Suchergebnisse

The rise to power of the populist Law and Justice Party (PiS) in 2015, and its growing authoritarianism, has politicized thousands of Poles and brought large-scale protests back to Polish streets. Women have been at the forefront of these struggles, aligning the previously unpopular quest for reproductive rights and bodily autonomy with the larger resistance to the ruling party. In particular, the proposal to restrict the abortion law sparked mass mobilization in 2016, with Black Protests turning into a formative experience for many of the previously nonactive participants. This article sheds light on this most recent wave of feminist activism in Poland and its forms of action, from a generational perspective. It scrutinizes in detail the narrative of a "new generation of activists," who claim to change the contours of Polish feminism, making it more inclusive, more creative and bolder. It reports on the shift, unfolding slowly since the 2000s, from the institutionalized feminism of nongovernmental organizations to less formal, grassroots forms of engagement that combine online activism with organizing on the ground. However, while the latter is often assumed to be skeptical toward the European Union's "gender equality" framework, the article reveals how, within the context of growing authoritarianism, the youngest cohorts in particular return to the liberal strand of feminism, characterized by the language of human rights and an uncritical gaze toward the European Union. The article ends with a reflection on the proclaimed 'newness' of feminism in Poland, as articulated by the new generation of activists. The absence of intergenerational dialogue and transmission of knowledge, it is argued, render past feminist struggles in Poland invisible and forgotten and strikingly leaves unquestioned the legacy of previous neoliberal and patriarchal governments that led to the erosion of women's rights in postsocialist Poland.

In a racial security state, Britain's black and brown youth have been excluded from the national narrative. Construed as foreign, threatening, and alienated, young people of minority backgrounds have been the prime targets of the state's counterterrorism legislation as well as surveillance, policing, and disciplining programs. At the same time, communities of color are among the most severely affected by austerity measures, suffering from the highest rates of unemployment, shoddy housing, cuts to public services, and closure of community centers. This article reveals how generational identity is tied to racial and class consciousness, dimensions rarely accounted for in the classical sociological work on generations. Shedding light on the mosaic of intersectional struggles, the article scrutinizes how activists of color, marginalized even within traditional leftist movements, carve out their own spaces of engagement, reclaim their terms of speaking, and forge wider alliances and solidarities. In doing so, they combine outward acts of resistance with inward-looking practices of self-affirmation, building community spaces, and preserving memories. Within these various avenues—ranging from university campuses to DIY festivals—young racialized activists depart from the language of civil rights and the politics of recognition, typical for the generation of their parents. Instead, young activists question the multiple exclusions on which citizenship relies, turn away from state projects, and articulate a radical, decolonial vision of social justice, not contained by the nation–state framework.

Defence date: 27 May 2016 ; Examining Board: Professor Donatella della Porta, EUI/SNS (Supervisor); Professor Asef Bayat, University of Illinois (External Supervisor); Professor Salwa Ismail, SOAS, University of London; Professor Olivier Roy, European University Institute. ; Liberal assumptions that the poor and the illiterate are not likely to demand or even know their rights have been forcefully challenged by a body of scholarship in anthropology and political science that expands the field of the political and resurrects the subaltern as a political actor. These accounts point to the everyday life as a site of transgressions, and investigate mundane practices through which the subaltern enact their agency, quietly seek material entitlements, and manoeuvre to escape control and regulations. While such a focus is important, it tends to overlook various ways of subaltern being, speaking or becoming, which are shifting and evolving, and are not necessarily circumscribed by the everyday or the local. This thesis, with ethnographic sensitivity-and against binary categories of mainstream political science- draws attention to the continuum of ways through which the marginalised deal with their multi-layered subordination. More precisely, drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted with the Bedouin villagers in the Naqab, and the akdham slum dwellers in Sana'a, the thesis sheds light on a multiplicity of sites and scales of subaltern struggles, as well as the connections between them and the different logics that drive them. The distinction between what I call the logics of practice and articulation marks roughly the boundaries between the non-political and the political, but also points to the potentiality of the political rooted in the ordinary. Shifting away from the notion of subaltern struggles as place-bounded and parochial, the thesis argues that they need to be understood in relation to the transnational context within which they are embedded. By scrutinizing subaltern efforts to be known, intelligible and supported by global audiences, the thesis uncovers processes through which both the Bedouin and the akhdam become recognized as bearers of specific traits, on which basis their claims are justified. The questions posed here are as much about the particular groups under study, as they are about larger issues of knowledge production and the workings of the global human rights regime.

"This book investigates the origins of civil wars which emerge from failed attempts at democratization. The main aim of this volume is to develop a theoretical explanation of the conditions under which and the mechanisms through which social movements' struggles for democracy end up in civil war. While the empirical evidence suggests that this is not a rare phenomenon, the literatures on social movements, democratization and civil wars have grown apart from each other. At the theoretical level, Social Movements and Civil War bridges insights in the three fields, looking in particular at explanations of the radicalization of social movements, the failure of democratization processes and the onset of civil war. In doing this, it builds upon the relational approach developed in contentious politics with the aim of singling out robust causal mechanisms. At the empirical level, the research provides in-depth descriptions of four cases of trajectory from social movements for democratization into civil wars: in Syria, Libya, Yemen and the former Yugoslavia. Conditions such as the double weakness of civil society and the state, the presence of entrepreneurs of violence as well as normative and material resources for violence, ethnic and tribal divisions, domestic and international military interventions are considered as influencing the chains of actors' choices rather than as structural determinants. This book will be of great interest to students of civil wars, political violence, social movements, democratization, and IR in general."--Provided by publisher.

Social movements in civil wars : an introduction / Donatella della Porta -- Causal mechanisms in civil wars : a sensitizing map / Donatella della Porta -- Beyond Syria : civil society in failed episodes of democratization / Teije Hidde Donker -- The failure of Libyan political transition and the descent into civil war / Emin Poljarevic -- Yemen's failed transition : from peaceful protests to war of "all against all" / Bogumila Hall -- Yugoslavia : from social movement to state movement to civil war / Daniel Ritter -- Social movements, democratization, and civil wars : some conclusions / Donatella della Porta.