We Are the Face of Oaxaca: Testimony and Social Movements. By Lynn Stephen. Durham: Duke University Press, 2013. Pp. xxii, 334. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. $25.95 paper; $94.95 cloth.

Abstract: Feminist theory worldwide is confronting - perhaps as it always has done - a series of deep challenges. On the one hand, awareness of gender and sexual inequalities seems high; on the other, co-optation of feminism for nationalist or other right-wing agendas is rife. On the one hand, feminist social movements are in ascendancy, on the other there is a continued dominance of single issue feminism and a resistance to intersectional, non-binary interventions. If we add in the collapse of the Left in the face of radical movements such as those underpinning Brexit and Trump (and the frequent blaming of feminism for fragmentation of that Left) then it is hard to know what to argue, to whom, and for what ends. In the face of such claims it is tempting to respond with a dogmatic or singular feminism, or to insist that what we need is a shared, clear, certain platform. I want to argue instead - with Emma Goldman (anarchist activist who died in 1940) as my guide - that it can be politically productive to embrace and theorise uncertainty, or even ambivalence, about gender equality and feminism.

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The climate change of your desires: Climate migration and imaginaries of urban and rural climate futures

Environment and Planning D Society and Space ◽

10.1177/0263775819892600 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 38 (2) ◽

pp. 248-266 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kasia Paprocki

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Social Movements ◽

Urban Studies ◽

Urban Climate ◽

The Political ◽

Coastal Bangladesh ◽

Urban Transition ◽

Agrarian Studies ◽

Political Economies ◽

The Face

What are the political imaginaries contained within representations of urban climate futures? What silent but corollary rural dispossessions accompany them? I investigate these questions through the experience of migrants from rural coastal Bangladesh to peri-urban Kolkata. The threats posed to their villages by a variety of ecological disruptions (both loosely and intimately linked with climate change) drive their migration in search of new livelihoods. Their experiences suggest that the demise of rural futures is entangled with the celebration of urban climate futures. However, social movements in this region resisting agrarian dispossession point to alternative political imaginaries that resist teleologies of urbanization at the expense of agrarian livelihoods. Current work in both agrarian studies and urban studies theorizes these linked dynamics of rural–urban transition, seeking to understand them in relation to broader political economies. I bring these debates into conversation with one another to highlight the importance of attention to counter-hegemonic agrarian political imaginaries, particularly in the face of predictions of the death of the peasantry in a climate-changed world. It won’t be possible to identify or pursue just climate futures without them.

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We are the face of Oaxaca: testimony and social movements

Choice Reviews Online ◽

10.5860/choice.51-4160 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 51 (07) ◽

pp. 51-4160-51-4160

Keyword(s):

Social Movements ◽

The Face

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Solidarity Not Charity

Social Text ◽

10.1215/01642472-7971139 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 38 (1) ◽

pp. 131-151 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Dean Spade

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Social Movements ◽

Social Relations ◽

Disaster Relief ◽

Mutual Aid ◽

Border Enforcement ◽

Large Numbers ◽

The Face ◽

Wealth Gap ◽

Prison Abolition

This article argues that, in the face of worsening conditions from climate change, enhanced border enforcement, a growing wealth gap, housing crises, and policing, social movements should focus on expanding mutual aid strategies. Mutual aid projects directly address survival needs, mobilize large numbers of people to participate in movements actively rather than solely participating online or through voting, and offer spaces to practice new social relations. The article looks at examples from efforts for migrant justice, police and prison abolition, disaster relief, and other contemporary struggles and discusses potential pitfalls of mutual aid strategies, such as supplementing and therefore stabilizing existing systems of maldistribution and adopting principles and practices from the charity frameworks that proliferate in capitalism.

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