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The book "Scholar Activism and Land Struggles" by Saturnino M. Borras Jr. and Jennifer C. Franco explores the role and challenges faced by scholar-activists working on agrarian issues and the struggle for land. The authors argue for the importance of political involvement and the production of knowledge by critical researchers within academic institutions and independent research institutions. They also discuss the historical context of agrarian debates and the global perspective of these debates from a decolonial standpoint. The book provides a classification of different types of scholar-activists and proposes the formation of a global movement of agrarian scholar-activists based on solidarity and internationalism. The authors emphasize the need for self-reflection and critical analysis in both academic and activist spaces. Overall, the book offers valuable insights into the complexities of agrarian struggles and the potential for social change. [Extracted from the article]

The book "Women from the South: Poetics of the Encounter with Asia and Africa" focuses on the experiences of women researchers from Latin America who study Asia and Africa. The authors aim to challenge Western, colonial, and patriarchal perspectives in academia and emphasize the importance of the researcher's subjectivity in producing knowledge. The book raises questions about the implications of conducting research from the Global South and explores the researchers' experiences of otherness. It advocates for South-South dialogues and decolonial feminisms, making valuable contributions to academia and social movements. [Extracted from the article]

"The Wretched of France: The 1983 March for Equality and Against Racism" by Abdellali Hajjat, translated by Andrew Brown, is a timely and significant contribution to the study of political anti-racism, social movements, and police violence against postcolonial minorities. The book focuses on the 1983 March for Equality and Against Racism, led by young people of mainly North African origin in Lyon, France. It explores the socio-economic exclusion and racial discrimination that led to the march, as well as its impact and legacy. The author also draws parallels between this movement and other anti-racist struggles globally. The book provides valuable insights for scholars interested in racism, anti-racist collective action, police violence, and social movements. [Extracted from the article]

This essay discusses three recent publications in settler colonial studies, with a specific focus on Israel. The books explore various aspects of settler colonialism in Palestine-Israel, including the evolution of Jewish national consciousness, the relationship between Israel and other Anglo-European settler colonies, and the support for ongoing settler colonization. The first book, "Jewish Anti-fascism and the false promise of settler colonialism" by Max Kaiser, examines the Australian Jewish anti-fascist left and its critique of white supremacist settler colonialism. The second book, "The Oldest Guard" by Liora R. Halperin, challenges the dominant narrative of left-wing settlers in Israel and highlights the hierarchical relationship between settlers and Palestinians. These books provide valuable insights into settler colonialism and its impact on different communities. The text also discusses the history and current state of Israeli settler colonialism in Palestine, emphasizing the role of private land acquisition by settlers and the erasure of Palestinian history. It further examines the post-state Israeli settler movement, its strategies and tactics, and its political influence and support. The text concludes by emphasizing the importance of studying settler colonialism in relation to right-wing populism and exploring transnational political coordination among settler colonial societies. [Extracted from the article]

Danelle Van Zyl-Hermann's book, "Privileged Precariat: White Workers and South Africa's Long Transition to Majority Rule," offers a comprehensive study of the white working class in late twentieth-century South Africa. The book examines the fall and rise of the white working class, particularly the Mineworkers' Union (now called the Solidarity Movement), and their engagement in capital accumulation. Van Zyl-Hermann challenges the notion of whiteness as homogeneous and explores the impact of neoliberal policies on trade union revitalization. The book also discusses the transformation of the MWU into the Solidarity Movement and its strategies for mobilizing working-class whites. However, the book leaves some questions unanswered, such as the experiences of white women and a comparative analysis of precarity between the black and white working class. [Extracted from the article]

"The Huthi Movement in Yemen: Ideology, Ambition and Security in the Arab Gulf" is a comprehensive book edited by Abdullah Hamidaddin that provides an in-depth analysis of the Huthi movement in Yemen. The book covers various topics, including the Huthi political ideology, societal transformations introduced by the Huthis, their efforts to transform state institutions, and the regional repercussions of their rise. The chapters in the book offer a multidimensional context and are well-written, engaging, and coherent. While the book could have incorporated more local perspectives and a theoretical framework, it is still a valuable resource for Middle East scholars and students, as well as those interested in revolutionary social movements and rebel groups. [Extracted from the article]

This book review discusses "The JDP and making the post-kemalist secularism in Turkey" by Pinar Kandemir. The author explores the evolution of Turkish secularism, particularly focusing on the influence of the Justice and Development Party (JDP) on religious practices. The book highlights the JDP's role in reshaping Turkish secularism post-Ataturk and presents a fresh perspective on secular governance in Turkey. It examines topics such as the political history of Turkey, the veil debate, and the JDP's approach to secularism and religious education. The book offers valuable insights into Turkey's socio-political landscape and contributes to the understanding of social movements, political parties, civil society, the state, and ideology in Turkey. [Extracted from the article]

Asli Zengin's book, "Violent Intimacies: The Trans Everyday and the Making of an Urban World," provides an ethnographic exploration of trans communities in Turkey, particularly in Istanbul. Zengin examines the societal norms and structures that perpetuate violence and marginalization against trans individuals, including the street, police, medical institutions, legal systems, and family dynamics. The book also contextualizes these experiences within the historical and political landscape of Turkey, addressing topics such as neoliberalism, gentrification, identitarian social movements, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Zengin's work offers a postcolonial perspective and highlights the resilience and creativity of trans communities amidst adversity. The book is recommended for graduate students studying theories of power, gender, and postcolonialism, as well as those interested in Turkish studies. [Extracted from the article]

Review of the Handbook of Critical Environmental Politics: edited by Luigi Pellizzoni, Emanuele Leonardi, and Viviana Asara, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, 2022, xvii + 648 pp., index. Crucially, the text does especially well to draw on decolonial perspectives throughout (Ferdinand, p. 40; Bresnihan & Millner, p. 521) which challenge hegemonic Western definitions of knowledge, the good life and "Nature". By contrast, Blühdorn chapter "Sustainability" critically examines the hegemonic sustainable development paradigm. [Extracted from the article]

"Organize, Fight, Win: Black Communist Women's Political Writing" is a compilation of primary writings by Black women involved in the American communist movement between 1919 and 1956. The editors argue that these writings offer valuable insights into practical and theoretical lessons for contemporary organizers. The book focuses on the material conditions and experiences of Black workers, highlighting issues such as working conditions, discrimination, and economic hardships. It avoids anachronistic links to contemporary concepts and instead emphasizes a materialist analysis centered on structural change. This book would be of interest to researchers and those interested in grassroots organizing and the impact of race on mobilization. [Extracted from the article]

"Rebel Populism: Revolution and Loss among Syrian Labourers in Beirut" by Philip Proudfoot is a book that explores the experiences of male Syrian migrant workers in Beirut during the Syrian revolution. The book provides a close-to-the-ground account of the uprising and its different stages, focusing on the lives of these migrant laborers who were connected to their home country through regular movement and electronic communication. The book examines how the neoliberalization of the state in Syria and the abandonment of rural areas contributed to the uprising, as well as the ways in which these laborers participated in the revolution from abroad through the production and circulation of revolutionary art and martyrdom images. It also delves into the effects of the uprising and its disintegration on the lives of these laborers, including their struggles with masculinity and the transformation of their rebel populist feelings into conspiratorial sectarian readings. The book offers a compassionate and in-depth portrayal of the lives of these laborers and touches upon various themes and concepts, making it valuable for scholars interested in the Syrian revolution, the Arab uprisings, and populism. It is also recommended for those studying labor migration, the precariat, and social movements in the Middle East. [Extracted from the article]

I The Social Movement Archive i is a collection of interviews and reproductions of political ephemera from American social movements compiled by information workers and volunteers at the Interference Archive[1] Jen Hoyer and Nora Almeida. As some interviewees highlight (37, 63, 169), although the tangible and material traces of social movements are no doubt central in the activist archive, it is also imperative for the social movement archive to centre intangible traditions of cultural and knowledge production in social movements (for example, oral histories, performance, storytelling, etc). Notes 1 The Interference Archive is a community-led archive specializing in materials relating to the intersection between activism, social movements, and cultural production. As the authors write, We are less interested in contributing to the growing body of academic, theoretical texts about archives and social movement material than we are in exploring what archives mean to and for activists who are involved in producing cultural ephemera. [Extracted from the article]

"African Women in Digital Spaces: Redefining Social Movements on the Continent and in the Diaspora" is a book that explores how African feminists use social media and digital spaces to resist oppression and build coalitions. The book includes scholarly chapters, poetry, and personal essays that provide diverse perspectives from African women and people of marginalized genders in various countries. It addresses topics such as intersectional experiences, offline and online resistance, and cyberfeminism. The book challenges universalizing assumptions and highlights the active agency of African women in their social movements. It will be useful for graduate students, scholars, and policymakers interested in African feminist organizing. [Extracted from the article]

Though this undertaking is colossal and countless scholars are making efforts to understand and articulate these ideas from various disciplinary backgrounds and through diverse geographic scales, Andaiye was an activist, a woman moved to action, movement. As a first-time reader of Andaiye's works, I felt as though I learned more about her and her heart, what it was that ignited her fire for organizing to live - what she called "survival work" (175). [Extracted from the article]

A similar process occurs in training in agroecology sponsored by the MST, which on the one hand creates conditions for young activists to identify with agroecology as a political project and, on the other hand, has certain organizational practices that undermine their ability to convince others to do so. Looking beyond appearances: facing contradictions to "scale in" agroecology within social movements: Constructing legitimacy? The micro-sociological analysis conducted by Dr. Lagier exposes conflicts among settlers around agroecology, pointing to a "social rift" between farmers who support agroecology and those who use conventional methods. [Extracted from the article]

Several hundred workers were dismissed for their role in the strike, but a subsequent collective agreement conceded some of the demands made by workers. Following an incident in which fifty striking workers burned the housing facilities of more than 500 workers, a worker was charged with initiating the destruction and imprisoned for 18 days. The central argument of this book is that 'Only a theory of strikes that goes beyond a focus on trade unions and the workplace will be able to grasp the forms of labour conflict that affect the majority of the world population, and the global working class, which lives in non-core countries' (p. 3). [Extracted from the article]

The book is a collection of ethnographic studies across Europe that focus on how food can symbolize identity and the relationship between "food value" and food practices, locally and across regions. In "Food Values in Europe," Valeria Siniscalchi combines her background in "anthropology of economic spaces" with Krista Harper's research experience in food systems, social movements, and urban public spaces to create a comprehensive edited collection on "food projects" in Europe. [Extracted from the article]

Since creation of the franchise in 2000, the Disney Princess phenomenon has frequently been studied and negatively critiqued for the role it plays in the representation of gender. Indeed, Recasting the Disney Princess in the Era of New Media and Social Movement offers a long-overdue analysis of Disney Princess characters while reflecting on the changes in the media landscape and social movements taking place since 2009. [Extracted from the article]

Moreover, Haydu observes, food reformers in each era may have taken different approaches in their efforts to push back against the status quo, but they shared a tendency to "denounce suspect food as unnatural." As Jeffrey Haydu points out in the very first sentence of his new book I Upsetting Food, i "it is not easy to keep up with today's contentious food politics" (1). [Extracted from the article]

In February 1996, the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist launched an armed rebellion in Nepal, a landlocked country surrounded by China and India. Consequently, anthropological analyses of the Maoist revolution in empowering Nepal's marginalized communities have become a recurring theme in Nepal studies. Shadowing freed Kamaiyas working at a brick kiln factory, Hoffmann illustrates the ways in which the Maoist movement altered labor regimes in the region. [Extracted from the article]

While squatting in Sweden may comprise several of these characteristics, in this book Polanska suggests that in this case, a squatting movement has never flourished, in great part related to the harsh repression squatters consistently suffered over time. Concerning this apparent contradiction, among the general conclusions, the author suggests that instead of denying a well-accepted system, squatters strategically address the possibility of amending it (as have different Swedish social movements in the past). Contentious politics and the welfare state: squatting in Sweden: by Dominika V. Polanska, Abingdon, Routledge, 2019, 200 pp., £96.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-138-09171-9 (hbk). [Extracted from the article]

Interest in the state is once again growing in contemporary critical theory, prompted by changes in state power in the neoliberal period and by decentralized social movements' inability to meaningfully impact state policy or carve out autonomous spaces beyond the state's reach. Noting this period of reflexive antistatism since the turn of the millennium, the edited volume The Future of the State rests on two key premises: first, that the ongoing crisis is not just that of the neoliberal state but of the very concept of the state; and second, that the radical Left lacks an affirmative theory of state power and how to exercise it. In the introduction, volume editor Artemy Magun thus points to a project of reviving a theory of the democratic polity and of a possible "state of the future." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wilkerson gives BWC its due as more than a group of women who picketed for their men: it was a grassroots activist organization that was part of a "gender-conscious movement in the coalfields" (162). Jessica Wilkerson's well-researched and insightful book is a valuable addition to Appalachian Studies. [Extracted from the article]

Andy Blunden's I Hegel for Social Movements i is a curious book. Indeed, Blunden concludes: Hegel does not offer any new strategies, guidelines, or models for social movements. Of course, where Blunden talks of Hegel as a "philosopher of social movements", he is therefore, at least in a way, dealing in anachronism (he does not contend that Hegel wrote about social movements I as movements i in a self-conscious way). This process, which Hegel "describes in detail in his Logic" (p. 273) is, for Blunden, the "life-cycle of a project", and the social movement - the contentious claim-making that Tilly identifies - is just a part of this larger whole. [Extracted from the article]

In my review, I will focus on the activist interpretation of Hegel's I Logic i in Andy Blunden's book I Hegel for Social Movements i . Hegel in the Marxist light In his time, Marx wrote that he would greatly like to present Hegel's dialectical method in two or three printer's sheets to make it accessible to the ordinary human intelligence. His first study on the subject, I Meaning of Hegel's Logic i , appeared on the website Marxists Internet Archive in 1997.[1] For many years, Blunden headed the annual Hegel Summer Schools and the Hegel Reading group. Conclusion I believe that the reading of Hegel, proposed in Andy Blunden's new book, does allow us to better understand Hegel's I Logic i . [Extracted from the article]

"Anyone who is interested in social movements should study Hegel." In similar vein, Miettinen argues that Blunden's interpretation of Hegel's notion of objective spirit as material culture downplays the political and moral dimensions of Hegel's social theory. And Hegel's failure himself to engage with social movements ensures that we must be skeptical of Hegel's legacy - and never can or should we say what Hegel really thought or meant when we read Hegel through a modern, social activist lens (we think Blunden could easily be persuaded to agree with this). 2 Hegel's Logic refers to several of Hegel's works, but Blunden recommends mainly the so-called "Shorter Logic" to be found in The Marxist Internet Archive: Hegel ([3]). [Extracted from the article]

Andy Blunden's book is welcome as an invitation for social movement activists to read and study Hegel, who also happens to be one of the theoretical sources of cultural psychology and activity theory. Hegel developed a holistic, historical, social, political and legal theory of the relationship between the individual and society, and of the historical-institutional conditions for human development; a theory that, Andy argues, still is viable today. As Blunden (2019) points out, in the last decades, many Hegel scholars have interpreted Hegel's spirit ( I Weltgeist) i as human activity, or as the history of the human race. The suggestion could be supplemented with advice to read books written by Hegel scholars on different works of Hegel, and on different aspects of his philosophy. [Extracted from the article]

Latin America's restrictive abortion policies underwent uneven change over the past few decades. Moreover, these variables are presented and analyzed in separate sections throughout the book, giving the impression that they are in fact independent and muddling the theoretical usefulness of focusing on movement-government interactions to explain policy reform. Fighting for Abortion Rights in Latin America: Social Movements, State Allies and Institutions: by Cora Fernández Anderson, NewYork, NY, Routledge, 2020, 204 pp., $46.95 (paperback), ISBN: 9780367355968. [Extracted from the article]

The Legal Aid and Advice Act (1949) consolidated the provision of legal advice for those unable to afford professional legal fees with the aim that no one would be financially unable to prosecute a just and reasonable claim. Voluntarism and independence, Bradley concludes, became both the curse and the strength of legal aid and advice provision in the period between 1949 and 1990. This shift, as Bradley notes, signalled a progression towards the 1949 Act which made legal aid part of the welfare system through Elizabeth MacAdam's "new philanthropy" of voluntary action and state partnership. [Extracted from the article]

Robert M. Fishman has devoted a great deal of time to the study of the culture and politics of two societies that are so close, but at the same time so dissimilar, as those of Spain and Portugal. Robert M. Fishman's contributions to the study of the cultural foundations of the dynamics of contention in Spain and Portugal have served as a platform on which many of us have based our analyses of the emergence, development and impact of social movements in those countries. Fishman not only does good sociology but also writes impressively. [Extracted from the article]

If measured by the success of the Labour Party in local and parliamentary elections since 1997, London is now a regional stronghold for the party like many other big cities, but not necessarily "red" in the way Hatherley means. The GLC was first controlled by social democrats in the mould of Morrison, before the New Left under Ken Livingstone took power in 1981, espousing a very different type of locally-based grass-roots socialism. This includes the record of Ken Livingstone, previously socialist "Red Ken" who controversially led the Greater London Council (GLC) in the early 1980s before Thatcher abolished it in 1986, leaving London without its own elected government until New Labour created the less powerful Greater London Authority (GLA) in 2000. [Extracted from the article]

Urban Claims and the Right to the City: Grassroots Perspectives from Salvador Da Bahia and London: Edited by Julian Walker, Marcos Bau Carvalho and Ilinca Diaconescu. In contrast, the authors from Salvador are much more comfortable with Lefebvre, unsurprising perhaps as the 2001 federal law in Brazil, the I City Statute i , provides a legal framework through which urban rights are foundational. This is a collection of grassroots perspectives on urban politics in Salvador, Brazil and London, UK. [Extracted from the article]

What is curious, however, is that Myers, at least by the final chapter, does not offer more thoughts on the need to incorporate powerful theories to better situate public relations history. Myers also argues that "as far back as the 1930s", public relations practitioners advocated that "public relations as a department should be right under the chief executive" (p. 10). To combat this, Myers highlights that other, more nuanced theories like stratification theory and standpoint theory (though he does not use the term) offer a more accurate and thorough view of the development of public relations. [Extracted from the article]