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Transforming power: New book by Judy Rebick
Hello! Good news from Judy Rebick a long term activist from Canada. She just published a new book on “Transforming Power”, her reflections came from the organizing emerging at the Global Movement taking particular attention to the role and the organizing though technology. I met Judy Rebick through the Networked Politics collaborative research (http://www.networked-politics.info) and enjoy particularly her framing of the movements from a feminist perspective, her curiosity for the new and the combination of ideas from several perspectives, and her strong caracter. See below more info on the new book. In solidarity! Mayo
Judy Rebick is very excited about her new book Transforming Power: From the Personal to the Political, which is coming out in early March. Transforming Power is the result of the last two or three years of her travels around the world looking for new approaches to political and social action and her life time of experience as an activist. She is hoping it will inspire dialogue and action about the new paths to social change we need to transform this planet and create a better world.
You can get a preview of the book at our very cool new web site www.transformingpower.ca. You can pre-order the book there which will help to create a buzz as she move into the book tour in March and April, you can read her new blog, and you can browse through videos and photos of the people and organizations featured in the book.
Below is a list of book events.
March 10th – Ottawa Launch – Raw Sugar Café
March 12th – Toronto Launch – Ryerson University
March 25th – Montreal Launch – Concordia
March 26th – Halifax Launch – Mount Saint Vincent
April 2nd – Calgary Launch – Location TBA
April 3rd – Edmonton Launch – Public Interest Alberta Conference
Vancouver dates to be announced
Book launch event details (places, times) are available here:
Hello!
Two good news today. First, and importantly!!!, Interface launched its first number. Interface is a new journey that combine peer-reviewed quality with open access format. Furthermore, Interface is conceived as a journey “FOR and about social movements” and aims to build bridges between research and action.
The birth of Interface makes me very very happy. I think it is to be celebrated the birth of research journeys that reject the commercialization of research and knowledge and choose to be openly accessible. To reinforce open access is to me the priority now, individually and collectively. We need to develop a”critical mass” that adopt open access and show that it is absurd the actual system of distribution of research results.
The second, less important, good new is that Interface team accepted an article by me on “Action research: mapping the nexus of research and political action”. I feel very proud that my firts peer-reviewed articles appears in an open access journey.
Hope that you enjoy Interface!! Mayo
Interface: a journal for and about social movements
Issue one: “movement knowledge”
The first issue of Interface, a multilingual, open access and global e-journal produced by social movement practitioners and engaged movement researchers, is now available at www.interfacejournal.net. The special theme of this issue is “movement knowledge”: what movements know, how they produce knowledge, what they do with it and how it can make a difference.
Articles in this issue include:
Laurence Cox, Cristina Flesher Fominaya, Editorial: movement knowledge
Mayo Fuster Morell, Action research: mapping the nexus of research and political action
Budd Hall, A river of life: learning and environmental social movements
Sandra Maria Gadelha de Carvalho / José Ernandi Mendes, Extensão universitária: compromisso social, resistência e produção de conhecimentos (Continuing education: social commitment, resistance and the production of knowledge)
Ilse Scherer-Warren, Redes para a (re)territorialização de espaços de conflito: os casos do MST e MTST no Brasil (Networks for the reterritorialisation of spaces of conflict: the cases of the Brazilian MST and MTST)
Antonio Pedro Dores, Movimentos sociais existem? (Do social movements exist?)
Michael Duckett, “Wor diary”: a case of DIY alternative history (action note)
Süreyyya Evren, Alternative publishing experiences in Istanbul (action note)
Caspar Davis, Creative democracy – wisdom councils at work (action note)
Alejandrina Reyes, La sistematizacion de experiencias y la vision emergente en el hecho educativo (teaching / research note)
David Landy, The mirror stage of movement intellectuals? Jewish criticism of Israel and its relationship to a developing social movement (review essay)
Fergal Finnegan, Janet Conway, Praxis and politics (book review)
A call for papers for issue two is now open, on the theme of “civil society versus social movements”. Full details at
http://www.interfacejournal.net/2009/01/call-for-papers-civil-society-vs-social.html
Interface is looking for new participants for its various regional / linguistic groups. We are particularly keen to find IT collaborators who can help us make the site more useful and accessible, and translators to support our multilingual project. Our overall aim is to “learn from each other’s struggles”: to develop a dialogue between researchers and practitioners, but also between different social movements, intellectual traditions and national contexts.
Contact details at:
http://www.interfacejournal.net/2008/03/editorial-contacts.html
Historical Change
It was an amazing night! I went to the Elections Party at Oakland. Oakland is closed to Berkeley and it is mainly black population. People were so happy!, but more than happy. There were very deep feelings: liberation of long time sufferings; opened eyes for fraternity; awareness of history. Specially the old and black people. People crying, people dancing in the streets. People looking to each others eyes, saying: “Can you believe this? It is so great!. We did it! We did it! We did it!” The days before, the polls were saying that Obama was going to win, however people didn’t want to believe it until they really see it.
A white women activist said: “Oh My god, I had been fighting for this my entire life”.
A black grandmother socked me specially. She was going around saying “I need a hug”, “I need a hug”, and hugging everybody and saying one time after another: “I am so happy for my grandchildren” “I am so happy for my grandchildren”. Black and white children were just playing around, with Obama t-shirts, but ignoring what this day could mean for their future lifes.
No more Bush – the end of the monsters era – … but, it is more than that!. Historical change with a black person – one of the categories of excluded collectives – representing the whole; the crisis (anticipated by the Global Movement) opening up the possibilities to change in the economical system; energy in the air; new technologies enlarging the scale of people that can be reached and mobilized; new free culture proactive generations.
I think the Global Movement or any source looking for changing the world needs to reflect about this new context. People who thought they “have” the solution or that the solution is already written need to open their minds. It is time to leave the pass away; of a post-Seattle cycle; to refund the movements with a new larger alliance; work with people and sectors we don’t know; breaking movements barriers; protagonism of the colors; build a global scope; synergy between different political strategies. Three keywords in the immediate agenda: Crisis; Climate Change and Free Knowledge.
Change depends on us! … All of us.
Mayo
