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Today, several social movements in western democracies argue that traditional representative democracy has failed to adequately represent the will of the "people", and instead support direct democracy as the only political system to restore the will of the majority. We analyze under what conditions the policy – a vector of decisions on every issue – implemented by the winner of a bipartisan electoral competition coincides with the policy that citizens would choose by means of direct democracy. We find necessary and sufficient conditions for this equivalence to hold, implying that, as long as at least one of them is not fulfilled, a divergence of outcomes between direct and representative democracy arises. The first condition requires that the outcome of majority voting issue-by-issue is the Condorcet winner relative to the voters' preference profile over the set of policies. The second requires that either that outcome is the preferred policy for at least one of the candidates, or that candidates' preferred policies differ on every single issue. We reinterpret some findings in the literature in the light of our model and present them as potential reasons why the equivalence between direct and representative democracy may fail. • We find necessary and sufficient conditions for the coincidence of policies implemented under direct and representative democracy. • Loosely divided electorates and highly polarized politicians favor such a coincidence. • The bundling of issues by politicians does not jeopardize the coincidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disruptions to transport systems often significantly change travel behaviour. This is especially true when the disruption lasts over an extended period and is accompanied by the massive-scale dysfunction of transit operations. In addition, although attitude is critical for predicting travel behaviour, there is little documentation of changes in attitudes towards transit modes and the factors influencing such changes during a transit system disruption. Furthermore, few studies have investigated how social movements can exert a pronounced disrupting effect on a transit system. To fill these research gaps and provide policy recommendations for a more responsive contingency plan in response to future transit system disruptions, our study aims to investigate this issue based on the case of Hong Kong during the 2019 social movement. We collected a questionnaire survey representing the period from late June to early July 2020, a few months after the end of the protests. Using structural equation models, we have examined how people's attitudes towards different transit modes changed during the social movement. Our findings highlight that people's perception of the city's urban rail system – the Mass Transit Railway, which the government has a significant stake in and control over – worsened significantly during the transit disruption, but the effects were less pronounced for bus and mini-bus. In addition, attitudes towards the social movement were found to vary significantly across social groups, a finding linked to people's attitudes towards different transit modes. Importantly, our study reveals that people's views of social movements can significantly determine how they evaluate impacted and alternative transport modes during transit disruptions. These newly revealed attitudinal dimensions should be fully considered in predicting behavioural change and adjusting transit services under similar conditions. • Examined the attitudinal dimensions during transit disruption caused by social movement. • During the disruption, people' attitudes towards transit modes changed markedly. • Attitudes towards the social movement influenced people's attitudes of transit modes. • Political views should be considered when arranging transit service during social movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around the globe the amount and frequency of social protests have been increasing. However, we do not fully understand when such protests are effective. This is in part due to conflicting findings in the literature, and the lack of a framework that can integrate these divergent findings about why types of social protests are effective. We introduce a framework for evaluating effectiveness of social protest made up of three components: (i) what types of action are being considered; (ii) what target audience is being affected; and (iii) what outcomes are being evaluated? We apply our framework to organize the literature, and in doing so find a pattern that suggests that normative nonviolent forms of action may be most effective in mobilizing sympathetic target audiences, and more extreme disruptive action may be effective at motivating policy concessions from resistant target audiences. Around the world, people engage in social protests aimed at addressing major societal problems. Certain protests have led to significant progress, yet other protests have resulted in little demonstrable change. We introduce a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of social protest made up of three components: (i) what types of action are being considered; (ii) what target audience is being affected; and (iii) what outcomes are being evaluated? We then review relevant research to suggest how the framework can help synthesize conflicting findings in the literature. This synthesis points to two key conclusions: that nonviolent protests are effective at mobilizing sympathizers to support the cause, whereas more disruptive protests can motivate support for policy change among resistant individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the determinants of people's attention to climate change in Italy. We propose a Twitter-based indicator consistent with traditional survey data but potentially available at a higher frequency and spatial granularity. We show that attention to climate change is heterogeneous across the country and correlated with socioeconomic characteristics and social capital. Mass media and social movements have a relevant impact on people's attention about climate change while the effect of private experience – proxied by the occurrence of extreme weather events – is more limited. • In recent years, attention to climate change has urged, accompanied by a worsening of the overall sentiment about the issue • Attention to climate change correlates with socioeconomic characteristics, media coverage, and social movement initiatives • Heat waves draw attention to climate change, while cold waves merely shape weather discussions • Experiencing an extreme weather event has a limited, but still significant, impact on the attention to climate change [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do individuals make sense of the specific issues that motivate them when they participate in activism? Are there clear and consistent patterns of motivations among participants and organizers within a movement over time? This paper applies network methods to a unique dataset to understand the relationships and structure formed among the issues that activists cited as motivation for their participation in a series of climate-related demonstrations over a three-year period. We test whether these networks of issue motivations form coherent structures, and whether they reflect the growing emphasis on social justice within the climate movement. Our findings highlight the coherence in the structure of relationships among motivations to participate, especially the centrality of 'Equality' as a motivation within our sampled cycle of contention. • We summarize key findings from 4 surveys of Climate Resistance activists in 2017, 2019, and 2020 events. • We use entailment analysis to look at networks of motivations at each of these events. • We find stable relationships occur within and between samples supporting the notion of a 'relational culture' of motivations. • We discuss what these findings mean in terms of the literature and the future of the environmental movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entendre des voix est une expérience encore largement stigmatisée et interprétée sous le prisme de la psychopathologie. Pour autant, les personnes ayant ces vécus ne se reconnaissent pas nécessairement dans les classifications psychiatriques existantes. C'est ainsi qu'est né un mouvement social, baptisé Hearing Voices Movement, qui vise la réappropriation de ce phénomène d'entente de voix sur un versant normatif. À travers l'étude de ce mouvement, cet article revient sur les conceptualisations de l'entente de voix du point de vue de la psychiatrie et de l'approche phénoménologique. L'histoire de ce mouvement et les revendications sur lesquelles ce dernier s'est construit restent marquées par les rapports que ce mouvement entretient avec les approches cliniques. Des innovations terminologiques indiquent la volonté d'émancipation du champ psychiatrique. Les dernières décennies ont connu une transformation de la représentation de l'entente de voix qui permet de réfléchir à de nouvelles formes d'accompagnement par les professionnels de la santé, ce qui n'est pas sans soulever un certain nombre de problématiques cliniques nouvelles, notamment quant aux alliances possibles entre usagers et soignants. Voices hearing is still an stigmatized experience, generally interpreted through the prism of psychopathology. This experience remains associated with serious disorders, including schizophrenia. Today, the latest edition of the DSM-5 attests to the evolution of international psychiatric classifications regarding the place given to these phenomena. These transformations indicate an evolution of the caregiving body on this experience, even if the notion of psychopathological disorder still hovers. Furthermore, this article explores the conceptualization of hearing voices both from psychiatric and from phenomenological perspectives. Despite these recent nosographic developments, the care of people hearing voices has been the subject of criticism and controversy from users of psychiatry. Thus has emerged in this context a social movement, called Hearing Voices , which aim is the reappropriation of this phenomenon on a normative level. People with these experiences do not recognize themselves in existing psychiatric classifications. We review the burgeoning literature on which they rely, which tends to argue that voices are a fairly common experience that occurs independently of a mental illness. Added to this are the many criticisms regarding the care of people experiencing voices (psychiatric abuse, poor effectiveness of drug treatments with significant side effects, etc.). The voices are thus considered to carry meaning for the hearers and in order to understand this meaning, a dialogue seeks to be established with them. Distinctions are made on these experiences, since if some voices generate suffering or any form of pressure on individuals, this would not be the case for all voices where some would be positive or neutral. Distinctions are made on these experiences, since if voices generate suffering or any form of pressure on individuals, this would not be the case for all voices or some would be positive for people. Over the past several decades, this movement has grown globally as voices hearers and users of psychiatry from various countries have built their own organizations to defend the values of the movement on a national level. In addition, these people retrace their steps with the care services in order to offer support that they deem more appropriate to their needs. With this in mind, self-help groups for voice hearers have sprung up. There is a strong heterogeneity from one group to another. Some are carried by users, others by caregivers listening to the claims that have been made by the movement. However, this diversity makes it difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of this group. The creation of self-help groups for voice-hearers by caregivers is proof of their willingness to offer support that meets the needs that may have been claimed, but it raises new questions. Is it possible to elaborate on these experiences when the people who continue to "facilitate" the groups are the same people who have been linked to a form of abuse? The history of this movement remains marked by the relationship with the care approaches that have been proposed to it until today. This has led to a transformation of the representation of voice understanding on a transdiagnostic and neutral side. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food production and supply have been affected by several contemporary phenomena. They have stimulated movements for the social construction of alternative markets in urban centres, which reflect the growing interest of consumers in the quality of food and increased the demand for organic and agroecological products. The present article uses the theoretical approach of social innovation to investigate the emergence of trajectories that organize networks and articulate production, supply and purchase of superior biological quality food in the Florianopólis Metropolitan Area and beyond, Southern Brazil which we identify as an agrifood citizenship network. The research was developed through participatory methodologies, using interviews, participant observation and the use of databases. We verified that organizations and networks have been acting interdependently, generating social innovations. We've shown that actors create relations of proximity through markets, which are explained by the network articulation in groups of farmers, social organizations and public institutions. From the rural areas, this social innovation emerges in the form of an agrifood citizenship network, directly related to the trajectory of organizations and network focused on agroecology and short food supply chains. • Investigate how rural social actors contribute to the innovation trajectories in SFSC. • Participatory method to investigate construction of markets of superior quality food. • Actors creating proximity through markets, in a agrifood citizenship network. • Social innovation emerging from rural areas, through trajectory of agroecology actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Investigate the role of facial muscle movements in lie detection using an experimental task with high ecological validity. • We found the muscles related to lie detection were consistent with those with high frequency occurring in micro-expression. • Propose a vector-based sequential forward selection algorithm to identify the muscles most closely associated with lying. • Micro-expressions analysis could improve lie detection performance by focusing on the forehead, eyebrows, and cheeks. Micro-expression, which is generated by facial muscle movements, could be a crucial cue for deception detection. In the existed research investigating the relationship between facial muscles and deception detection, researchers have focused almost exclusively on two muscles, i.e., zygomaticus and corrugator supercilii, based on the theoretical basis that they are highly associated with positive and negative expressions. However, the aim of this study is to demonstrate the direct relationship between facial muscle movements and deception detection. Addressing this issue, this paper proposes an experimental paradigm with high ecological validity that uses electromyography (EMG) signals to precisely examine the role of facial muscle movements in deception detection. Moreover, we propose a vector-based sequential forward selection (VSFS) algorithm to identify the muscle (or muscle combination) most closely associated with lying. Based on our proposed approach, the importance of seven selected facial muscles was explored by comparing the corresponding facial EMG (fEMG) between truth and lying conditions. First, the present study found that the zygomaticus and corrugator supercilii could play important roles in deception detection, and our findings are consistent with existed research. Second, the experiment result verified that the muscles related to deception detection were consistent with those with higher frequency occurring in micro-expression. Moreover, the present study provides a theoretical basis that intelligent micro-expressions analysis could improve the lie detection performance by focusing on the area of the forehead, eyebrows, and cheeks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Existing definitions limit extractivism's analytical and political potential. • These inadequately address the Honduran economy and social movement demands. • A definition must enrich debates and enable binding policy, e.g. bans of extractivism. • Energy generation, undertheorized in extractivism literature, provides key lessons. • Colonialist logics and practices of resource extraction constitute extractivism. Over the last decade, "extractivism" has become one of the most prominent issues in Latin American politics and beyond. Social movements have positioned themselves against, and alternative to, extractivism, and scholars from multiple disciplines have analyzed it. Part of a broader research agenda focused on how alternatives to extractivism emerge and grow, this article grapples with the basic questions: what is "extractivism" and for what is this term useful? Existing definitions and studies of extractivism are found to be in tension with experiences of activist research conducted with anti- and post-extractivist movements in Honduras. The article proposes a revised definition and defends it through theoretical and macro-economically based critiques, as well as a case study. The review challenges three prevalent conceptions of extractivism: as a particular type of extraction, as a development model, and as anything deemed "extractive". Suggesting that entire countries or the entire world circulate around extractivism, the latter two definitions follow a trend termed extractocentrism. Meanwhile, the characteristics of Honduras's economy and the experiences of social movements in Honduras show all three definitions to be limited in political utility. A movement to declare municipalities free of extractivism demonstrates the challenges of extractivism's ambiguous and often totalizing definition. The revised definition emphasizes colonialism but not the north/south dualism, specifies activities but de-emphasizes export, and ends in alternatives rather than extractocentrism. Thus, this paper provides insights to reconceptualize one of the most significant terms used to describe the central issues in nature/society relationships in Latin America, and increasingly elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2020 Deutsche Bank published a report entitled "The Age of Disorder." Fronted dramatically by the image of a volcano and volley of lightning across a brooding sky, the report warned that the global economy was on the precipice of a phase shift from neo-liberal quasi-stability to an era characterized by dramatic social, economic, and ecological upheavals. Deutsche Bank's researchers call this new period "the age of disorder". This paper proposes Deutsche Bank's appraisal is part of a broader condition that it calls capitalist catastrophism and an emerging regime of eco-apartheid. Taking as its point of departure Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright's call for geographers to construct concepts that might help navigate a hotter planet, the paper introduces capitalist catastrophism as a concept that names and theorizes the effects of a dramatic and asymmetrically catastrophic reconfiguration of the capitalist world-system. Capitalist catastrophism has three characteristics. First, a newfound ability for social movements and theorists to imagine post-capitalist futures combined with an inability to realize them. Second, cascading and mutually amplifying social and ecological crises that outrun the capacities of states and capital to contain them. Third, an unevenly distributed cancellation of human and non-human futures. Drawing on Marxist political economy and Nyasha Mboti's theorization of apartheid, the paper concludes that capitalist catastrophism is resolving itself into a global system of eco-apartheid in which a green transition for some is secured by putting the exploited and oppressed majority in harm's way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high overdose mortality rates in the United States poses several questions: Why have they been increasing exponentially since 1979? Why are they so high? And how can they be greatly reduced? Building on past research, the causes of the increase seem to be deeply rooted in US social and economic structures and processes, rather than due only to opioid prescription patterns or the advent of synthetic opioids. Given this, we consider what changes might be needed to reverse the exponentially-increasing overdose mortality. We use a path dependency argument to argue that the United States political, economic, and public health systems have helped create this crisis and, unfortunately, continue to heighten it. These same systems suggest that proposals to expand harm reduction and drug treatment capacity, to decriminalize or legalize drugs, or to re-industrialize the country sufficiently to reduce "communities of despair" will not be enacted at a scale sufficient to end the overdose crisis. We thus suggest that in the United States serious improvements in overdose rates and related policies and structures require massive social movements with a broad social change agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• An actor- and practice-oriented approach can fill theoretical gaps in actors-driven sustainable and just transitions. • Grassroots movements need to accumulate diverse types of social capitals essential to foster transitions. • Social capitals are accumulated and depleted through social interfaces between different arenas affecting niche and regime constellations. • Conflicts and critical moments can have a constructive dimension by opening windows of opportunity to reconfigure power asymmetries in societal systems. Water conflicts open windows of opportunity for grassroots movements to transform water systems. However, academic fields studying social movements in socio-environmental conflicts are not well equipped to deal with complexity, non-linear dynamics, and emergent properties. Therefore, these fields rarely engage with long-term complex social processes and dynamics leading to systemic socio-technical changes. Researching water conflicts driven by grassroots movements, we ask whether and how the latter can influence a socio-technical transition of a water management regime. Through an emblematic water conflict in Mexico, we analyse the grassroots movement's trajectory since the conflict´s inception by following the dynamic process of developing agency. Our findings show that throughout the conflict, the grassroots movement accumulated and mobilized diverse capitals to initiate water management strategies and practices that catalysed change in the water management regime by stalling the implementation of large infrastructures. Eventually, this led to the inception of a sustainable and just transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social movement scholarship has long attempted to apprehend the dynamic qualities of social movements. Considering the temporal embeddedness of social movement activities is essential because it leads to an understanding of continuity and change in the content and form of social movements in the long run. Because the past, the present, and the future are co-defined, more attention should be paid to the way different time frames shape one another. In this article, we focus our attention on the influence of visions of the future on present practices. Drawing on qualitative research mainly in Belgium, France, and Germany, we explore how projected climate-just futures influence the practices of grassroots climate justice organizations in the present. For this purpose, we center our analysis on a macro-level vision that depicts a climate-just world as a world where domination systems (aka. capitalism, colonialism, or patriarchy) have been replaced in order to let a more egalitarian society strive. We use the concept of prefiguration to illustrate how this vision transforms organizing and mobilizing activities. Such transformative effects are exemplified in attempts at developing an alternative organizational culture and building alliances with marginalized groups, with more or less success. • We identify one widespread vision of climate justice that permeates a lot of activist organizations in Europe. • This vision is based on a systemic analysis of the roots and drivers of climate change and vulnerability to the latter. • This vision shapes the organizing and mobilizing practices of grassroots organizations in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the Covid-19 pandemic exposes the vulnerabilities of our globalised agri-food system, local sustainable food alternatives, such as community-supported agriculture (CSA), are on the rise. In CSA local farmers and households co-produce food sustainably and independently of the market. CSA's benefits and shortcomings are well-understood but we know little about how larger CSA networks can expand and consolidate the practice at scale. This paper investigates the UK CSA network, showing its ability to upscale, outscale and downscale CSA through institutionalisation, replication and politicization, before discussing the network's strategic limitations and dependencies. • The pandemic has fuelled interest in community supported agriculture (CSA) in the UK. • CSA networks engage not just in business exchange but political activism and advocacy. • CSA can be scaled up, out and down via institutionalisation, diffusion and education. • The UK CSA network has greatly expanded in size and tactical scope in the past year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from Peck and Tickell's (2002) theory of roll-back and roll-out neoliberalism and Brenner et al.'s (2010) theory of variegated neoliberalism, this paper uses comparative historical analysis to understand how the state of Wisconsin suppressed its legacy of progressive environmentalism and embraced neoliberal policy over time. Specifically, this paper examines the rapid expansion of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in Wisconsin's dairy industry since 1995. As these large CAFOs have grown in size, so have the social and environmental problems related to their use, including pollution of drinking water sources for rural communities. Based on analysis of newspaper articles between 1965-2010, I observed that that a turning point towards neoliberalism occurred with the demise of the Office of the Public Intervenor (OPI), a legally designated adversarial force unique to the state that was created in 1967 after a powerful coalition of environmental social movements defeated an attempt to merge the offices of development and environmental protection. Despite the continuous efforts of industry, the effort to weaken environmental regulations and institutions in Wisconsin failed not only in 1967, but in 1984 as well. However, by 1995, immediately after the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the state switched their support from populist environmental social movements to industry. Through deregulation, elimination of the OPI, and the gradual dissolution of environmental social movements, the state of Wisconsin created the conditions that enabled CAFOs to expand without the "burden" of environmental regulation. Subsequently, through re-regulation, Wisconsinites lost access to legal remedies that could curb polluting practices of large CAFOs. This research is part of a larger project to understand the environmental impacts of regulatory failure in the Core as states in the Global North continue to adopt neoliberal environmental policy. • Industry in Wisconsin failed in their attempts to de/reregulate environmental regulationsuntil 1995. • Deregulation included termination of the Public Intervenor (OPI)- an environmental watchdog agency created in 1967. • De/reregulation led by the state encouraged the rapid growth of CAFOs despite the pollution they cause in rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Local communities create political spaces of engagement in hydropower planning. • Social movements can influence local communities' responses to hydropower planning. • Collective action is key to increase affected communities' bargaining power. • Farm households' individual strategies lead to sub-optimal outcomes. Concerns over hydropower development in the Mekong River Basin and elsewhere include not only the overall impacts of dams on basin ecology and economy but also more site-specific impacts on affected communities. While hydropower development is impacting the livelihoods of local communities living along the river, the latter's views and concerns are often sidelined by top-down hydropower planning. Nonetheless, local communities create and shape their political spaces of engagements in relation to hydropower decision making across scales, albeit through various means and with different results. Taking the planned Pak Beng hydropower dam as a case study and building on the concept of institutional bricolage, we look at: 1) local communities' responses in Thailand and Laos, including how these are influenced by social movements; 2) how these responses are translated into collective action (or the lack thereof), including in relation to local communities' (in)ability to negotiate better compensation for their to be impacted livelihoods; and 3) how local communities strategies are embedded in the wider political context and different manifestations of state-citizens relations. We argue that while affected farm households can pursue their interests to secure proper compensation through individual means, this leads to sub-optimal outcomes for affected communities collectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extractive industries often promise prosperity to less economically developed regions of the world. However, projects that rely on extractive industries such as mining often pose significant environmental threats to the host regions. The tension between economic promises and environmental impacts can spark significant conflict in rural communities. This study analyzes a proposed mining project in Roșia Montană, Romania, which pitted pro-mining proponents against local residents and activists. The data from this project come from in-depth interviews, company and NGO documents and extensive newspaper coverage of the proposed mine. The research examines how political threats can exacerbate environmental threats in cases of rural protest movements, as well as how the confluence of opportunities and threats shaped resistance to the proposed mine. Findings indicate that environmental threats can serve as a powerful mobilizing force in opposing risky development projects, even in economically depressed regions. • Analyzes how environmentally risky rural development projects fuel conflict. • The convergence of environmental and political threats spark citizen activism. • Threats of land expropriation can be linked to human rights concerns. • Citizen fears can be fueled by memories of past environmental disasters. • Political opportunities facilitate successful campaigns against mining projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2017 El Salvador became the only country in the world to ban notoriously water-degrading metal mining. Seemingly, Salvadorans chose "water over gold." However, situating the ban within the country's ongoing commitment to extractivism problematizes this narrative. This paper asks what water politics drive El Salvador's anti-metal mining and pro-extractive politics? Drawing on political ecologies of extractivism and hydrosocial territories literatures, I propose a hydrosocial extractive territories analytic to examine how extractive and anti-extractive activities mutually produce one another through their socionatural relations to water. I show how El Salvador's anti-metal mining and pro-agrarian extractivism politics reflect gold and sugarcane's distinct, yet entangled, material, discursive, and political economic relations to the Lempa River. I conclude that the "water over gold" narrative simultaneously helped create a broad-based social movement that propelled the metal mining ban and internalized commitments to ongoing extractivism. More fundamentally, the Salvadoran case demonstrates that extractive and anti-extractive politics are not necessarily antithetical or antagonistic. They can be mutually constitutive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Local contextual factors crucially shape urban transformative capacity. • Local historical trajectories and identities are key contextual factors. • Local social movements' ability to establish relations with local government is essential. • Local government is key in connecting all the components of urban transformative capacity. • Local actors' capacity to build inclusive and trusted governance spaces is crucial. • Local interactions are conditioned by broader silos of knowledge and action. This paper inquiries into the role of place in shaping urban transformative capacity to advance urban sustainability transitions. The urban transformative capacity notion developed by Wolfram (2016) provides us with a holistic framework to reconceptualize and address the specific contextual conditions that become relevant in a city to advance path-deviant changes towards sustainability. By comparing the energy and agri-food socio-technical systems in the city of València (Spain), insights have been gained into key contextual factors shaping urban transformative capacity; specifically, the previous local historical trajectories regarding each socio-technical system, the role of local social movements and local government as articulator of the different components of the framework. Additionally, the way different accounts of sustainability coexist and the interaction between different socio-technical systems at urban level appear as critical issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing studies of extractivisms, in the plural, examine the diverse politics that permeate extractive activities. However useful, this appeal to plurality is problematic. Plurality without relationality risks justifying some extractive activities over others, without addressing how they relate. Drawing on anti-essentialist, decolonial, and political ecological scholarship, this article proposes an ontological reframing of extractivisms that troubles the division and comparison that pervade notions of taxonomic plurality, and emphasizes the mutual constitution articulated within the concept of relationality. Analyses of relational resources are better equipped to illuminate the power-laden associations through which supposedly distinct commodity values, extractive geographies, sectors, and governance regimes shape one another. Beyond complicating rigid definitions of extractive categories, this ontological shift requires distinct methodologies for understanding and contesting entangled extractive interests and logics. It implicates what forms of anti-extractive resistance, solidarities, and alternative futures become viable, thinkable, and necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing body of scholarly work on the Global East, there has been a surprising lack of research that systematically explores the "civil society building" during postsocialist transformation, particularly in terms of identifying and explicating its distinct developmental stages. Seeking to address this gap, this article utilizes contemporary Montenegro as a case study for investigating the form and content, sites and scales, and dynamics and interactions of civic engagement, associational life, and protest politics against the backdrop of the intricate processes characteristic of the "postsocialist condition": political transition, economic restructuring, and social transformation. By examining the development of an actually existing civil society in the Global East over the course of three decades, this article identifies its three stages and demonstrates the ways in which functionalist (civil society as a democratizing force), normativist (civil society as a civilized society), and structuralist (civil society as the civic sector) conceptualizations tend to be reductive, often obscuring rather than illuminating the empirical realities of civil societies. Conversely, by emphasizing practices , relations , and processes , this article broadens the symbolic (and thus political) boundaries of civil society, while simultaneously avoiding conceptual stretching that could compromise precision in producing analytical tools tailor-made to the evolving realities in the Global East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approximately one in ten individuals globally currently reside without authorization in another person's dwelling, building, or parcel of land, underscoring the magnitude of squatting as a widespread phenomenon. Despite its prevalence, squatting has largely remained overlooked in policy discussions and academic discourse, often associated with anarchistic behavior. Through a critical examination of existing literature and evolving perspectives in the policy debate on squatting, this article emphasizes the imperative of recognizing the inherent complexities of this phenomenon. The primary goal is to provide policymakers with an integrated framework that recognizes the intricacies of squatting, rectifies the limitations of prevailing neoclassical models, and facilitates evidence-based interventions for sustainable urban development. Central to this proposed framework is the Squatting Index, a numeric representation of overall squatting intensity derived from the weighted contribution of various socioeconomic factors. This index serves as a dynamic tool for formulating policy, evaluating policy effectiveness, monitoring evolving squatting dynamics over time, and adapting strategies and adjusting resource allocation to address emerging needs. Its application holds the promise of instigating a more informed, adaptable, and effective approach to address the multifaceted challenges associated with squatting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Small-scale farmer associations like the Peasant Farmer Association of Ghana (PFAG) have long been viewed as potential vehicles for agricultural development, but their intentions and effectiveness as political advocacy organizations remains understudied. • The context and actors involved in their founding (e.g. development NGOs) can heavily influence the structure and subsequent development trajectory of small-scale farmer advocacy organization like PFAG. • The form of recourse mobilization (e.g. patronage or self-production) adopted by small-scale farmer organizations like PFAG can provide both opportunities and present constraints on the organization's development and activities. • PFAG's reliance on patronage for funding creates challenges in terms of membership coverage and financial sustainability, as well as potential tensions between donors and PFAG's own advocacy mission. • PFAG's increasing interest in complementing its advocacy activities with service delivery may address some of the organization's financial challenges while also creating tensions with their avowed purpose as an advocacy organization. Smallholder farmer-based rural social movements have been heralded as a promising source of political power with the potential to effectively promote sustainable trajectories of agricultural development in Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. However, the very early stages of rural social movement building remain understudied, including under what conditions such nascent efforts are likely to lead to effective political influence and foundations for broader collective action. Drawing on insights from organizational studies and resource mobilization theories, we provide an analytical narrative of the emergence and development of a smallholder farmer-based policy advocacy organization, the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG). Through analysis of organizational documents and an extensive open-ended focus group interview with PFAG's founders, long-term members, and current staff, we discuss how PFAG managed to overcome the "liability of newness" faced by new organizations, and how its resulting organizational structure influences its modes of resource mobilization and thus type and coverage of its advocacy and service delivery activities. Considering this developmental narrative, we elaborate several challenges that PFAG faces in pursuit of its ambitions to expand its influence in Ghanaian agricultural policy and practice. Our findings indicate the need for PFAG to address emerging contradictions in project activities and uneven geographical coverage, manage tensions between advocacy and service delivery objectives and to work towards establishing an umbrella agenda capable of providing for the diverse and evolving needs of their membership base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conceptualises the ways grassroots innovations (GIs) influence sustainability transitions. While research on GI diffusion tends to use the three-pathway model (replication, scaling up and translation), this paper rethinks GI diffusion through the lenses of an embedding framework. We illustrate this framework by applying it to the empirical case of ecovillages in the Global North and South. The results show that GIs become embedded in wider society through different dynamics: expansion, reframing, circulation of knowledge, shifting material arrangements and replication. The embedding framework brings clarity to diverse dynamics of diffusion and is particularly able to grasp the cultural, cognitive, economic and environmental impacts of GI initiatives. [Display omitted] • GIs influence sustainability transitions through different dynamics of embedding. • GIs' embedding includes symbolic and cognitive dynamics. • We offer an embedding framework to the study of GI diffusion. • We apply this framework to a study with ecovillages in 20 different countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution investigates the pragmatic functions of implicit communication conveyed through presuppositions triggered by additive focus adverbs. Taking an empirical and qualitative approach, we describe how Italian anche , French aussi and English too are used, in particular to shape the opinion of the addressee in texts related to the "me too" social movement published in traditional and social media. Through three case studies, we show that there are important differences in the way these adverbs are used across the media analyzed and explain these differences by considering the general function of the texts analyzed. The outcomes of our study are relevant from both a methodological and theoretical perspective. • Cross-linguistic study, based on three languages (Italian, French and English). • Investigation of a specific presupposition trigger (additive focus adverbs). • Qualitative study of texts related to the "Me too" movement. • Comparison of two media/genres (traditional, journalistic texts vs. social media). • Methodological framework based on the information status of presupposed contents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agroecology is increasingly seen to contain solutions that can be used for wider societal transformation. While debates have mainly focused on reformist versus revolutionary strategies, less attention has been paid to how such strategies connect to peasant demands and how they can be combined for agroecological transformation. In this article we study transformation by the agroecology movement in Brazil through the theoretical lens of political articulation. We show that peasants' local demands for land, alternative farming and local markets were mobilised in an institutional politics to gain policy support and in a populist politics to create movements that pose a systemic challenge to authority. We then argue that the political viability of wider societal transformation lies in the ability to create movements and organisations that politicise peasants and embrace local demands. We conclude that attention should not only be paid to individual strategies and their immediate effects but also on how diverse politics combine, to build the material and symbolic capacity of the movement and their potential for transformation over the long run. • The potential of populist politics lies in its ability to create movements that politicise people and embrace local demands. • Reformist and radical politics combine to build the long-term capacity of agroecology movements for transformation. • The politics of agroecology encompasses democratic struggles by Indigenous people, Blacks and environmentalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food regime analysis and some governance approaches contend that the construction of the next food regime depends on social movements and that novel conceptualizations as well as meso-level approaches are needed. A revision of field theory is employed to analyze food policy councils (FPCs) as a movement that represents a North American manifestation of emergent place-based governance. Analyzing FPCs' framing of the food system as strategic action fields, it is argued that FPCs may function as internal governance units that mediate local implementation of the next food regime. Other than a novel devolution toward the local level, FPCs' tactical repertoire reflects a dissonance between conventional means and claims of alternative/oppositional objectives. Various processes associated with a rationalization of the expertise and logic of singular fields may subvert the very form that frames FPCs' place-based democratic aspirations. Transformational capacities are assessed in view of Wright's qualitative distinction of transformational strategies. • Field theory offers an innovative examination of alternative food movements as a strategic action field. • Food policy councils have redirected the focus from national to local level policy. • Food policy councils seek the role of place-based internal governance units in the food system. • Food policy councils claim alternative and oppositional objectives but utilize rather conventional tactics. • Professionalization of expertise via internal governance unit may conflict with democratic aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Popular protests have broken out worldwide, particularly in the last few years. In 2019, numerous demonstrations against an extradition bill occurred in Hong Kong until pandemic restrictions were imposed. The policing response relied heavily on methods such as batons, tear gas and rubber bullets. Given the relevance for other geographical contexts, the current study investigated the mental health impacts on protest participants and spillover to community members.Methods: Surveys were disseminated on social media in August and October 2019 to collect demographics, political views, protest participation, exposure to (protest-related) potentially traumatic events (PTEs) and mental health symptoms. A latent class analysis (LCA) was conducted using demographic data and inter-class differences in PTEs and mental health symptoms were examined.Results: There were 37,541 (59.8% female) and 40,703 (50.0% female) responses in August and October. Respondents, even those with low participation, reported significant levels of depression, anxiety, and symptoms of traumatic stress (STS). The LCA suggested a 5-class solution (youth, allies, supporters, sympathizers, and frontliners). Mental health symptoms and PTEs varied with class membership, with 50.8% of frontliners reporting severe STS.Limitations: The non-random sampling and self-reported measures may over-estimate the prevalence of mental distress in the wider population.Conclusions: Large numbers of pro-democracy supporters in Hong Kong reported high rates of depression, anxiety and STS during mass protests. Younger and more heavily involved respondents faced the highest mental health risks, however elevated rates were also observed for respondents with low participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Solidarity Economy (SE) as a transformational political response to poverty. • SE practitioners express concerns about in-movement exclusionary and marginalising dynamics. • The commoning of space and resources expands solidarity economies capacity for collective action. This paper stages an encounter between Relational Poverty Theory (RPT) and the solidarity economy movement. RPT understands poverty as the dynamic product of economic exploitation, political exclusion and cultural marginalization. The solidarity economy movement can be seen as a transformative political response to these dynamics aiming to replace exploitation with cooperation, exclusion with participation and marginalisation with practices of inclusion. Globally, more than sixty solidarity economy movements are coordinating efforts, developing associative relations between cooperative economic institutions, social justice movements, and one another. While these developments are encouraging, many practitioners are concerned about the movement's future. Solidarity economy practitioners we encountered in our US-based research were concerned with the movement's vulnerability to co- optation and exploitation or (un)witting perpetuation of the very dynamics of exclusion and marginalisation it seeks to transcend. We take this as evidence of the enduring power of poverty-dynamics and testament to the incisive, critical insights of RPT. However, what remains unanswered is how the solidarity economy might succeed in its own terms? We deploy Gibson-Graham's theorization of postcapitalist politics to answer this question, charting the movement's possibilities, specifically how it works by creating and sharing spaces and monetary and non-monetary resources in pursuit of its objectives. Two organizations we encountered in our research—Stone Soup, a cooperative incubator in Worcester, Massachusetts and CERO, a commercial composting cooperative in Boston, — illustrate what Gibson-Graham name "a politics of commoning." Both of these organisations work by sharing spatial, financial, and political resources in ways that are cooperative, participatory and inclusionary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Good family relationships are important for mental health. However, the mechanism linking family perceptions to mental wellness during political and social turmoil remains unclear. This study aimed to examine whether psychological and social factors could protect university students from detrimental mental health conditions in a time of social chaos.Methods: Participants included young adults (n = 1874, mean age = 22.19 years) who had been enrolled in Hong Kong local tertiary intuitions during Hong Kong's 2019 social movement. An online survey assessing various conditions, including family satisfaction, social support, personal resilience, negative moods, sense of school belonging, and mental health conditions before and during the movement, was administered to these students. Mediation analyses were performed to examine the role of negative affect, support from family, and school belongingness as mediators of the association between family satisfaction and mental health condition during the movement overall and by resilience subgroups.Results: Higher levels of satisfaction with family relationships before the onset of movement was associated with lower levels of negative affect and higher levels of support from family and school belongingness during the movement, in turn benefiting the student's mental health. The links of family satisfaction and school belongingness with mental wellness were particularly strong among low-resilient students.Limitations: Mediation analysis using retrospective survey data CONCLUSIONS: Family conditions would interact with personal resilience to influence mental health status during social turmoil. The findings underscore the importance of early interventions particularly for those students facing family difficulties to enhance their social chaos and emergency preparedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The Yellow Vest movement is not a denialist, anti-environmnental movement. • There are diverse opinions within the movement, some members concerned with climate change. • Participants are not necessarily against carbon taxes; they are against the specific French tax. • Carbon taxation requires participatory and equitable designs. Carbon taxation is a core instrument for climate mitigation. Its implementation, however, faces popular resistance. In this paper we study one of the most emblematic mobilizations triggered by the carbon tax issue, the Yellow Vest movement in France. We use Q-methodology, a mixed-method approach to identify discourses (or viewpoints) held by protesters. We find four statistically-distinctive viewpoints, emphasizing respectively: a systemic critique of capitalism; environmental action that is fair; priority over incomes and purchasing power of common people; and inequality and the responsibilities of corporations. Our research points to the importance of ideology in shaping viewpoints and filtering attitudes towards carbon taxes. Yet beyond ideological differences, we find consensus among all discourses, in that there should be more consultation in energy transition policy; the rich and not the poor should pay the cost of transition; and the government should use tax revenue for the transition only. We conclude that, for bold carbon tax schemes to be implemented with less conflict, a much more participatory, transparent and equitable design would be necessary than the one experienced in France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Social movements can support sustainable transportation innovations. • Social movements supported key innovations in the Netherlands in the 1970s. • These included the woonerf, car-restricted city center, and bottleneck memoranda. • These innovations helped stabilize rapidly falling cycling rates. With the Netherlands having the world's highest cycling rates, many see its current cycling policies as a model for the transition to sustainable transportation systems. Understanding these high cycling rates, however, requires understanding the geographic, historical, and institutional context in which social movements, working with government actors, helped stop a rapid decline in cycling rates between the 1950s and the 1970s in the Netherlands. This article uses historical sources and interviews with activists and government actors to show how social movements supported cycling by helping reverse the negative effects of rapid motorization. These social movements worked with government actors to implement three specific innovations: the woonerf, the bottleneck memorandum, and the car-restricted city center. This article contributes to transitions literature by looking beyond the relationship between enterprise and the state and demonstrating how social movements within a specific institutional context and with broad public support can advance sustainable transportation innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Most pharmacists in the United States are women, and the profession is becoming more racially diverse. The recent increase in political and social movements in the United States has heightened our awareness of the importance of better understanding the experiences of underrepresented individuals and groups. Little is known about discrimination and harassment in the profession of pharmacy in the United States.Objectives: The purpose of this study was to provide evidence that discrimination and harassment exist in the pharmacy profession and explore differences in discrimination and harassment using the intersectionality of race and sex.Methods: The 2019 National Pharmacist Workforce Survey (NPWS) utilized an electronic survey that was distributed using a 3-contact Dillman approach by email to a randomized sample of 96,110 licensed pharmacists from all 50 U.S. states using the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy Foundation e-profile system. The 2019 NPWS included a new battery of questions to assess the prevalence of discrimination and harassment in pharmacy.Results: The most common bases of discrimination experienced were based on age (31.2%), sex (29%), and race or ethnicity (16.6%). The most common type of harassment experienced was "hearing demeaning comments related to race or ethnicity" at 15.6%. The intersectionality analysis revealed different experiences among sex or race combinations. Black and Asian male pharmacists had the highest rate of "hearing demeaning comments about race or ethnicity." Nonwhite pharmacists were more likely to experience harassment from customers or patients compared with their white colleagues. Black female pharmacists had the highest rate of being "very unsatisfied" with the results of reporting discrimination and harassment to their employer.Conclusion: Discrimination, including harassment and sexual harassment, is illegal, immoral, and unjust. As the profession of pharmacy continues to become more diverse, there must be a conscious, systemic, and sustained effort to create and maintain workplaces that are safe, equitable, and free of discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The characteristic features of some of the methodological strategies adopted in scientific research in agroecology are discussed. They reflect that agroecology, as an approach to scientific research, is inextricably entangled with the other strands of agroecology (farming practice, social movement, political project); and that adopting agroecological strategies, and upholding the values of environmental sustainability, food sovereignty, social justice and democratic participation, mutually reinforce each other. After outlining the kinds of questions that agroecological research addresses so that it can produce knowledge that informs agroecological farming practices and the long term aspiration of agroecological movements to create an alternative agricultural/food system, and then making summary remarks about methodological strategies in general, three characteristic features of some agroecological strategies are introduced and discussed. The paper concludes with comments on the value of agroecological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, indebtedness has been at the centre of the world's attention, but social conflicts against private debts have only rarely been studied. Drawing on a global database of 65 cases ranging from 1765 to 2020, we offer a preliminary glimpse at such mobilisations. We find that anti-debt conflicts seem to have increased exponentially since the early 1980s and that they have involved different social classes with various political objectives, ranging from 'populist' to 'revolutionary', hence their multifaceted 'awkward' nature. Credit/debt relations are an underestimated root cause of many economic conflicts because of their foundational role in the (mis)workings of capitalism, their lasting consequences in terms of discipline and dispossession, and their potential to change one's class location, downwards or upwards. While the repression of anti-debt protests and the particular subjectivity associated with debt have often deterred mobilisations, we argue that the situation seems to be changing, as ever more people are discontented with the 'debtfare state' and the financialisation of everyday life, including that of farming. • A database of 65 cases of anti-debt conflicts ranging from 1765 to 2020 is analysed. • Debt struggles are often rural and they have increased exponentially since 1980. • Politically, debt struggles can be reformist, revolutionary or populist. • Debt is an underestimated root cause behind many economic conflicts. • Repression and debt subjectivities have deterred conflicts, but this is changing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we undertake an extensive review of the neoliberal conservation literature with the aim to explore and substantiate the principal ways in which conservation is neoliberalized in practice as well as who has studied these processes and through which collaborative patterns. Using descriptive statistics and thematic content analysis, we explore selected characteristics of the peer-reviewed scholarship, including most commonly used concepts, methods and topics, geographical and co-authorship patterns, critical readings of key processes of neoliberalization, including commodification, privatization, dispossession, governance rescaling, governmentalities, and its engagement with the economic crisis, austerity politics, and social struggles. Our analysis shows the breadth of the literature in unraveling the unequal social, spatial and environmental impacts of neoliberal conservation policies as well as a significant degree of novelty in terms of topics and theories. Nonetheless, it also unravels some key gaps, including a limited engagement with quantitative methods and community-engaged social sciences and humanities approaches, a lack of focus on urban areas and urbanization, some important gaps in the theorization of the commodification of nature, a domination of Global North scholarship that contradicts the clear empirical focus of the field on the Global South, a limited engagement with social movements and grassroots activism, and a conspicuous lack of attention to the dynamics of class, gender and race. We conclude by identifying key directions for future research to address current gaps in the literature, and initiate a shift towards a decolonial, interdisciplinary, intersectional, community-engaged approach and an in-depth encounter with everyday practices of resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • The paper shows how spirituality strategically supports an Adivasi self-empowerment movement in India. • Spirituality provides motivation, makes groups' indigeneity visible, and protects their activities against reprisals. • Tribal groups in India using this strategy can escape debt bondage and gain their own land. • Action organisations working with subaltern groups can orchestrate spirituality to achieve progressive goals. Spirituality strategically enables self-empowerment in a clandestine movement of Adivasis which this paper calls 'the Programme'. To explain how social movements and action organisations can orchestrate spirituality, this paper examines how the Programme helps landless rural people overcome debt bondage and gain land by employing spiritual repertoires. The paper addresses the question how, in the context of an increasingly tribalised politics in India, spiritual orchestration allows some Scheduled Tribes to make substantive economic gains, especially on debt freedom and land rights. The paper draws on an analysis of qualitative data collected through workshops, interviews and visits to villages across several Indian states, which has been anonymised to protect identities and avoid divulging sensitive information. The study finds that spirituality supports self-empowerment in three ways: first, it provides motivation and ideological reinforcement for people engaging in struggles against debt bondage and for land rights; second, it makes tribal identity more visible and helps groups make claims as indigenous owners; third, it offers groups protection from reprisals and creates platforms for engaging powerful actors. These findings are significant because, for activists and scholars who work with subaltern groups in India or other contexts, they demonstrate that the orchestration of spirituality can strengthen action repertoires for self-empowerment and help groups secure or protect economic and social gains. The paper adds insights to research on social movements and organisations on how to strengthen the 'weapons of the weak'; it contributes empirical knowledge about how strategies to overcome debt and exploitation can succeed; and it underscores the importance of protecting freedom of religion and belief in development practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the multi-actor making of the ruralscape in Hong Kong. I critically adopt the theoretical framework of Ingold's concepts of walking to understand how different "wayfarers", including but not limited to farmers, residents, land activists, agriculture learners, researchers, journalists, leisure practitioners and government officials, walk to make a multi-sensorial landscape. This paper encapsulates the observation outcomes of multiple times of walking by different individuals and groups recorded during my ethnographic fieldwork between 2008 and 2021. I shed light on the local practices and perspectives of hang cyun (walking in villages) and hang tin (walking in fields) to illustrate my observations. By analyzing the wayfarers' walking experiences and embodied movements, I consider the ruralscape as a vibrant space where people configure its meanings and materialize their lifestyle. The wayfarers' embodied experiences reflect the continuity and changes of a rural Hong Kong. Their making of ruralscape helps alleviate people's anxiety and enhance people's hope concerning the current Hong Kong society that faces food safety issues, environmental degradation, social class disparity and spoon-feeding education. I consider that being an agent who exercises his/her subjectivity during the walking in the ruralscape, a wayfarer makes the ruralscape meaningful in various aspects. My explanation contributes to the theoretical discussion of embodied movement and space making particular to the construction of a politicized nature telling us stories of (in)equality, (in)justice, and hope (lessness). • Walking is a political and socio-economic process that produces a multi-sensorial ruralscape. • Embodied movement and space making alleviates anxiety and enhances hope in rural Hong Kong. • Actor-actant interactions in Hong Kong's ruralscape entails stories of (in)equality, (in)justice, and hope (lessness). • People configure meanings and materialize lifestyle in walking in villages and fields. • Wayfarers's experiences reflect the continuity and changes of social movement, education, and agro-economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on community-supported agriculture (CSA) has highlighted the coexistence of different models and types of CSA initiatives. However, no study has explored how diverse models and definitions of CSA are collectively established, maintained, and enforced vis-à-vis changing political, economic, social, and cultural contexts. This article addresses this gap by drawing on the concept of boundary work, developed in social movement theory, which describes the process through which a social movement defines and situates itself in time and space in relation to its context. We investigate the boundary work of CSA at the level of the national network organisations in Germany and Italy, which provide a space where boundary work occurs, that is, where protagonists and antagonists are framed and a common understanding of CSA and who should join the network is constantly negotiated. By reconstructing the narratives and key topics of boundary work in both CSA networks, we showcase how the CSA model is delineated and a collective 'we' is constructed differently across countries in relation or opposition to pre-existing movements as well as the international CSA movement. Through the lens of boundary work, we highlight the internal contestations within the networks, which are often hidden by the seeming unity depicted in social mobilisations and the networks' official communication. Moreover, this study identifies different mechanisms of boundary work, which can be grouped into three types: creating, institutionalising, and enforcing the boundary. We find that the networks are engaged, to different extents and in different forms, in these types of boundary works. Based on the two case studies, we discuss potential misalignments, the implications of choosing a narrow or broad definition for the membership, and the challenge of addressing the internal heterogeneity within CSA networks. • National CSA networks provide spaces for collectively defining the CSA model. • Pre-existing movements fundamentally shape the boundaries of CSA in a given context. • A processual perspective on boundary work reveals internal contestations within networks. • Boundary work mechanisms include creation, institutionalisation and enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Asks whether and how state capacities contribute to movement-initiated policy change in the sphere of housing and land use. • Analyzes contrasting cases of local state capacities and their relationship to the urban social movements in São Paulo and Johannesburg. • Draws on original field-based research in both cities, using extensive interview and archival data. • Findings highlight the scale of urban social movement organizing — at the city-wide or neighborhood level — and the openness of local government bureaucracy to movements. • These interact to shape state capacities to deliver on movement-initiated policy change. Studies of social movements generally focus on the mechanisms through which movements affect the political will of states. Much of this research, in turn, implicitly assumes that the state has the capacity to realize the decisions adopted as a result of movement action. Focusing on local governments in young democracies, this article examines whether and how state capacities contribute to movement-initiated policy change and associated delivery in the sphere of housing and land use. It analyzes contrasting cases of local state capacities using a paired "most-similar" comparison of two megacities of the Global South, each of which underwent transitions to democracy in the past three decades: São Paulo, Brazil, and Johannesburg, South Africa. In São Paulo, state capacities facilitated policy success. These capacities were developed through interactions between movements and key bureaucratic allies. In Johannesburg, by contrast, the local bureaucracy became both impervious to movement pressure and unable to counter strategies by business elites to weaken efforts at policy reform. State capacity in this case hindered reforms. As a result, in São Paulo, sequential, reinforcing feedback loops of city-wide movement mobilization and formal policy reforms took shape. In Johannesburg, lack of openness of the state to civil society led grassroots movement organizations to refrain from city-wide policy reform efforts and to increasingly organize their activity at the neighborhood and street levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sonyosang (girl statue in Korean) is a bronze statue symbolizing "comfort women," the estimated 80,000 to 200,000 women physically, mentally, and sexually exploited by the Japanese Empire during WWII. As a backlash against the 2015 ″comfort women" agreement between the South Korean and Japanese governments, Koreans have installed 384 girl statues across South Korea. Based on ethnographic research that I conducted in South Korea between 2019 and 2021, including in-depth interviews with Korean activists who raised funds for or participated in creating, installing, and managing girl statues in South Korea, this research examines how the girl statue movement in South Korea has developed into a left-wing nationalist-populist movement and how affective identification with the statue generates a populist identity. To this end, this research firstly discusses how former President Park Geun-hye's undemocratic political measures recall the memory of minjungism (Korean populism) that led the pro-democracy movement in the 1980s, enabling Korean nationalist leftists' demands to form a chain of equivalence in the girl statue movement. Secondly, relying on Melanie Klein's theory of identification, this article examines how the 'people' is constituted through affective forms of identification with the girl statue. By doing so, this article demonstrates that the growth of the girl statue movement into a left-wing nationalist-populist movement blurs boundaries between the psychological, the personal, the national, and the (geo)political. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calls for decolonizing theory, knowledge, methods, and the university have taken hold of academia. However, critics have pointed out that these projects are primarily located in the global North and distanced from actual political struggles. This paper proposes a way to disaggregate different elements of the North and evaluate the "decolonization" potential in relation to broader anticolonial political geographies. We define the North as an orientation toward the capitalist-colonial world and Northness as a relational property along three axes of geographical location, social position, and institutional vocation. Applying this, we review historic trends in decolonization thought by using a stylistic scheme of three southern ruptures: resistance to colonial conquest, postcolonial arrivals into the Northern academy, and transnational convergence. This analytical lens cautions against giving primacy to issues of marginalized social position over geographic location and institutional vocation, while also offering a political economic focus on postcolonial engagements with anticolonial politics. We call for attending to the current conjuncture characterized by increasing decolonial discourse alongside southern ruination by aligning epistemic endeavors with social movement struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Synthesized data from 244 studies on Indonesian environmental movements 1990–2022. • Found 571 examples of lived religion used to create new environmental practices. • Movements blended official religions, Indigenous religions, and local knowledges. • Movements adopted many religious and other strategies to respond to local contexts. • Movements faced huge opposition, increasing their creativity and vulnerability. Religions play an important yet poorly understood part in how social movements motivate societies to respond to environmental crises and the rapidly changing climate. Indonesia sits on the global frontline of environmental crises, with a rich history of religious diversity and environmental activism. Using framework synthesis, we analyzed 244 empirical studies (English and Indonesian) on 208 environmental social movements operating in local communities in Indonesia from 1990 through 2022. We developed a conceptual model showing how grassroots movements used lived religion to create new environmental practices and motivate environmental behavioral changes in diverse local communities. Our study inventoried 571 examples of lived religious concepts, practices, rituals and systems that movements used to create environmental concepts and practices. We found three patterns in the creative process: 1) conceptual hybridization, meaning that movements often blended official religions, Indigenous religions, and local knowledges and traditions (often called cultural practices), and they fused these aspects of lived religion with economic, legal and scientific concepts; 2) contextual imagination, meaning that movements adopted multiple religious and other strategies to respond to local economic, environmental, political, and religio-cultural contexts; and, 3) contestation-driven improvisation, meaning that movements faced intense opposition, and this dynamic both motivated improvisation and increased the vulnerability of movements and of local communities adapting to rapid environmental change. We propose that future studies on adaptation and sustainable transitions could include lived eco-religion as a meeting point for critical partnerships between environmental scholars in the sciences and the humanities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electoral success of populist movements in recent years has encouraged parties and politicians to incorporate populist themes increasingly into their discourse. While Canada has not been immune to these trends, populism has enjoyed relatively little electoral success in modern Canadian politics. A new People's Party fielded candidates in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections but failed to win any seats in Parliament. Some populist themes such as nativism or authoritarianism have not rewarded their proponents in Canadian elections. Another dimension, distrust of elites, politicians and the media, is more present in Canadian public opinion today, and was a part of past populist movements such as Social Credit or Reform. In this paper, we examine the structure and correlates of populist attitudes held by Canadians, utilizing data from the 2019 and 2021 Canadian Election Studies. In conclusion, we consider the potential for a populist political party or leader to enjoy electoral success in the Canada of today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Environmental movements are increasingly taking companies to court. • Companies promote 'slow justice' to demobilize movements. • The judicial process makes invisible certain harms, victims and demands. • Judges and lawyers become key decision-makers at the expense of movements. • Even if a court case is won, movements can still lose as companies don't comply with judicial orders. Movements are increasingly taking companies to court for environmental and social harms. Yet little is known about the consequences this strategy has for movements and their struggles. Through a cross-country comparison of three environmental litigation cases in Argentina, Nicaragua, and Spain, we find that local groups encounter three interrelated consequences: i) 'slow justice', a strategy generally driven by companies to delay proceedings and demobilize movements; ii) courts reduce complex impacts to simplified, scientifically verifiable and legally punishable damages, thus invisibilizing certain harms, victims, narratives and demands; and iii) local groups lose control of the resistance process as judges and lawyers become key decision-makers. These dynamics interact with the specific features of environmental conflicts —uncertainty, slow violence and marginalized affected parties— to deepen power inequalities in litigation processes. Our findings are contextualized within the literatures on legal mobilization and the judicialization of politics. We conclude that social movements, when looking for a fair and just solution through the judicial system, encounter different but highly hierarchical power structures. And even if they win in the courts, companies can avoid complying with the judicial orders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Practises of rebel governance can predate insurgency onset. • Territorial control is not a precondition for rebel governance. • The conceptual scope of rebel governance should be extended. • Consideration should be afforded to contingencies in movement trajectories. • The PKK engaged in municipal electoral politics in the late 1970s. Insurgent movements rely on popular support using varying strategies to build supportive constituencies, including forms of rebel governance. The rebel governance literature explicitly limits its scope to insurgent cases with territorial control, excluding all groups that did not obtain territorial control, areas of weaker insurgent presence and early phases of mobilisation. This article focuses on Kurdistan Workers Party's (PKK) use of rebel governance (1977–1980) through municipal politics prior to the launch of its insurgency. The article makes two important contributions: firstly, it demonstrates the need to broaden the scope of the rebel governance literature to include phases where insurgent movements do not control territory. Secondly, it critiques the linearity of retrospective readings of insurgent trajectories that downplay the role of interactions and contingency in early mobilizational phases. It is based on original data including primary source documents and qualitative interviews with people involved in the PKK's municipal politics between 1977 and 1980. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the results of the "SavingScapes" research project that examined the role and relevance of civil society in landscape and heritage conservation, comparing Girona in Spain and Genoa in Italy. These two sub-regional areas are both on the Western Mediterranean coast. Tourism and international trade are the main drivers of development. Landscape is an important asset. In both areas, strong and constant transformative pressures and deeply rooted place attachment clash in the form of environmental protest movements or 'social mobilizations'. Nevertheless, there are significant differences in the approaches and results of these mobilizations in the two areas. In order to assess the impact of these mobilizations on local planning and projects, the study has developed an outcome-based taxonomy with seven different categories, ranging from defeat (= no relevant impacts occurred) to sustainable plan/policy prefiguration (= cases in which mobilizations have led to the emergence of an alternative project). This taxonomy has then been applied to seven territorial conflicts in both case studies. Research shows that the impact of mobilizations may not be immediately significant in either region (always taking into account the differences between them). However, these movements have led to the development of novel approaches of dealing with the changing context and have emerged as co-partners in the process of constructing social and local identity. • Landscape preservation is enhanced by empowered territory defense movements. • Empowered social movements are key to a trialectic territorial governance model. • Territorial conflicts are complex and cannot solely be explained by NIMBY attitudes. • Territorial conflicts go beyond defeat and success to reach policy prefiguration. • Social movements feed from and retro feed immaterial landscape values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Conceptualizes varieties of participatory institutions according to their function in interest intermediation. • Distinguishes based on what objectives participatory institutions advance, who participates, and how participants connect to the state. • Analyzes five cases from Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, and Ecuador. • Develops tools to explore why participatory institutions succeed in meeting their objectives, and how they change over time. Although participatory institutions have become ubiquitous in contemporary politics, they often serve such different objectives that viewing the institutions as part of the same phenomenon can produce more confusion than clarity. We argue that participatory institutions can serve distinct and even opposite functions in interest intermediation, and develop a conceptual framework that distinguishes participatory institutions based on 1) what political project they were established to advance, 2) whose participation is channeled into these venues, and 3) how participatory institutions engage participants in the policymaking. We illustrate this framework with cases from Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, and Ecuador. We show that participatory institutions can serve a wide array of political projects that connect citizens to the state in radically different ways, including restructuring state-society relations to empower marginalized groups, increasing civil society influence over policymaking and government oversight, expanding parties' electoral coalitions, and constraining the influence of disruptive social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land-use conflicts are increasing in number and intensity. In conflicts involving power imbalances and structural asymmetries, actors may attempt to frame the conflict in a manner that would put it on the political agenda, sometimes causing an escalation of the conflict and extending the possibilities of new coalition partners. Consequently, this study aims to analyze the spread of conflict escalation across scales from the local to the international level, following political factors. We analyzed the conflict between Argentina and Uruguay over two pulp mill projects using a qualitative case study design with process tracing building on the content analysis of public documents and expert interviews. The results allow us to analyze the development of the conflict in three stages of escalation: local, international, and global. Our findings provide insights into conflict escalation patterns as important analytical concepts in land-use conflicts resulting from an active, strategic undertaking of political actors in pursuing strong allies at different levels of governance. • Conflict escalation spreads across scales from local to the international level following political factors. • Conflict escalation patterns occur from an active, strategic undertaking of political actors. • Political actors search for strong allies in upper levels of governance leading to conflict escalation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]