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Riots, rebellions, and revolutions have always captured our attention. But moments of upheaval do not contrast as strongly with "normal" times as many social historians, sociologists, and political scientists have assumed. Offering examples from South Asia, these essays examine subtle forms of the "everyday resistance" and varieties of the everyday use of power that mark the patterns of ordinary life in the region. These essays are part of a larger effort to understand the history of subordination in India. They focus on peasants and urban laborers, courtesans and merchants, sometimes employing unconventional sources and methods. By depicting a rich variety of non-confrontational forms of resistance and contestatory behaviors, the authors challenge our usual assumptions about the overt nature of resistance to dominant powerholders. Taken together, the essays suggest that we must consider a much wider range of socio-cultural practices if we wish to understand how the world of dominated groups is constrained, modified, and conditioned by power relations. Identifying the "everydayness" of resistance in social life thus reveals a social structure formed from a constellation of contradictory and contestatory processes, rather than a seamless, functional whole. At the same time, struggle is portrayed as something that is constantly being conditioned by the structures of social and political power. As the editors note, "neither domination nor resistance is autonomous; the two are entangled together so that it becomes difficult to analyze one without discussing the effects of the other".
Contesting Media Power is the most ambitious international collection to date on the worldwide growth of alternative media that are challenging the power concentration in large media corporations. Media scholars and political scientists develop a broad comparative framework for analyzing alternative media in Australia, Chile, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Sweden, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Topics include independent media centers, gay online networks and alternative web discussion forums, feminist film, political journalism and social networks, indigenous communication, and church-sponsored media. This important book will help shape debates on the media's role in current global struggles, such as the anti-globalization movement.
Argues that ordinary people exercise extraordinary political courage and power in American politics when, frustrated by politics as usual, they rise up in anger and hope, and defy the authorities and the status quo rules that ordinarily govern their daily lives. By doing so, they disrupt the workings of important institutions and become a force in American politics. Drawing on critical episodes in U.S. history, Piven shows that it is in fact precisely at those seismic moments when people act outside of political norms that they become empowered to their full democratic potential.
Contesting Media Power is the most ambitious international collection to date on the worldwide growth of alternative media that are challenging the power concentration in large media corporations. Media scholars and political scientists develop a broad comparative framework for analyzing alternative media in Australia, Chile, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Sweden, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Topics include independent media centers, gay online networks and alternative web discussion forums, feminist film, political journalism and social networks, indigenous communication, and church-sponsored media. This important book will help shape debates on the media's role in current global struggles, such as the anti-globalization movement.
Poonam Bala’s Contesting Colonial Authority explores the interplay of conformity and defiance amongst the plural medical tradition in colonial India. The contributors reveal how Indian elites, nationalists, and the rest of the Indian population participated in the move to revisit and frame a new social character of Indian Medicine. Viewed in the light of the cultural, nationalistic, social, literary and scientific essentials, Contesting Colonial Authority highlights various indigenous interpretations and mechanisms through which Indian sciences and medicine were projected against the cultural background of a rich medical tradition.
What do community organizations and organizers do, and what should they do? "Contesting Community" addresses one of the vital issues of our day-the role and meaning of community in people's lives and in the larger political economy. It paints a more critical picture of community work which, according to the authors-in both theory and practice-has amounted to less than the sum of its parts. Their comparative study of efforts in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada describes and analyzes the limits and potential of this work.
In an age when large corporations dominate the economic and political landscape, it is tempting to think that their power goes largely unchecked. Originally published in 2007, Contesting the Corporation counters this view by showing that today's corporations are driven by political struggle, power plays and attempts to resist control. Building on a wide range of theoretical sources, Fleming and Spicer present an analysis of the different ways in which power operates within the modern workplace. They begin by building a theoretical perspective that synthesizes previous investigations of power and resistance, identifying struggle as a key concept. Each chapter illustrates a different dimension of workplace struggle through an array of original empirical studies relating to sexuality, cynicism, new social movements and new-wave trade unionism. The book concludes by demonstrating that social justice claims underlie even the most innocuous forms of resistance, helping to transform some of the largest modern corporations.
An analysis of the different ways in which power operates within modern corporations.
During war, space for debate shrinks. Narrow ideas of patriotism and democracy marginalize and silence opposition to militarism abroad and repression at home. Although powerful, these ideas encounter widespread resistance. Analyzing the official statements of 15 organizations from 1990-2005, the authors show that the U.S. peace movement strongly contested taken-for-granted assumptions regarding nationalism, religion, security, and global justice. Contesting Patriotism engages cutting-edge theories in social movements research to understand the ways that activists promote peace through their words. Concepts of culture, power, strategy, and identity are used to explain how movement organizations and activists contribute to social change. The diversity of organizations and conflicts studied make this book a unique and important contribution to peace building and to social movements scholarship.