youth Working Group, the study looks to provide an overview of best practices at youth academies across European football clubs. In accordance with these results and based on recommendations from members of the task force, ’12 Professional Youth Academy Quality Areas’ were developed, which can be used as a guide for clubs on how to run a successful youth academy.

Commenting on the Youth Academy Study, Edwin van der Sar, ECA Youth Working Group Chairman, stated:

"The issue of quality sounds true across all levels of running a football club and no more so than at youth level. The '12 Professional Youth Academy Quality Areas' can serve as a mechanism to safeguard and promote the development of future generations of footballing talent at European football clubs."

While the era of Reform and Opening Up released poets from the ideological restraints of earlier periods to pursue “art for art’s sake,” the growing gap between the rich and poor and the mass human migrations to crowded urban centers from still-impoverished rural provinces have forced poets to again re!ect on the relationship between poetry and society. According to sinologist Heather Inwood, this dichotomy can be traced to the inception of modern Chinese poetry—poets struggled with the simultaneous need to invent new forms of vernacular poetry while placing poetry in the service of the nation and revolutionary politics. If poetry written in the late-1970s through the ’90s is known for its cosmopolitan, formally experimental poetics, many poets writing in the new millennium reveal a new left- ism that stresses populist, straightforward vernacular poetry that seeks to serve China’s working classes, migrant laborers, and the disenfranchised.

Social Capital is a vital asset that contributes to the development of professions as well as communities, specifically in small scale urban settings with a dense social structure. Furniture enterprises in Damietta form the main economic base of the city, with majority of the city's residents working in furniture-related activities, passing down their businesses through generations. In Damietta, social capital has transcended trust and networking, as social norms prevail as a bounding currency. This research examines the power and extent of this alternative currency within the frame of Putnam's social capital theory, Wallman's local systems model and Porter's competitive advantage theory. Damietta exhibits complexities that relate to its existing coherent urban and social patterns, which established the evident influence of alterative currencies within this closed community. The city's distinctive conditions provoke arguments on localism, social inclusion and geographic imaginaries, where scale and lifestyle patterns have been instrumental in the formulation of a local system based on social capital. Interviews have been conducted in order to investigate the connection between social capital measures (trust, networks and norms), local furniture industry value chain, socio-spatial living patterns and the city's urban fabric, in order to identify the circumstances that led to the emergence and strength of social capital within this industry within this unique socioeconomic semi-rural context.

В статье проведен обзор лоббистских практик, распространенных в США. Проведен анализ официальных данных о финансировании лоббизма: объем лоббистских трат, объем трат крупнейших лоббистских клиентов и доходы самых высокооплачиваемых лоббистов. Произведен краткий экскурс в историю лоббизма, который показывает, что до введения регулирования была весьма распространена практика прямого поощрения законодателей, а во второй половине XX в. наметилась тенденция усложнения лоббистских практик. Особое внимание в статье уделяется корпоративному лоббизму. Анализ количественных данных показывает, что за последние 30 лет в США наблюдается рост корпоративного представительства. Другая наблюдаемая корреляция состоит в связи роста парламентских слушаний и роста представительства кампаний в отдельных отраслях экономики США. Основной же лоббистской стратегией корпораций является, так называемое member-to-member лоббирование (внутрипарламентский лоббизм). В рамках рассмотрения корпоративного лоббизма уделяется внимание явлению, получившему название «вращающейся двери» (revolving door), когда бывшие конгрессмены или чиновники устраиваются на работу в лоббистские фирмы. Также в статье рассматривается и противоположный метод – grassroots lobbying – и его побочный эффект, получивший название astroturf.

The article observes lobbying practices in the USA and presents the analysis of official data of the financing of lobbying: the amount of lobbying spending, the amount of the largest lobbying clients spending, and the incomes of the highly paid lobbyists. Brief history of lobbying is presented. It shows that the bribing of lawmakers was a common practice before regulation of lobbying was introduced, and describes the
cy of complicating of lobbying practices in the second half of the 20th century. The article pays particular attention to the corporate lobbying. Quantitative analysis of the data proves the rise of corporate lobbying in the United States in last 30 years. Another served trend is the link between the rise of parliamentary hearings and the growth of lobbying campaigns in particular sectors of US economy. The basic strategy of rate lobbying is so-called ‘member-to-member’ lobbying. The article considers the phenomenon of ‘revolving door’ (when former congressional representatives and bureaucrats are hired by lobbyist firms) as part of corporate lobbying. The methods of ‘grassroots lobbying’ and ‘astroturf’ are also regarded. The article contains comparative analysis of lobbying in the US and EU.

Social Capital is a vital asset that contributes to the development of professions as well as communities, specifically in small scale urban settings with a dense social structure. This research aims to investigate Social Capital for furniture industry grassroot economy in Damietta-Egypt. In this particular case, the furniture enterprises form the main economic base of the city socially inherited through generations. The research examines the dynamics of Social Capital as the main success factor of this economic cluster, building on Porter's Competitive Advantage theory and Putnam's Social Capital theory, linking networking, trust and norms to the spatial distribution of furniture enterprises in the city. The case study's complexity related to current challenges in light of recent development directions that compromise the existing coherent urban and social patterns. This paper is part of a project to Quantify Social capital, which is a generally qualitative, to provide data-driven commendations for community-oriented decision-making towards socioeconomically sustainable development. The methodology used in this paper incorporates semi-structured interviews, and the results feed into the following parts of the research by verifying a field survey for the geospatial GIS network map, as well as systemic urban observations. The output is a framework built on the understanding of furniture industry value chain, which forms the base of the quantification approach that follows. This framework of measuring Social Capital can be appropriated to other industries and urban settings that resemble similar characteristics to Damietta.

"La autora realiza con estas páginas un aporte fundamental al debate sobre las condiciones en las que se practica y se usa la comunicación por parte de organizaciones que se apartan de la lógica industrial propia de las grandes empresas de medios y del Estado. Las tensiones y la relativa autonomía de los medios alternativos y comunitarios respecto de la institucionalidad estatal por un lado, y de las lógicas mercantiles por el otro, configuran un nudo problemático que es al mismo tiempo teórico y empírico y que, además, define los contornos políticos de las diversas experiencias de este sector.
Sin el sector de medios comunitarios y alternativos es imposible comprender la evolución del sistema de comunicación en el país y los conflictos, disputas y regulaciones que éste tuvo en las últimas décadas. Por lo tanto, sin la sistematización lograda en este libro el panorama de la comunicación en la Argentina resulta inconcluso. (...)
El texto de Natalia Vinelli es al mismo tiempo reflexivo y crítico, pero el lugar de la enunciadora no es neutral ni pretende asepsia alguna: al contrario, desde sus primeras líneas el libro reconoce una trayectoria política y social de compromiso constante con las tradiciones políticas y comunicacionales abordadas. Sin embargo, lejos de la apología que suele signar el abordaje de temáticas afines por parte cierta literatura de divulgación, Natalia Vinelli enhebra un estudio que abraza la reflexión y, al hacerlo, no escamotea la crítica. Esta crítica, que es también autocrítica por la posición que asume la autora, representa una contribución que por su seriedad, consistencia, capacidad analítica, profundidad intelectual y vocación crítica es notablemente superadora del panegírico zalamero que es regla en numerosos escritos sobre la democratización de la comunicación en la Argentina." (Del prólogo de Martín Becerra)

This article focuses on ways in which refugee-led community organisations (RCOs) carve out a space of influence through civic activism in the migration architectures of receiving countries. Building on scholarship addressing migration governance and grassroots refugee organisations, it argues that RCOs have become vital in the refugees’ search for means to alleviate the sufferings of their fellows, to empower their community and claim rights for an improvement of their conditions. The notions of invented and invited spaces are convenient to describe opportunities, limitations and the ways of interactions encountered by emerging formal and informal RCOs. Drawing on qualitative data obtained from Syrian RCOs and governance actors in Turkey, the article demonstrates how increasing numbers of RCOs operate in the invited spaces opened by the state agencies and international donors. Only rarely, however, are RCOs able to invent spaces to change existing power relations, as Turkey’s political context categorically opposes rights-based advocacy of any marginalised group, and the national refugee governance is based on temporary protection. The findings can serve to analyse the dynamics of new refugee groups’ collective actions as well as their interactions with governance actors at transnational, national and local levels.

Nowadays, equality and freedom of choice are considered a given right, inherent in our European value system. However, the subject of Human Rights is not equally institutionalized in all EU member states. The normative hegemony of the EU, to which these fundamental principles apply, is increasingly questioned and reveals an incomplete adaptation of the member states to the European organizational field. Euroscepticism in Poland contributed to a conservatization of the government, after the PiS party came to power in the 2015 elections. The new government interfered in the institutional court, media legislation, and the law on freedom of assembly. These political developments clearly prioritized state and Catholic manifestations, further limiting the already relatively weak civil society in Poland. Polish sovereignty became equated to culturally inherent national values that developed in a Poland-specific context as result of historic resistance to oppression. The historical myth of Matka Polka embodies traditional role patterns, which pictures women as morally pure continuers of the nation and still has grave implementations for the Polish women’s movement today, especially in the debate on reproductive rights. The historical aspect in combination with the gradual political relinquishment of the European organizational system led to measures increasingly jeopardizing women’s rights, with pro-choice and pro-life perspectives intercepting each other. When in October of 2016 a bill for the criminalization of abortion was introduced by the Catholic organization Ordo Iudris, thousands of citizens took the streets dressed in black, in what would be called ‘the Czarny protest’ or black protest. It revealed a polarization in the Polish society, illustrating the disparity between the European liberal and the Polish traditional conservative model. The protest is analyzed with special attention to the method of coordination, more specifically in the framework of fourth wave feminism. It concerns a new type of activism in the field of women’s organizations, in which grassroots initiatives are sustained by activity on social media. This enhances the scope of participants, generating far-reaching solidarity on a social issue, which was before only discussed in limited circles. Virtual participation, however, generates a certain form of permissiveness; the fluid networks make its sustainability unpredictable. As the movement evolved, the number of participants in further rounds diminished, rendering its future uncertain. This master’s thesis, through a comparative literary analysis, offers a historical as well as socio-political insight into the phenomenon of the Czarny protest. It investigates the effectiveness of this new type of grassroots initiative in the Polish civil society and its role as a catalyzer to address overall social and political concerns towards the government. This thesis thus offers a perspective on the relevance of enhanced participation in the Polish civil society as an essential condition for democracy and the possible impact on social consciousness and national politics.

The 20th century ended with a “bang” in Puerto Rico, producing one of the most powerful and decisive massive demonstrations that the young 21st century first saw. Broadly, this paper will focus on the meaning and repercussions of the activism that took place in relation to Vieques. Specifically, I will outline the battle against the US Navy undertaken by Viequenses, Puerto Ricans, and activists in the United States and around the world after 4/19/1999—the fateful date when a stray bomb during the Navy’s training exercises on the island killed David Sanes, a civilian security guard working at the base. In essence, this paper articulates and highlights aspects of the struggle between a
small island-municipality in the middle of the Caribbean Sea and the biggest military power on the face of the Earth, in order to extrapolate the lessons offered by the massive transnational social movement that emerged in support of Vieques.

This is an expanded Arabic version of the book titled: Crisis in The Built Environment: The Case of the Muslim City.
هذه طبعة جديدة منقحة وملونة من كتاب "عمارة الأرض في الإسلام". وللحصول على جودة أعلى في حالة الرغبة في نشر الكتاب طباعة يرجى الاتصال بالمؤلف.
إن كتاب عمارة الأرض في الإسلام، ليس كتاباً في تاريخ العمارة الإسلامية، أو الفقه العمراني، وهو أيضاً ليس كتاباً عن العمارة الإسلامية من حيث أنماطها أو أشكالها، بل هو كتاب يركز على آليات تشكل العمران من حيث طرق اتخاذ القرارات. لذلك فهو يتقصى توزيع الحقوق عمرانياً بين الجهات المشاركة في تشكيل العمران سواء كانوا من الأفراد أو المؤسسات الحكومية أو الخاصة. لذلك، وللوقوف على هذه الحقوق يدرس الكتاب مصادر الحقوق في العمران الإسلامي والمعاصر مثل الشريعة الإسلامية والأنظمة العمرانية المعاصرة ليصل إلى استنباطات منها مثلاً أن القرارات العمرانية في البيئة التقليدية كانت في أيدي سكان الموقع دائماً ما أوجد أفضل استغلال للموارد المتاحة وبحلول أسمى ما تكون برغم قلة الإمكانات وذلك من خلال أعراف بنائية تلائم ظروف كل منطقة. وهذا يتطلب إعجازاً تشريعياً حتى يتمكن جميع السكان من المشاركة وتحمل المسؤولية دون تصادمات فيما بينهم والتي ستتطلب تدخلات خارجية. وهذا معاكس عقائدياً لأنظمة العمران المعاصرة التي تسلب من سكان الموقع الحق في اتخاذ القرارات من خلال القوانين والأنظمة التي تنتهي ببيروقراطيات ورقية لا نهاية لها فاتحة بذلك العديد من أبواب المحسوبيات والرشاوي، ناهيك عن الحلول العمرانية التي لا تلائم السكان من حيث الجودة والكفاءة والتلوث البيئي والإسراف أحياناً ما أوجد عمراناً إن كان منظماً ومنمقاً في منطقة ما، مثل مساكن الأثرياء والطرق الرئيسية، إلا أنه في شتى إرجاء العمران لن يؤدي إلا إلى تخلف عمراني يزداد سوءاً يوماً بعد يوم. وبالله التوفيق

Despite repeated pleas for diversifying a predominantly White U.S. teacher workforce, a significant teacher diversity gap persists in almost every state of the country (Boser, 2014). Teachers of Color who enter the profession with commitments to social justice, in particular, face an array of racist structural and interpersonal challenges often leading to their burnout and in some cases push out from the field (Kohli & Pizarro, 2016). In response to neoliberal, color evasive, and apolitical approaches to teacher support, educators and organizers have reclaimed and reframed their pedagogies through critical professional development (Kohli, Picower, Martinez, & Ortiz, 2015) to center healing from the damaging impacts of oppression (Ginwright, 2015; Pour-Khorshid, 2016). This three-year ethnographic case study (Yin, 2003) of a California racial affinity group of 12 critical educators of Color (CEoC) committed to healing, empowerment, love, liberation and action (H.E.L.L.A.) offers insights about alternative approaches to teacher support rooted in critical- healing praxes (Cariaga, 2018).
Relying on ethnographic approaches such as participant observation (Wilson, 1977), semi-structured interviews (Patton, 2002), and testimonios (Pour-Khorshid, 2016) as focal methods, I utilized grounded theory (Straus & Corbin, 1998) to examine: (a) the nature of learning and interactions that unfold over time, and (b) the
v
personal and professional impact that members experienced through their participation. The findings from this research illuminate how the group explicitly centered 12 members’ experiences, needs, and collective knowledge to (a) engage in fugitive learning as an act of political and pedagogical resistance to White Supremacy; and in so doing, (b) cultivated a sacred space for soul care and collective healing. I conclude by discussing how and why critical racial affinity group spaces for CEoC offer a more holistic approach to support their personal, political, relational, and pedagogical growth and well-being.

Since the 1992 U.S. presidential election process, candidates have gradually recognized the power of the Internet, and later social media, to further political ambitions of fundraising, engaging and interacting with the public, organizing and mobilizing supporters, gathering voter data, reaching the youth vote, and disseminating information. I provide a historical overview of new media use, in particular the Internet and social media, in U.S. presidential campaigns from 1992 to 2008. Also, a critical analysis is conducted on the appropriateness of using the term “grassroots” to describe political campaigns and how this affects the public interest. Finally, I examine the current growth of new media use thus far in the 2012 presidential election.

In the twentieth century, the Mongolian state
underwent a staged economic transition along
two extremely different modernisation lines.
The first wave, from the 1920s to the 1990s, was
a Soviet pattern of industrialisation. After the
transition to a market economy in the 1990s, the
impact of the financial markets became more
evident. The common element of these two stages
is that decisions relating to economic structure,
including the type of activities and modes
of operation of (some) business enterprises,
were made abroad. Also, foreign investment has
been hugely important in the modernisation of
the state.

Vivimos tiempos poshegemónicos: la ideología ha dejado de ser la fuerza motriz de la política y la teoría de la hegemonía ya no refleja con exactitud el orden social actual. La crítica ideológica –es decir, el análisis de los discursos en busca de distorsiones producidas por efecto de operaciones ideológicas–, se ha vuelto superflua. Esto, al menos, es lo que Jon Beasley-Murray plantea en este apasionante libro, basado en el análisis y la crítica de los discursos culturales. A partir de una minuciosa investigación histórica de los movimientos políticos latinoamericanos del siglo XX –desde el populismo clásico a los movimientos nacionales de liberación, las nuevas corrientes sociales e, incluso, las relaciones entre cultura y política que ellos encarnan–Beasley-Murray desgrana tres aspectos fundamentales del concepto de poshegemonía: el afecto (examinado desde la perspectiva de Gilles Deleuze), el hábito (derivado de la noción de habitus de Pierre Bourdieu) y la multitud (noción tomada de Antonio Negri). Para aquellos interesados en los estudios culturales y en las ciencias sociales, pero antes y sobre todo en América Latina, Poshegemonía propone un fascinante recorrido para el cual el autor efectuó un profundo trabajo de campo en El Salvador, Perú, Chile, Argentina y Venezuela, por un lado, y en aquellos lugares donde habitualmente desarrolla su labor profesional: Canadá, Inglaterra, y Estados Unidos, por el otro.

Hatsune Miku is a Japanese virtual idol born as avatar for the cutting-edge voice synthesizer Vocaloid. Since her debut in 2007, Miku became a hub for rhizomatic " produsage " , relying upon feedback operations amongst software, network and stage. While her massive multimedia repertoire, almost entirely generated by fans, is primarily composed of music videos and illustrations, it manifests in an array of commercial and noncommercial formats and pieces, from 2D graphics to 3D animation, from original or official works to derivative characters and contents. These circulate through 1) individually used applications, 2) contentsharing websites designed to enhance peer production (Niconico, PIAPRO), and 3) screenbased stage performances, e.g. Crypton or Niconico's holographic " live " concerts, the humanless (post-)opera The End, or lowbudget fan gigs. As a whole, Miku's coevolutive phenomenon raises important questions concerning alternative modes of authorship and spectatorship in our contemporary mediasphere.

Pembangunan yang hanya berorientasi untuk mendorong pertumbuhan ekonomi semata sudah semakin kehilangan kredibilitasnya dan mulai secara sadar ditinggalkan banyak negara.  Keyakinan akan pentingnya melakukan pembangunan dengan menyeimbangkan pertumbuhan dengan aspek keberlanjutannya, menyeimbangkan kepentingan ekonomi dengan kesadaran ekologis, telah semakin berkembang.  Sayangnya realisasi dari keyakinan ini baru kentara pada tataran kebijakan formal, tetapi belum sepenuhnya dihayati dalam implementasinya di lapangan, terutama oleh pada pelaku bisnis.  Masih banyak indikasi bahwa pertimbangan ekologis yang dikalahkan oleh kepentingan ekonomi, terutama di negara berkembang, termasuk Indonesia.
Lebih lanjut, saat ini, selain isu keberlanjutan kegiatan ekonomi, juga mulai banyak dimunculkan keinginan agar pembangunan ekonomi harus pula bersifat inklusif, yakni dengan melibatkan secara langsung atau memberi kesempatan yang lebih luas kepada semua pihak terkait untuk ikut berperan aktif dalam pembangunan dan sekaligus berpeluang untuk ikut menikmati hasil pembangunan, yang indikasinya dapat diukur dari peningkatan kesejahteraan rakyat dan menurunnya kesenjangan antara masyarakat yang kaya dan yang miskin.  Pembangunan ekonomi memang harus tetap tumbuh, tetapi tidak lagi didorong agar tumbuh secara spektakuler untuk jangka pendek.  Pertumbuhan ekonomi yang lebih diinginkan adalah pertumbuhan yang wajar tetapi lebih terjamin keberlanjutannya dan dapat dinikmati hasilnya oleh rakyat banyak.

Annenberg Institute for School Reform Angela Valenzuela is a professor in the Educational Policy and Planning Program, Department of Educational Administration, and the Cultural Studies in Education Program, Department of Curriculum & Instruction, at the University of Texas at Austin and is director of the University of Texas Center for Education Policy and of the National Latino/a Education Research and Policy Project. Emilio Zamora is a professor in the Department of History and faculty associate in the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Brenda Rubio is a doctoral student in the Educational Policy and Planning Program, Department of Educational Administration at the University of Texas at Austin. Academia Cuauhtli and the Eagle: Danza Mexica and the Epistemology of the Circle

This chapter examines the cyberspace presences and digital interplays of contemporary feminist zines in the contexts of art and art education. Although the peak of zine creations as works on paper may be traced to the 1990s, this form of feminist counterculture has evolved into cyberspace forums and expressions. Zines often include not only email addresses alongside “snail mail” addresses, but also links to pdfs and related web resources. Connecting the handmade craftsmanship and hand-drawn and written techniques of zines with the grassroots connectivity enabled by the web, blogs and other online forums relating to zines or containing zines constitute interesting liminal spaces. At other times, zines may be a sort of feminist protest to male-dominated cyberspace forums. This paper explores potential and problems of zines as extensions of hypertext, the dimensionality of the screen and the page, and various expressions of personal identities via individual craftsmanship. The educational contexts of zines considered in this paper include college classrooms, K-12 teaching, as well as library collections. Recent zines addressing gender, sexuality, and motherhood will be emphasized.

Grassroots initiatives have become primary setters of the discourse on facilitating participation of city dwellers in the urban development of Baku. Activities of these initiatives range from social-media based activism to
small-scale interventions into public spaces. This contribution explores the strengths, promises and challenges of such initiatives in centralized governance systems such as Azerbaijan, primarily using the example
of the “Urban Olum” project of urbanist civic initiative “PILLƏ”. The analysis can serve as a backdrop for the premises of urban activism in the context of Baku.

The article studies the corruption during the Francoist regime. The myth of the absence of corruption under Francoist dictatorship is discussed. The text analyses a case of a non-very much studied phenomena: the “great estraperlo” (great black market). A highly profitable business that took place during the post-war years at the expense of the suffering, the hunger and the scarcity of a large part of the population. It was always developed with the complicity or the direct participation of members of the Francoist administration or people close to the regime. The dictatorship’s reaction consisted in the display of important propaganda campaigns or in the punishment of the small black marketeers, whereas it tolerated the clandestine trade and the impunity of the main culprits of the great black market. This way, corruption was structural within the dictatorship. It should be explained not only for the individual interests that it satisfied, but also because it was an essential element for the consolidation and stabilisation of the “New State” emerged during the Spanish Civil War.

El artículo se centra en el estudio de la corrupción durante el régimen franquista. Discute el mito, en gran parte vigente en parte de la sociedad actual, de la inexistencia de la corrupción durante el franquismo. Para ello estudiamos un fenómeno hasta ahora no demasiado explorado: el del “gran estraperlo”. Un negocio de alto rendimiento que tuvo lugar durante la posguerra, a expensas del sufrimiento, el hambre y la escasez de buena parte de la población. Fue desarrollado siempre en connivencia o con la participación directa de personas pertenecientes a la Administración franquista o cercanas a la misma. La reacción de la dictadura fue la de desarrollar importantes campañas de propaganda o castigar a los pequeños estraperlistas, mientras que toleraba el comercio clandestino y la impunidad de los principales responsables del gran estraperlo. De esta forma, la corrupción fue algo estructural dentro de la dictadura, justificándose no sólo por los intereses individuales que satisfizo, sino también porque fue un elemento esencial dentro de los mecanismos que consolidaron y dieron estabilidad al “Nuevo Estado” surgido de la guerra civil.

Dieses Buch untersucht die kommunikative Konstitution sozialer Bewegungen durch Selbstbeschreibungen. Es versucht damit, die seit den späten 1990er Jahren brachliegende systemtheoretische Perspektive auf soziale Bewegungen konzeptuell und empirisch fruchtbar zu machen und mit der sozialen Bewegungsforschung ins Gespräch zu bringen. Der erste Teil konzeptualisiert die Selbstbeschreibung sozialer Bewegungen und ihre Funktion und illustriert das Argument an zwei Fallstudien: Der Occupy-Bewegung und der nigerianischen Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). Im zweiten Teil wird das Verhältnis des Systemtypus sozialer Bewegungen zu Interaktion, Organisation und Gesellschaft untersucht

In this essay I want to explore the way trauma fiction conventions are used in commercial fiction through the analysis of a literary phenomenon in terms of sales and media coverage: E. L. James’s 2012 erotic trilogy Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. In 2015 a fourth book was published, Grey, but since it is a retelling of Fifty Shades of Grey from Christian Grey’s perspective I will mainly discuss the original trilogy. The books are mostly understood as erotic fiction which the press has labelled “mommy porn” for its mainstream success among female adult readers. The focus of this essay is not on the analysis of the cultural impact of the books, which has been widely explored in newspaper articles, magazines and academic studies, but on the role they play within contemporary trauma culture or the “trauma paradigm” that, according to Luckhurst, pervades our understanding of subjectivity and experience since trauma, extremity and survival have turned into privileged markers of identity (2008, 1-2). It is my contention that it is precisely the role that trauma plays in the story that may account for its mainstream success beyond the limited erotic market and that the trilogy’s use of trauma best exemplifies the possibilities it can offer in commercial fiction beyond the more literary trauma novel.

PRAXIS - The Official Peer-Reviewed Journal of the Alumni for International Human Rights Law.  This is the official version of the inaugural issue of PRAXIS.  This official version supersedes and/or modifies accordingly any and all versions, descriptor, announcement, communication and/or related matter appearing here and/or elsewhere.