bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Berlin Congress (1878)
Authors: Van den Bogaert Sina
Published: September 2024

The Berlin Congress was held in Berlin from 13 June to 13 July 1878. It was attended by AustriaHungary, the British Empire, the German Empire, France, Italy, the Russian Empire (→ Russia), and the Ottoman Empire, and also by delegates from Greece, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro. It was solicited by Austria-Hungary and Britain with the aim of countering the Russian advance in the southeastern region of Europe, and hosted by Chancellor von Bismarck. The Berlin Congress resulted in the Treaty between Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire for the Settlement of Affairs in the East ([signed 13 July 1878]; ‘Treaty of Berlin’), which is considered to be one of the three major peace agreements (→ peace treaties) in the period after the → Vienna Congress (1815) (Baumgart IX), the remaining two being the → Paris Peace Treaty (1856) and the Paris Peace Conference of 1919–1920 (→ Versailles Peace Treaty [1919]; → Neuilly Peace Treaty [1919]; → St Germain Peace Treaty [1919]; → Trianon Peace Treaty [1920]; → Lausanne Peace Treaty [1923]; see also → History of International Law, 1815 to World War I).
Central American Court of Justice (1907–18)
Authors: Riquelme Cortado Rosa
Published: September 2024

The Central American Court of Justice (Corte de Justicia Centroamericana; ‘Court of Cartago’) was the first international court with jurisdiction over sovereign States, permanent function and compulsory authority and was also the first which allowed individuals access to its jurisdiction (→ Individuals in International Law; → International Courts and Tribunals, Standing). The court had distant predecessors in the creation of a regional power, exercised by a Supreme Court of Justice, established in the successive Central American federalist attempts in the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century (→ Central America). The first and most significant for covering the five Central American republics (they had in fact been a single administrative unit while under Spanish rule) was established in the 1824 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Central America, signed by representatives of the States of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.
Climate Protection Agreements
Authors: Minnerop Petra
Published: September 2024

In the second half of the 20th century, scientists warned that anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) will not be readily absorbed by the oceans. A few years later, the CO2 concentration in the earth’s atmosphere could be measured and an annual rise (→ Atmosphere, International Protection) reported. The potential of these changes was underlined by evidence suggesting a particular sensitivity of the global climate system to small changes (→ Climate, International Protection). In the 1980s, scientists started to use new methods to prove how changes in the CO2 concentration influence the occurrence of ice-ages and weather events. Drillings into the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps revealed not only that levels of CO2 were 50% less during ice-ages than at the warmer times, but also that levels of CO2 went up in close relation to the average temperature of the earth’s atmosphere. In 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (‘IPCC’) was created with the mandate to assess scientific evidence in relation to climate change.
Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON/CMEA)
Authors: Sonnevend Pál
Published: September 2024

The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance was founded in January 1949 in Moscow, whereas the exact date of its creation is unknown. The organization used in all its official correspondence, as well as in its international contacts the abbreviation ‘CMEA’. This entry uses the official abbreviation, instead of the more commonly used term ‘Comecon’. There have been multiple motivations behind the formation of this organization by Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and the Soviet Union. One of the reasons was to react to the → Marshall Plan (European Recovery Program) and the establishment of the → Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) from which the Soviet Union sought to keep away its allies. With the creation of the CMEA the Soviet Union also aimed at securing its needs in raw materials and capital goods. It is also argued that the Western embargo imposed in 1948 on the Soviet Union had a role to play.
Debt-for-Nature Swaps
Authors: Magraw Daniel B , Menck Figueroa Grace
Published: September 2024

Debt-for-nature swaps, invented in the mid-1980s, involve creative alternative funding mechanisms to finance → sustainable development projects in lowincome countries. Although various financial arrangements may be used, a debt-for-nature swap (‘DNS’) basically leverages the debt of a low-income country to obtain a commitment from that country to protect nature and possibly to help finance that protection; sovereign debt is forgiven in return for the environmental commitment, and the savings in debt servicing are invested in environmental conservation and protection. The following discussion consists of three parts. First, debt-for-nature swaps are framed in the macro-context of environmental protection and international development finance. Second, the mechanics of debt-for-nature swaps are explained with reference to specific types of swaps and examples involving various countries. Finally, the limitations and prospects of debt-for-nature swaps are explored.
Decolonization: Spanish Territories
Authors: María Vernet Paula
Published: September 2024

The Spanish colonial empire comprised territories in America, Africa, and the Pacific. Upon discovery of the New World, Spain encouraged travel and exploration, and commissioned military officers to rule over the conquered territories of the Americas on behalf of the Spanish Crown (→ Colonialism; → Territory, Discovery). At that time, Spanish → conquest over America was legitimized by evangelization of non-Christians; the Pope ratified the discovery of the territories by issuing bulls, thus preventing other Christian princes from taking possession of them. The territory colonized by Spain in America was vast; it included most of present-day → Central America, most of South America, Mexico, and south-western United States of America. The Spanish Crown had to divide its territories in order to exercise adequate political and administrative control, thus creating viceroyalties and general captaincies. Spain exercised control over these colonies for more than three centuries until most territories seceded from the empire and became newly independent States.
Delagoa Bay Railway Arbitration
Authors: Hernández Gleider I
Published: September 2024

The Delagoa Bay Railway Arbitration was conducted between the United States and Great Britain as joint claimants against Portugal as defendant. The → arbitration exclusively concerned the question of what → compensation was due from Portugal for its rescission of a railway concession and seizure of a railroad. The arbitration was a part of a wider series of disputes between Portugal and other colonial powers, notably Great Britain, and later South Africa, for control over the south-east African coast. Delagoa Bay—or Lorenço Marquès, now Maputo—was an area which had been under Portuguese influence since the 1580s, but acquired heightened strategic importance following the so-called ‘Scramble for Africa’ at the end of the 19th century, and its sovereignty was contested in an arbitration finally settled in favour of Portugal (see → Delagoa Bay Arbitration).
Havana Club Case
Authors: Riffel Christian
Published: September 2024

Although the WTO ruling in United States — Section 211 Omnibus Appropriations Act of 1998 (‘Havana Club’) concerns several provisions of the → Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (1994) (‘TRIPS Agreement’), the ruling stands out because it delineates the material scope of application of that Agreement. From the vantage point of the panel decision, it even amounts to an expansion of its scope. The panel tried to limit the scope of the TRIPS Agreement to the intellectual property rights mentioned in the section titles of Part II thereof. The Appellate Body, however, reversed this finding and clarified that the subject matters incorporated into the TRIPS Agreement by virtue of the general reference norm in Art. 2.1 form part of that Agreement.
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)
Authors: Bennouna Mohamed
Published: September 2024

The Non-Aligned Movement (‘NAM’) was founded in Belgrade in 1961 at a conference of → Heads of State, representing 25 predominantly Asian and African States. The NAM is neither a new alliance nor an international organization, but a grouping of States mostly formed as a result of the → decolonization process. Its members were determined not to adopt the logic of the → Cold War (1947–91), nor to embrace the division of the world, which as of 1947/48 was split in two blocs of nuclear weapon States, the clash of which could lead to catastrophic consequences for the entire planet. The explosion at the end of World War II of two atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had demonstrated the scale of destruction caused by the use of → nuclear weapons and warfare.
Protectorates and Protected States
Authors: Trilsch Mirja
Published: September 2024

Both the term ‘protectorate’ and the term ‘protected State’ refer to a relatively powerful State’s promise to protect a weaker State from external aggression or internal disturbance, in return for which the protected entity yields certain powers to the protector. Typically, the legal basis for a regime of protection is a treaty by which the protecting State acquires full control over the external affairs of another State or territory, while the latter continues to have command over its internal affairs. The dependant entity is not annexed (→ Annexation) or formally incorporated into the territory of the protector (→ Territory, Acquisition). However, the protected entity will typically be prevented from communicating with third States without the consent of the protector.
Regional Co-operation and Organization: African States
Authors: Killander Magnus
Published: September 2024

Apart from regulation of the use of the → Congo River and the → Niger River dating back to the scramble for Africa in the late 19th century, there was little co-operation between the colonial powers in Africa (see also → Berlin West Africa Conference [1884–85]). One instance of such co-operation was the establishment in 1935 of the African Postal Union and the African Telecommunications Union which were established through agreements between the colonial governments of 15 African territories covering most of the continent.
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)
Authors: Khan Rahmatullah
Published: September 2024

Seven South Asian States, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka set up the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (‘SAARC’) in 1985. Afghanistan joined the organization in April 2007. An estimate made before the Afghanistan entry placed the combined population of the SAARC region at 1.4 billion. That constitutes 21% of the global population. That massive bulk of multicultural humanity inhabits a meagre 3% of the world’s landmass. The skewed demographic condition, and many other factors, leaves 43% of the region’s population living below the poverty line.
Will we survive
Authors: Kowol Kit
Published: September 2024

The summer of 1940 is traditionally associated with the rise of the Left and the transformation of the conflict into a ‘People’s War’ following the creation of Winston Churchill’s all-party Government. By contrast, this chapter explores the Conservative interpretation for the failure of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France and the subsequent ‘miracle of Dunkirk’. It demonstrates how Conservatives blamed a lack of martial virtues for the BEFs reverses and praised elite military leadership as opposed to ordinary civilians for their rescue. It then turns to the work of a group of Conservatives, led by R. A. Butler, who sought to use this crisis to create a new kind of Christian State. The chapter concludes by demonstrating how, despite their failures, the British State nevertheless became more entwined in the religious life of its people and how a system of warrior welfare was developed during the war.
With whom shall we fight
Authors: Kowol Kit
Published: September 2024

The chapter examines the political impact of Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the subsequent debate over whether Britain should open a ‘second front’ to aid its new ally. Focussing on the main agitator for a ‘second front’, the newspaper owner and Conservative peer Lord Beaverbrook, it argues that Beaverbrook’s support for the Soviet Union reflected the press baron’s consistent realist approach to international relations in general and the USSR in particular. Placing Beaverbrook’s activities in the context of growing fears over American influence in the post-war world, it argues that he saw in a close relationship with the USSR an antidote to American imperialism which threatened the future unity of the British Empire. The chapter concludes by highlighting the wider phenomenon of Conservative anti-Americanism.
Epilogue
Authors: Kowol Kit
Published: September 2024

The chapter examines Conservative reactions to the 1945 general election, the transformation of post-war Britain, and the death of wartime Conservatism. It examines letters written to Winston Churchill in 1945, the development of an aggressive-defensive mindset among the Party’s middle-class supporters, and the rise of anti-Socialist campaign groups, such as the Vermin Club and the British Housewives League. It tracks the fortunes of the four different Conservative traditions analysed in the book: Ruralist, Individualist, Constructive Imperialist, Industrial Paternalist and Tory Progressive during the period of the Cold War. It concludes that, while the Conservative Party since Margaret Thatcher has continued to hark back to the Second World War, the Conservatism of that period, and the Britain that Conservatives sought to protect, was long dead.
Pure, Avoidable, and Deliberate Structural Injustice
Authors: McKeown Maeve
Published: September 2024

In Chapter 4, ‘Pure, Avoidable, and Deliberate Structural Injustice’, Maeve McKeown argues that current theories of structural injustice are confused because they misunderstand the relationship between structure and agency. The dominant way of thinking about structural injustice relies on the claim that structure and agency are fully integrated in such a way that when agents act they reproduce social structures—a view that comes from Anthony Giddens’s ‘structuration theory’. McKeown suggests that this approach impedes an analysis of power relations and possibilities for structural change. McKeown argues instead for a definition of structural injustice based on ‘critical realism’—the view that structure and agency are separate while both impacting on each other. This reveals existing power relations and can explain the role of agency in precipitating structural change—subordinated agents within structures can challenge power alignments or create alternative or countering alignments. McKeown develops a typology of structural injustice consisting of three distinct forms: ‘pure’—the structural injustice is unintended, unforeseeable and there are no agents with the capacity to remedy it; ‘avoidable’—the unjust outcomes of structural processes are foreseeable, and there are powerful agents with the capacity to remedy the injustice, but they fail to do so; ‘deliberate’—powerful agents actively perpetuate the injustice because they benefit from it. McKeown concludes by suggesting that such a typology of structural injustice clarifies the role of powerful agents in perpetuating structural injustice; it explains how injustices can be put right and it helps to pinpoint responsibility for structural change.
Elite, Especially Semi-Elite
Authors: Levy Daniel C.
Published: September 2024

The many facets of US exceptionalism in global PHE reach their zenith when it comes to the world class heights of elite PHE. Only South Korea has rough parity between private and public in elite higher education, whereas the US remains alone for private superiority, which has even expanded. Throughout most of the world, however, countries’ leading PHE does not approach global academic heights. It is instead semi-elite globally, however elite at home. Depending upon region and country, semi-elite PHE (sometimes overlapping venerable religious PHE) increasingly competes with historically superior public higher education academically, though generally with distinctive offsetting strengths (e.g., in employment ties) and weaknesses (e.g., in basic research). Semi-elite PHE is characteristically quite intertwined with business (national and international) and political-economic privatization, hostile to statism.
Basic Dynamics of the Shipping Industry: Economic Cycles, Technology, and Regulation
Authors: Tenold Stig , Cho Sungshin
Published: September 2024

This chapter discusses the dynamics of the shipping industry, one of the industries that define the modern global economy. Shipping is a core activity in the international economy, enabling the international division of labour and the use of comparative advantage. The aim of this chapter is to present the basic economic principles of the shipping industry in a historical perspective. To explain the dynamics of the industry, the chapter considers three factors that shape how shipping markets function and how the economic agents act: demand and economic cycles, technology, and ownership and regulation. The basic output of the shipping industry—transport of commodities and products—has remained the same throughout the last centuries. However, the way in which the industry has fulfilled this function, has been radically transformed.
The Petroleum Sector
Authors: Nyamazana Mushiba
Published: September 2024

The chapter examines the market structure of Zambia's petroleum supply chain, highlighting the significant influence of the government. It also analyses the patterns of national consumption of petroleum products, sector governance, pricing, regulatory frameworks, and challenges, and provides a policy outlook considering the change of government in August 2021. The analysis assesses the disparity in access to high-quality and dependable petroleum goods and services throughout the country, both between urban and rural areas and among different socioeconomic groups. The discussion on the new government's reform pronouncements and actions to-date identifies some preconditions that must be addressed in order to tackle long-standing challenges in the petroleum sector.
Cultural Transmission in the West
Authors: King Paul R. , Manni Franz
Published: September 2024

This chapter documents and discusses the history of recent self-experimentations that led to the development of the Euro-American body-piercing movement starting with the 1970s. Until those years, the West implemented a single practice: the piercing of the ears. Then some piercing pioneers, inspired by ethnographic and historical accounts, (re)invented the praxis to include piercing other body parts. The chapter scrutinizes the emergence of these modern practices and argues that they provide clues to understanding the emergence and consolidation of the piercing traditions of the past. It explores the pertinent biographies, motivations, and modification practices of the people who, in the second half of the nineteenth century, wished to pierce their bodies without retaining the know-how to do it. Using personal correspondence, illustrations, and photographs, it documents the trials, successes, failures, and innovations associated with the 1970s rejuvenation of piercing practices. Documentation shows that these practices came to coalesce in a novel shared knowledge, culturally transmitted.
Realism and Race in the Literature of the Global Hispanic Empire
Authors: Chang Julia Haeyoon
Published: September 2024

This chapter examines the illusiveness of race in Spanish literary realism in the context of the global Hispanic empire. The Spanish realist novel has been conventionally treated as a genre that aided in the consolidation of a national consciousness. But the modern novel, as Edward Said had demonstrated, was crucially also accessory to European empires. In the case of the global Hispanic empire—however diminished it was in the late nineteenth century—realism was coterminous with the increased traffic of enslaved Africans to the Caribbean (despite its illegality) and the emergence of race science. And yet, tracing race in Spanish realism is no straightforward task. Racial identity often remains unnamed, appearing metonymically, for example, through the traffic of racialized commodities from abroad. When race is named, it tends to function as metaphor—a stand-in for something other than the category of race itself. This essay contends that these very modes of appearance—which are slippery, metaphoric, and spectral—are themselves worthy of critical engagement. Using canonical writers like Benito Pérez Galdós and Emilia Pardo Bazán, the author examines how race in realism—never wholly or mimetically represented—points elsewhere, exceeding the diegetic bounds of the novel and revealing the representational limits of realism itself.
How Do We Think in Movements?
Authors: Cox Laurence
Published: September 2024

Struggles for justice are hard—we have powerful and wealthy opposition, while our knowledge and culture are rarely designed for the challenge. Activists have to find the right questions and create languages and institutions to answer them: we need to learn to think, together, as movements. This is easier said than done. The struggle for justice exists at many levels, with differing capacity to act and reflect; and struggle is a developmental process. Finding, or creating, relevant learning (from past movements, movements elsewhere, or on other issues) is always a challenge; but movements also move. How can we know what social transformation might be possible, beyond today? Movements generate different kinds of knowledge—agitational, educational, and organizational. But as our own spaces for thinking have declined and other kinds of institutions mediate between us, thinking from and for our own needs becomes harder. This chapter asks how to think about specific movements’ knowledge needs; how well these are met by existing spaces for thinking; and how different kinds of people can help the development of “really useful knowledge.” It finishes with a concrete example of a movement learning project.
Introduction
Authors: Dolgon Corey
Published: September 2024

This introduction provides a historical framing for the current landscape of higher education and the discipline of sociology. It argues that the forces of neocolonialism and neoliberalism impact higher education globally as every aspect of education is commoditized and knowledge production remains driven by colonial and corporate interests. Given these conditions, the discussion begins from the premise that the primary goal is not the reform of higher education or the discipline of sociology. The chapter calls on sociologists to be first and foremost activists who apply sociological skills and imaginations to the work of organizing, mobilizing, educating, and envisioning radical social change. As millions of people are organizing and mobilizing in new and unparalleled ways to challenge the global powers responsible for political repression, exploitation and poverty, social devastation and ecological destruction, authoritarian movements are growing just as quickly. Thus, just as exciting and complex liberation movements develop new strategies, tactics and visions for change, they are met by rising fascist responses complete with bigger walls, stronger armies, and virulent xenophobia. This transformative political and social moment calls for the boldest forms of praxis from radical scholar-activists. This book presents myriad examples of just such people and just such work.
Your Voice, Your Choice
Authors: Mahali-Bhengu Alude , Ntini-Makununika Thobeka
Published: September 2024

This chapter argues that despite living in a democratic South Africa, young people’s barrier to civic participation continues to be a major source of what Amartya Sen calls “unfreedom.” This condition comes from barriers to access, corruption in individuals, and the failure of services, all of which potentially lead to avolition. “Your Voice, Your Choice” was a youth-targeted intervention aimed at empowering young people’s active participation and engagement in civil society. The intervention used dialogue and innovative participatory methodologies to capture young people’s understanding of the political landscape of South Africa, including how they envision changing it. This chapter unpacks the transformative potential of dialogue in the Your Voice, Your Choice (YVYC) intervention as an alternative to bolstering social and economic opportunities for young people in the face of unfreedoms.
Claim It in Bahia
Authors: Macedo Ponte Camila
Published: September 2024

Youth participation in community research and development catalyzes social change and is key for improving the implementation of rights and justice for this group. This chapter explores young mobilizers’ work and interactions with institutional environments in the backlands of the State of Bahia in Brazil. By addressing the participation of young people in places of power and decision-making, the chapter brings a view on partnership building and the challenge of breaking down oppressive structures in an admittedly adult-led environment. Ultimately, the project prepares the ground for a new generation of cadres of activists for rights and social justice, as it helps dismantle exclusionary practices and reinforces the right to citizenship and participation in public policies—that shall contemplate a diversity of experiences, demands, and visions of the world.
From Social to All-Terrain
Authors: Longa Francisco
Published: September 2024

This chapter analyzes the development and growth of social movements in Argentina. Born in the crisis of neoliberalism in the late 1990s, these movements began to organize in the slums, providing food to the most vulnerable people and demanding subsidies for the unemployed from the state. But as the country recovered from the economic crisis and rebuilt its political institutions, the movements continued to grow. Using research techniques such as interviews, documentary analysis, and participant observation, this chapter shows that social movements have ventured into new “terrains” in their struggles, such as the trade union and the political-institutional arenas, placing militants in various governments, including seven movement leaders in the National Congress, taking up seats in the Chamber of Deputies. This makes them real “all-terrain” movements, which have to face new challenges and compete with relevant power actors, such as traditional trade unions and professional politicians.
“System Change, Not Climate Change!” Climate Activism in Austria
Authors: Drüeke Ricarda , Zobl Elke
Published: September 2024

This chapter focuses on climate activism in Austria, especially the relationship among protest, the media, and the public. It explores how activists use media and cultural practices for social change by critiquing social conditions, institutions of power, and promoting new visions for social justice. It highlights activists’ perspective on social structures and possibilities for change around climate justice. Based on radical theories of democracy, it presents a theoretical framework for media and cultural activism within new social and protest movements. It elaborates how hegemonic practices function—that is, how and why certain interests and social issues prevail. It also looks at how differences between ideological and political positions persist in society thus allowing for protest and change. Methodologically, it draws on eighteen guided interviews with lead climate activists in Austria. It concludes with a short summary of the potential and the challenges for activists today.
Climate Justice Is Social Justice
Authors: Foran John
Published: September 2024

This chapter introduces the climate justice movement within the context of multiple system failures on a global scale. It begins with a look at the historical and social origins of the climate justice movement and then presents an overview of the incredibly diverse and international movement today. It highlights such diverse movement organizations as the youth-led Sunrise and Fridays for Future movements, Extinction Rebellion, 350.org, the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance, and Acción Ecológica. Because the climate crisis affects multiple arenas, including the economic, social, political, and ecological spheres, it argues that a proper understanding of climate justice requires a broad approach to social justice. It concludes by explaining the need not only to address climate change but also to do so within the context of systemic changes that will address the root causes of both global warming and the need for sustainable economic systems and more participatory democratic political systems.
Organizing The Streets to Enact Social Justice
Authors: Payne Yasser Arafat , Hitchens Brooklynn , Wilson Jonathan Rashied Rapheal
Published: September 2024

This chapter critically examines how street participatory action research (Street PAR) can be used as a community-level intervention to reduce gun violence and improve psychological and social well-being in poor Black American communities. Street PAR is an epistemological orientation that targets street-identified populations in schools, correctional facilities, and communities to engage in this participatory enterprise. It privileges the worldview of street-identified populations as “expert” indigenous knowledge or theory and assumes people actively or formerly involved with the streets are best poised to critically examine street culture. In addition to a research experience, Street PAR also underscores two levels of “action”: (1) rigorous methods training for Street PAR Associates; and (2) extensive local or grassroots organizing. This chapter also covers how the authors, over the course of six studies, developed a robust Street PAR research program to stem the rise of gun violence and improve well-being in Wilmington, Delaware.
Modes of Inquiry and Struggle from Housing Justice to Land Justice
Authors: Krinsky John , Caldwell Hillary
Published: September 2024

From the practice of movements against oppressive conditions, a critical sociology can emerge constituted by the following elements: Ideological demystification identifies the ways those in power mask their positions from criticism. Reabstraction redefines objects to understand their relation to larger wholes; it helps us to think beyond what is directly in front of us. Studying contradictions means identifying the ways social processes pull apart, to understand why problems appear as they do. Embedding inquiry in movements—which bring together people with multiple perspectives and different experiences in relation to movements’ objects and goals—allows it to be both rooted and networked in a way that enhances its ability to leverage the other three elements effectively. Such a critical sociological inquiry is illustrated through a study of work around a community land trust coalition in New York, cofounded by homeless activists, and in which the authors are active.
In the Wake of the Murder of George Floyd
Authors: Leo Moore Nicole , Leo Moore Wendy
Published: September 2024

This chapter was born in the summer of 2020 amid the racial uprisings that took place in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, following the brutal murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. Media coverage and social media discourse about local activities focused on sensational scenes of angry protests but ignored the powerful elements of community activism and organizing occurring on the ground and behind the scenes. The chapter contributes valuable insights into racial justice activism during the 2020 rebellion. It also sheds light on how academic writing constrains knowledge production, sanitizing it in a way that attempts to force a civil discussion about events that are not civil; they are heinous and harmful. The form of the chapter exposes the emotional labor involved in academic writing about social justice activism and the contradictions that arise from having to navigate between a generalized analytical space and personal emotion laden experience.
Centers for Engagement and the Possibility of Decentering the Academy in Knowledge Production
Authors: Robinson Vernon , Hutnick Carrie , Johnson Nina
Published: September 2024

This chapter discusses the role of centers for engagement at institutions of higher education as a facilitator, container, or resource for relationships between people situated within academic institutions and people situated in communities who partner with them. It explores the ways communities of care built among people offer a sustainable alternative way to ground engaged work when compared to the precarity of institutional interest, funding priorities, and employment status often associated with higher education, and by proxy, their centers for engagement. These centers often play an important role in supporting the work done in collaboration with communities, but they cannot replace or eclipse authentic relationships among people. While these centers’ can facilitate substantial efforts for positive change, the goal of maintaining their status within the institution cannot replace or eclipse the goal of liberation.
Workers Go Global?
Authors: Fütterer Michael
Published: September 2024

Trade unions in the export-oriented garment industry in South Asia build solidarity networks with various international groups and NGOs and are part of different forms of social regulation. Usually this is seen as a key way to improve working and living conditions. These forms enable local unions to compensate for a lack of power resources by bridging spatial levels of scale. Nevertheless trade unionists are critical of these forms of cooperation: they do not strengthen the union’s ability to negotiate and do not lead to the development of trade union power at the shop floor level. However, this does not mean a rejection of international cooperation. Based on the connection of research and activism in the export-oriented textile and garment industry in Bangalore, India, this chapter argues that this tension expresses different orientations of action and ideas of everyday trade union work.
Lessons from a Participatory Action Research Project Ten Years Later
Authors: Piñeros Shields Thomas
Published: September 2024

This chapter discusses the 14th Amendment Project, a participatory action research project about the experiences and political participation of US-born children of undocumented immigrants as they come of age. The chapter presents lessons for participatory action researchers working with social movement actors: (1) timing and program length of grant funding matter, especially for youth organizations; (2) projects need to develop ways to incorporate new coresearchers who enter a research project in later stages after missing the early stages (i.e., defining a research question, etc.); (3) participation differs from ownership of a project; (4) epistemological principles about how to construct community-based knowledge when coresearchers leave a project; (5) action goals can change in a shifting political context; and (6) audacious and innovative action goals may not succeed. Reflection ten years after the project ended reveals important lessons that may contribute to future participatory action research within social movements.
Journalism, Social Media, and Wars of Position
Authors: Bebawi Saba , Mutsvairo Bruce
Published: September 2024

This chapter shows how social media platforms, seen from a non-Western lens, create opportunities and challenges for all, from ordinary people to state and nongovernmental institutions. To understand these challenges, it is important to take a step back and show how the Western media and technologies have benefited from their long-held hegemonic position before the advent of social media. The marginalization of non-Western societies continues, and in fact global inequalities have been further perpetrated by these technologies. Such inequalities have predetermined whether countries in the South could and should benefit from the presence of social media. Still, social media platforms have given a new voice to the long-oppressed people living in authoritarian circumstances. The opportunities that these platforms offer, particularly in authoritarian environments, will continue to dominate policy and scientific research. Investments in research should thus be encouraged so as to stay abreast with current trends on social media use.
Crafting Insubordinate Spaces
Authors: Olmos Daniel
Published: September 2024

As US colleges and universities become increasingly diverse but remain plagued by socioeconomic inequities, campuses continue to be sites of struggle for making higher education as a democratic public sphere for social justice. This chapter reflects on these contests, examining a multiyear faculty effort to promote social justice education and activism at a large regional public Hispanic serving institution—California State University—Northridge. While addressing the tensions between social justice and the neoliberal university, the chapter explores the organizational and pedagogical dimensions of a faculty-led social justice initiative as an expression of insubordinate spaces. It examines its curricular and cocurricular impact on critical thinking, democratic engagement, and political consciousness among traditionally underserved university students of color. It discusses the implications for faculty seeking to promote social justice while under assault by authoritarian forces opposed to democratically engaged and antioppressive education.
Talkin’ Decoloniality Blues
Authors: Dolgon Corey
Published: September 2024

This chapter summarizes and responds to the major themes raised in the published plenary session from the 2020 Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Some of the most preeminent international scholars in the field were asked to frame the current drive to “decolonize” sociology within a historical and political framework. They did so magnificently and set the stage for a powerful conference for colleagues looking to do research and teaching that connects with efforts to create a just and sustainable world. Yet, this postscript suggests researchers must move from theory to practice and consider object examples and opportunities to support radical activity. The dynamic richness of different histories and approaches with actual experiences of revolutionary work can create new ways of thinking about the theory and practice of sociology. But this book—and particularly the plenary’s preceding chapters—suggest that the most important paradigm for a social justice sociology is to embrace local and global liberation movements to encounter and produce epistemological, cognitive, and applied knowledge in struggle and for struggle.
Wins, Losses, and Lessons of Engaged Social Justice Research
Authors: Squires Gregory D.
Published: September 2024

Leading sociologists have long conducted research and applied their work to major social problems and public policy issues. Students have been increasingly finding partners outside of academia to pursue rigorous collaborative social justice research. Sociology as a discipline and profession, however, has been somewhat schizophrenic toward this research, nurturing it in some ways but constituting some of the strongest barriers to its proliferation. This chapter draws four lessons from the author’s pursuit of such inquiry and a reading of other similar ventures. First, there must be great trust among the academic and nonacademic partners. Second, there must be pressure from the bottom up and the top down for this work to proceed and pay off. Third, it is vital to connect the research and partnerships with mainstream institutions. Fourth, universities need to do more to incentivize and less to discourage such engagement.
Creativity Enhancement: A Primer
Authors: Ding Ke , Kenett Yoed N.
Published: September 2024

Creativity is a complex high-order cognitive capacity, involving multiple cognitive processes interacting together in complex dynamics. It holds significant value at both the individual and societal levels, serving as a driving force for innovation and development. Given its significance, can creativity be enhanced? And if so, in which ways and which cognitive and neural mechanisms are impacted by such creativity enhancement? Creativity enhancement seeks to unlock and cultivate individuals’ creative potential through a variety of methods. This involves training on various aspects, such as associative thinking, cognitive flexibility, and problem-solving strategies, as well as various manipulations, such as priming, meditation, improvision, and brain stimulation, with the aim of fostering more creative thinking. Training programs incorporate various practice sessions to facilitate the transfer of acquired creativity-related skills, while manipulation techniques focus on altering momentary cognitive states to enhance or activate a creative mindset. This chapter provides a general overview of the effective methods and potential challenges of creativity enhancement. Future developments may include conducting more in-depth research into the neural mechanisms of creativity, integrating creativity more broadly into education systems, and leveraging technological innovations to provide more personalized and effective enhancement tools.
Perspectives, Positionalities, and Paradigms in Media and Social Justice Scholarship
Authors: Banjo Omotayo O. , Ramasubramanian Srividya
Published: September 2024

This chapter highlights the necessity for media researchers to engage in social justice scholarship and makes a case for an interdisciplinary theoretical approach to examining the relationship between social inequities, media, and social justice outcomes throughout the world. It also makes a case for media scholars to consider creative, innovative multi- and mixed-methods approaches to unpacking social justice-oriented research questions. The chapter reviews 30 contributions from scholars from the Americas to South Asia, and to the African continent, laying a foundation for scholars to critically consider what it looks like to be a scholar–activist within media and communication. The coverage of the work is vast, with much opportunity for scholars to engage from many perspectives, paradigms, and positionalities. This chapter contends that the work of scholar activism is self-reflexive, community-centered, and, most important, collaborative. As such, this volume would be impossible without the collaborative efforts of global scholars who value this work.
Critical Discourse Analysis
Authors: Doshi Marissa Joanna
Published: September 2024

Critical discourse analysis is an inter- and transdisciplinary methodology that aims to expose how power relations operate. Importantly, this analytic approach can not only be used to identify social injustice but also as a framework for understanding how these injustices came to be and how they are being/can be challenged. Critical discourse analysis accomplishes these goals by being a deeply contextual method that takes into account the role of history, politics, economics, etc. in shaping media texts—often the objects of analysis—with attention paid to how form, content, context, and medium work together to create meaning. This chapter examines critical discourse analysis as a methodology for advancing social justice, particularly in the context of analyzing contemporary digital culture such as social media.
Mediated Socioeconomic Injustice
Authors: Corsbie-Massay Charisse L’Pree
Published: September 2024

Socioeconomic class is the complex position of an individual in an economic social hierarchy and is foundational to all forms of justice through equitable distribution of resources. Classism is the individual and institutional belief systems and practices that assign value to people according to their socioeconomic ranking. In the United States, the ideology of the American Dream and the assumption that hard work is always rewarded with socioeconomic advancement have cultivated a series of stereotypes about poverty and poor people. Through media content, these stereotypes are fleshed into archetypes, which are then used to rationalize ongoing socioeconomic injustices. Drawing on examples from advertising, journalism, entertainment, and digital content, this chapter describes three media archetypes of people in different socioeconomic classes—lower classes as scary, working classes as lazy, and upper classes as saviors—as well as the implications of these representations for social justice in the 21st century.
Heroes of the Border
Authors: Ramirez Anthony R.
Published: September 2024

In the United States, Mexican immigration is constantly a hot topic in the news and within politics, and it is also found in various forms of media and popular culture. This chapter focuses on one of those forms of popular culture, comic books and graphic novels. Using Latina/o critical communication theory as a theoretical approach, the chapter analyzes two series of comic books and graphic novels (El Peso Hero: Border Stories [2016]; El Peso Hero: Borderland [2019]; and Home [2021]) that focus centrally on immigration and Mexican immigration into the United States. The chapter discusses a variety of themes of Latine identity, representation, and border immigration found within these comic books using textual analysis, but it specifically discusses the use of counternarratives. Creators of these comic books use counternarratives to break negative racialized stereotypical tropes found within border related media.
Authoritarianism’s Historical Entanglements
Authors: Slater Dan
Published: September 2024

Authoritarianism, defined residually as the absence of democracy, has been around throughout human history and has always been the form of rule under which most humans live. But defined positively, as the active suppression of political pluralism and opposition, authoritarianism arose in tandem with the modern state as an apparatus for containing mass politics: no modern state and no mass politics, no modern authoritarianism. This chapter distinguishes modern authoritarianism from earlier forms of nondemocratic rule, tracing the evolution of modern authoritarianism primarily as a response to the historical rise of popular sovereignty and the territorial state during the age of revolutions. Adequately understanding authoritarian regimes both past and present requires appreciation of their triple historical entanglement in world-historical time, in historical sequences, and in their own historical origins.
People judge others more harshly after talking to bots
Authors: Tey Kian Siong , Mazar Asaf , Tomaino Geoff , Duckworth Angela L , Ungar Lyle H
Published: September 2024

People now commonly interact with Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents. How do these interactions shape how humans perceive each other? In two preregistered studies (total N = 1,261), we show that people evaluate other humans more harshly after interacting with an AI (compared with an unrelated purported human). In Study 1, participants who worked on a creative task with AIs (versus purported humans) subsequently rated another purported human's work more negatively. Study 2 replicated this effect and demonstrated that the results hold even when participants believed their evaluation would not be shared with the purported human. Exploratory analyses of participants’ conversations show that prior to their human evaluations they were more demanding, more instrumental and displayed less positive affect towards AIs (versus purported humans). These findings point to a potentially worrisome side effect of the exponential rise in human–AI interactions.