scholarly journals We Don't Need Your Permission: The Era of Non-Affiliated Student Activism

2020 ◽  
Vol 118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Elizabeth Dolhinow
Keyword(s):  
Student Activism ◽  
Student Movements ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Organizational Relationships ◽  
Student Groups ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Student Activists ◽  
Traditional Student ◽  
The World ◽  
New Student

Student activism, just like any social movement, cycles through times of great excitment and visibility and times of near invisibility. The early 21st Century has been filled with new social movements in communities across the world and on campuses as well. These new student movements take up bold ideas and actions but from a different positionality than those before. In this paper, I explore the nature of new student movements in California through an ongoing ethnographic research project. In particular, this paper focuses on how student groups are using their identities and material experiences to draw on positionality in their work for justice. By positioning themselves outside of traditional student organizational relationships with universities, these student activists come from a position of greater freedom. But at what cost?

The New Student Activism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Talia Radcliffe
Keyword(s):  
International Development ◽  
Student Development ◽  
Student Activism ◽  
Global South ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Life Circumstance ◽  
The World ◽  
Plumbing Systems ◽  
Organizational Empowerment ◽  
New Student

It is seemingly accepted that students have become passive members of civil society. Today's youth are comparatively disillusioned with their baby boomer parents' activist idealism, and have, therefore, sought a more personalized way to engage with the world: development projects. Students are in the unique circumstance of being bound to no dependents or income, which is quite an apt circumstance for activism of any type. Furthermore, students typically possess a desire to, at least, “find themselves” and at best,“change the world,” both of which are states of mind that make student development work specifically opportune. Since project‐based international development has taken a turn for the popular, it has become trendy for students to build schools, teach about HIV/AIDS, and install plumbing systems in the Global South. However, few of these initiatives appear to be informed by individual cultures and circumstances of living. Considering students are in an optimal life circumstance, it must be questioned what the best way might be to direct this unique position in order to instigate meaningful social change. Considering that students are at the apex of their educations, it is more appropriate and beneficial to have students live, experience and participate in communities in the Global South in order to truly understand the problems at hand and to recognize the priorities of varying communities and subsequently before advising policy‐makers. Positive change must be made at a halfway point between informed governmental policy and grassroots organizational empowerment, but change cannot and will not happen until information is generated from on‐the‐ground experience, and until our best resources are encouraged to learn before they take action.

Radically democratising education? New student movements, equality and engagement in common, yet plural, worlds

2019 ◽  
Vol 103 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-100
Author(s):  
Gritt B Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Participant Observation ◽  
Student Activism ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Student Movements ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Student Activists ◽  
Political Risks ◽  
Social Settings ◽  
Democratic Engagement ◽  
Democracy And Education

This article investigates the relation between democracy and education in the context of radical student activism. Drawing upon participant observation and interviews with left-wing student activists in New Zealand in 2012 and 2015, it argues that a one-sided preoccupation with the student activists’ public actions as attempts to unleash disruptive forces of the political risks ignoring the undecidability and profoundly experimental and educative aspects of their activities. By paying attention to the less publicly visible social settings – or ‘free spaces’ – shaped by ideals of flat, horizontal democracy, the article shows how the students continuously mediate their radicality by negotiating and balancing a sense of ‘responsibility to act’ with a sense of ‘responsibility to otherness’. Democratic engagement thereby not only becomes a question of ‘disruptive’ political influence; it also comes to revolve around the continuous creation of spaces for collective self-education and experimentation with the conjuring of a common – yet plural – world.

scholarly journals Creating a ‘monster’: the National Youth Service pre-university training programme, student activism and the Kenyan state, 1978–90

Africa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 89 (S1) ◽  
pp. S65-S89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke Melchiorre
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Student Activism ◽  
Training Programme ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Student Movements ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
Student Activists ◽  
Youth Service ◽  
University Training ◽  
Ruling Party

AbstractIn May 1984, the Kenyan government of Daniel arap Moi introduced a National Youth Service pre-university training programme (NYSPUT) for prospective university students. The programme was designed to instil discipline in Kenyan university students and inculcate them with a sense of loyalty and commitment to the Moi regime prior to their arrival on campus. This article argues that, in practice, however, the scheme had unintended consequences: it served to alienate student recruits from the ruling party and helped radicalize a small but vocal group of student activists, who, when they arrived on campus, confronted the Moi state with some of its most defiant political challenges of the 1980s. Relying on extensive interviews with former student recruits and archival research, this article highlights the key role that the NYSPUT played in shaping Kenya's young generation of 1980s student activists, who represented one of the most united and militant student movements in the country's history.

Beyond the border war : student civil rights activism at the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri, 1946-1954

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Mary Beth Brown
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Race Relations ◽  
Student Activism ◽  
University Of Kansas ◽  
University Of Missouri ◽  
Effect Change ◽  
Student Activists ◽  
The University ◽  
The 19Th Century

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This dissertation examines post-World War II student civil rights activism at two Midwestern college campuses, the University of Missouri (MU) and the University of Kansas (KU). Missouri and Kansas have conflicting histories concerning race dating back to Bleeding Kansas and the history of race relations on the campuses of KU and MU. This history is especially complicated during the period between 1946 and 1954 because of heightened student activism that challenged racial injustices. Race relations on campus largely mirrored that of the state's political environment, with KU having integrated in the 19th century, whereas MU did not desegregate until 1950. However, the same did not apply to the success of student activists at each school where MU students found success fighting against discriminatory practices in Columbia, whereas local business leaders and the university administration stymied KU students. The dissertation examines the exchange of ideas and strategy among students, which occurred through athletics, debates, guest speakers, and various regional and national groups. In particular, the study argues that campus spaces, such as residential co-ops and student organizations, were deeply significant because they served as incubators of activism by offering students a place to talk about racial and social injustice and plan ways to challenge these inequalities and effect change on campus and in the broader community.

The ’68 Movements around the World and in Turkey: One Movement or Many?

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 131-156
Author(s):  
Ömer Turan
Keyword(s):  
System Theory ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
Student Activism ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Old Left ◽  
The World ◽  
Counter Culture ◽  
Global Movement ◽  
Us Hegemony

Abstract The student movement of ’68 was both a major source of inspiration and subject of research for the social movement scholars. One persistent disagreement about studying ’68 lies between the world-system theory—Wallerstein views the movement as “a single revolution”—and the contentious politics approach—McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly refuse to consider ’68 “one grand movement.” Expanding this theoretical debate, this article overviews Turkey’s ’68 movement and discusses its divergence from the global movement. Wallerstein summarizes “the single revolution” of ’68 with five points: challenging US hegemony, working-class solidarity, demanding education reform, counter-culture, and challenging the old left. This article revisits these points and cross-reads them with insights of the contentious politics approach to evaluate Turkey’s ’68 movement. It then focuses on mobilizing structures, framing processes, and repertoires of contention that have shaped student activism.

Obstetric Violence in Their Own Words: How Women in Mexico and South Africa Expect, Experience, and Respond to Violence

2021 ◽  
pp. 107780122110373
Author(s):  
Vania Smith-Oka ◽  
Sarah E. Rubin ◽  
Lydia Z. Dixon
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Powerful Method ◽  
Obstetric Violence ◽  
The World ◽  
Core Feature ◽  
Temporal Model ◽  
Women's Stories ◽  
Structural Inequalities

This article, based on ethnographic research in Mexico and South Africa, presents two central arguments about obstetric violence: (a) structural inequalities across diverse global sites are primarily linked to gender and lead to similar patterns of obstetric violence, and (b) ethnography is a powerful method to give voice to women's stories. Connecting these two arguments is a temporal model to understand how women across the world come to expect, experience, and respond to obstetric violence—that is, before, during, and after the encounter. This temporal approach is a core feature of ethnography, which requires long-term immersion and attention to context.

Making Space: A Gay-Straight Alliance's Fight to Build Inclusive Environments

2013 ◽  
Vol 115 (8) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Ross Collin
Keyword(s):  
Student Activism ◽  
Bulletin Board ◽  
Social Production ◽  
Student Activists ◽  
Spatial Production ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sexual Orientations ◽  
Document Collection ◽  
Political Commitments ◽  
Study Participants

Background Education researchers are paying increasing attention to student activism and to the social production of school spaces. Few studies, however, have brought these two concerns together to examine how student activists work to rebuild school spaces in line with their political commitments. In the present study, I address this gap at the intersection of two important research trends. Purpose I examine how a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) endeavored to build its school as an inclusive environment open to students of different sexual orientations. Focusing on the semiotic dimension of spatial production, I investigate how a conflict over a sign on the GSA's bulletin board functioned as one front in an ongoing struggle to produce the school's main hallway as a particular kind of space. As signs and constructions of space may be interpreted in different manners, I provide alternate ways of reading the conflict. Setting The setting for this study is a school serving a racially diverse, working class neighborhood in a major city in the Northeastern United States. Participants The participants were members of their school's GSA. Research Design This is a qualitative site-based investigation. I collected data by using ethnographic tools including observation, interviewing, and document collection. Specifically, I sought to gather data on different actors’ different understandings of the conflict over the bulletin board. I analyzed data by using methods of naturalistic qualitative analysis and semiotics-focused discourse analysis. Findings Study participants read the conflict over the bulletin board in different manners. Each reading construed the conflict as (re)building school spaces in particular ways. Crucially, each construction either validated or invalidated LGBTIQ identities in the space of the school. Conclusions No one reading of the conflict and no one construction of the space of the school were necessarily “conclusive” or “correct.” Rather, the meaning of the conflict and the features of school space were struggled over and negotiated by actors at the school. These struggles highlight how conflicts over meaning are often disagreements over the construction and inhabitance of social spaces. In light of these findings, researchers should expand their analyses of student activism to consider how, through semiotic activity, activists work to rebuild and act in school spaces. Furthermore, researchers should produce studies helpful to activists working to build schools as more just and inclusive environments.

scholarly journals Higher education after neoliberalism: Student activism as a guiding light

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rose M Cole ◽  
Walter F Heinecke
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
College Student ◽  
Student Activism ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Creative Imagination ◽  
Student Activists ◽  
The Past ◽  
College Student Activism ◽  
Almost All

Contemporary college student activism has been particularly visible and effective in the past few years at US institutions of higher education and is projected only to grow in future years. Almost all of these protests and demands, while explicitly linked to social and racial justice, are sites of resistance to the neoliberalization of the academy. These activists are imagining a post-neoliberal society, and are building their demands around these potential new social imaginaries. Based on a discourse analysis of contemporary college student activist demands, to examine more closely the ways that student activists understand, resist, critique, and offer new alternatives to current (neoliberal) structures in higher education, it is suggested that student activists might be one key to understanding what’s next for higher education in a post-neoliberal context. The activists’ critiques of the structure of higher education reveal a sophisticated understanding of the current socio-political, cultural, and economic realities. Their demands show an optimistic, creative imagination that could serve educators well as we grapple with our first steps down a new road. Using their critiques and demands as a jumping-off point, this paper offers the blueprint for a new social imaginary in higher education, one that is focused on community and justice.

scholarly journals Entrepreneurial ecosystems: A study of organizational interactions and interrelations in entrepreneurial ecosystems

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Yoseph S. Ayele
Keyword(s):  
Open Systems ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Unit Of Analysis ◽  
Open Systems Theory ◽  
Entrepreneurial Ecosystems ◽  
The World ◽  
Ecosystem Level ◽  
Business And Management

<p>Entrepreneurial ecosystems are emerging around the world, and their relevance in business and management is increasing. Practitioners and researchers are using biological metaphors to understand collaborative aspects of entrepreneurial ecosystems. This thesis explores the use of bio-ecological metaphors to study interactions and interrelations taking place in entrepreneurial ecosystems. Specifically, it examines the characteristics of an ecosystem that influence interactions and interrelations within ecosystems. This thesis is part of a qualitative ethnographic research that employs an inductive approach to data analyses. It studies a New Zealand based ecosystem and presents findings on three characteristics that influence interactions and interrelations in ecosystems: interdependence, diversity, and organizational birth and death cycles. In doing so, this thesis makes a number of contributions to management theory and practice. Firstly, it combines aspects of organizational ecology and open-systems theory to develop an ecosystem-level unit of analysis. By using an ecosystem lens, researchers can better observe collaborative aspects of organizations. Secondly, findings suggest that increasing the degree of interdependency and diversity and facilitating organizational birth and death cycles can enhance levels of interaction and interrelations in ecosystems. This implies that more skills, knowledge, ideas, resources, and different forms of support can be exchanged within ecosystems. Such exchange can enrich ecosystems.</p>

scholarly journals Entrepreneurial ecosystems: A study of organizational interactions and interrelations in entrepreneurial ecosystems

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Yoseph S. Ayele
Keyword(s):  
Open Systems ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Management Theory ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Unit Of Analysis ◽  
Open Systems Theory ◽  
Entrepreneurial Ecosystems ◽  
The World ◽  
Ecosystem Level ◽  
Business And Management

<p>Entrepreneurial ecosystems are emerging around the world, and their relevance in business and management is increasing. Practitioners and researchers are using biological metaphors to understand collaborative aspects of entrepreneurial ecosystems. This thesis explores the use of bio-ecological metaphors to study interactions and interrelations taking place in entrepreneurial ecosystems. Specifically, it examines the characteristics of an ecosystem that influence interactions and interrelations within ecosystems. This thesis is part of a qualitative ethnographic research that employs an inductive approach to data analyses. It studies a New Zealand based ecosystem and presents findings on three characteristics that influence interactions and interrelations in ecosystems: interdependence, diversity, and organizational birth and death cycles. In doing so, this thesis makes a number of contributions to management theory and practice. Firstly, it combines aspects of organizational ecology and open-systems theory to develop an ecosystem-level unit of analysis. By using an ecosystem lens, researchers can better observe collaborative aspects of organizations. Secondly, findings suggest that increasing the degree of interdependency and diversity and facilitating organizational birth and death cycles can enhance levels of interaction and interrelations in ecosystems. This implies that more skills, knowledge, ideas, resources, and different forms of support can be exchanged within ecosystems. Such exchange can enrich ecosystems.</p>

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document