Apologies for cross-posting
Please find details of a CFP for a Special Issue in the
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy which we hope is of interest and relevance to the group:
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CFP: Protest and Activism With(out) Organisation
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The economic, political, social, cultural and environmental crises of our time continue to provoke and inspire a remarkable range of social movements into existence. These multiple
forms of protest and activism express and embody a politics of hope – captured both in alternative narratives that envisage new post-crisis possibilities, and through the physicality of collective and popular resistance. In this context, the Special Issue
of The International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy is particularly intend on interrogating the socio-spatial forms of 'organisation' that underpin protest and activism. When taking a closer look at the organisational nature across these activist
landscapes for example, it becomes apparent that resistance led through membership-based, co-ordinated hierarchical organisations (e.g. Trade Unions, NGOs) still retains an important visibility and influence in agitating for change. However, in addition perhaps,
and in some meaningful way beyond, these more traditional forms of organised resistance, there exists important diverse and spontaneous forms of everyday activism, one, perhaps, consistent with a more horizontal and anarchistic praxis of self-organisation.
Questioning the relationship between activism with - and without - organisation throws up some interesting and important inter-disciplinary questions. At the most fundamental level
it gives us cause to interrogate the very idea of activism: where does activism begin and end? Who gets to be an activist? Seeking to engage a more nuanced understanding of the differences between organized and unorganized forms of activism, provokes the question
of how informal experiences of activism, encourage engagement with more organised forms of activism (and vice versa). Is the relationship between the two antagonistic, competitive or complementary to each other? How are organisational forms of activism dictated
to by specific social and spatial temporalities, particularly at a time of crisis? Indeed in these (post)modern times is it meaningful to frame the organisation of activism within a binary relationship (either formal or informal)? Rather should we be encouraged
to consider them on an organisational spectrum of difference (more formal,
less formal and so on)? If desirable, how can a more informed complex understanding of the organisational natures of activism allow us to better recognise, value, strengthen and link up different types of patterns of activism and resistance?
To these ends we welcome papers of up to 8000 words addressing empirical or theoretical aspects focused on organisation of activism and protest, past and present, situated in any part
of the world and at any scale.
Deadlines:
Please send 250-300 word abstracts directly to the Guest Editors,
Richard White ([log in to unmask]) and
Tricia Wood ([log in to unmask] ) by
15 August 2015.
Full papers - between 5,000 to 8,000 words - must be submitted on-line to the IJSSP journal by
01 December 2015.
More information about The Journal for International Sociology and Social Policy can be found here:
http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/journals.htm?id=ijssp .
Best wishes,
Richard and Tricia
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Dr. Richard J White
Course Leader in BA (Hons) Human Geography
Senior Lecturer in Economic Geography
The Department of Natural & Built Environment
Sheffield Hallam University
City Campus, Howard Street
Sheffield
S1 1WB
0114 2252899
Staff profile and other relevant links below:
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Some recent publications
White, RJ (2015) ‘Animal geographies, anarchist praxis, and critical animal
studies’. In K. Gillespie and R-C. Collard (ed) Critical Animal Geographies: politics, intersections, and hierarchies in a multispecies world.
link
White, RJ and Williams, CC. (2014) ‘Anarchist economic practices in a "capitalist" society: some implications for organisation and the future
of work’. Ephemera: theory and politics in organization. 14 (4) pp. 951-975
link
White RJ and Cudworth E (2014) ‘A challenge to systems of domination: from corporations to capitalism’. In
Defining Critical Animal Studies: An Introduction to an Intersectional Social Justice Approach to Animal Liberation
link