Community picket lines and social movement unionism on the U.S. docks, 2014–2021: Organizing lessons from the Block the Boat campaign for Palestine

Since the 1980s, rates of unionization have been declining in Mexico, as they have in many Anglo- and Latin American countries, contributing to the marginalization of a once powerful political actor. It has been argued that labor revitalization in Mexico will require institutional reforms to the Federal Labor Law. This article suggests that important lessons for labor revitalization in Mexico can also be taken from discussions of social movement and citizenship movement unionism. Drawing on evidence from the decades long collaboration of union women with civil society organizations, I show that raising union women's gender consciousness can help to democratize union agendas and build alliances within civil society that can help broaden the struggle for institutional reforms.

To revitalize union movements globally, labour scholars frequently prescribe social movement unionism. This union strategy adopts social change goals beyond member representation and contract negotiations and often requires allying with community organizations in pursuit of these goals. As a term, however, social movement unionism is often described in opposition to union organizational functions, such as member representation. This article challenges this organization-movement dichotomy by demonstrating the important influence of union organizational dimensions on the dynamics of social movement unionism. Analysis is based on case study research of labour union involvement in the 2006 immigrant rights marches in Los Angeles. Unions that participated in organizing these marches – thus, practicing social movement unionism – allied with large community organizations, preferred reform goals and advocated tactics perceived as effective. Such strategic decisions were informed by organizational considerations regarding members’ interests and unions’ long-term capacity for mobilization.

Working towards sustainable solutions requires involving professionals and stakeholders from all sectors of society into research and teaching. This often presents a challenge to scholars at universities, as they lack capacity and time needed for negotiating different agendas, languages, competencies, and cultures among faculty, students, and stakeholders. Management approaches and quality criteria have been developed to cope with this challenge, including concepts of boundary organizations, transdisciplinary research, transition management, and interface management. However, few of these concepts present comprehensive proposals how to facilitate research with stakeholder participation while creating educational opportunities along the lifecycle of a project. The article focuses on the position of a transacademic interface manager (TIM) supporting participatory sustainability research and education efforts. We conceptualize the task portfolio of a TIM; outline the capacities a TIM needs to possess in order to successfully operate; and propose an educational approach for how to train students in becoming a TIM. For this, we review the existing literature on TIMs and present insights from empirical sustainability research and educational projects that involved TIMs in different functions. The article provides practical guidance to universities on how to organize these critical endeavors more effectively and to offer students an additional career perspective.

Meditations on the Pain of Others: Becoming Theater Squad Theresa J. May (bio) When I am asleep I dream of grass and water and soft skin When I am awake I dream that I live in a house of rubble I dream that my mother is buried there . . . I dream that an iron wall Splits the ground where I was born I’m screaming but no one can hear. —Theater Squad, Sleepwalking Apocalypse 17 “Empathy . . . is an action you take in the world.” —Anne Bogart 66 In our era of increasing virtual access to the particulars of public and private spheres of social and political life, cultural thinkers, as well as artists, wonder whether is it possible to move audiences at all. Has “total access” and its 24/7-mediated simulacrum sequestered the human heart? Susan Sontag’s 2003 treatise Regarding the Pain of Others examines a similar question in the case of war photography: Why would images that seared the imagination and moved the public in the wake of World War I fail to register on that mental emulsion sheet in our current decade? Sontag’s analysis becomes useful in the theatre as both artists and activists struggle with the challenges of an over-saturated marketplace of concern. This essay traces the formation of a loosely knit group of activists who, together with Seattle playwright Edward Mast, charted a course through the virtual din. As a case study, Theater Squad demonstrates how theatrical embodiment participates in civic discourse, helping to exercise the empathy vital to democratic society. Theater Squad performs a civic meditation on the human cost of current global conflicts. Described by Misha Berson in the Seattle Times as an example of “a growing movement of visual and performing artists using their work to protest the U.S. war in Iraq and other government policies,” peoples around the world coping with the dehumanization and dispossession. While many activists and applied theatre practitioners might measure efficacy by information disseminated, policies changed, or increased public outrage, Jill Dolan reminds us that “success,” even in overtly political performances, lies in feeling: “The politics lie in the desire to feel the potential of elsewhere . . . in our willingness to attend or create performance at all, to come together in real places . . . to explore in imaginary [ways] . . . the potential of the ‘not yet’ and the ‘not here’” (20). Theater Squad’s efficacy, as a case in point, shows how the embodied presence of performer and spectator, with a shared willingness to witness each other, composes a moment of democracy. The troupe’s primary performance tools—image, silence, mask, and embodied presence in public [End Page 23] locations—are not new, but in light of the over-mediated, multi-messaged, post-9/11 sociopolitical climate, its methods might newly demonstrate useful strategies for protest performance. Its work depends on the space—the interval—between curiosity and engagement; it returns agency to the spectator and precipitates a reflective pause that ruptures business (and thinking) as usual. Through a close examination of the formative experiments and discoveries that led to Theater Squad’s Shadows of Exile (2004) and subsequent works, I show how its civic meditations become geographic and imaginative locations for empathetic knowledge to emerge. Theater Squad is not a company and has no formal organization. Mast acts as its ad hoc organizer, director, and scribe, working in close collaboration with a central core of artist-activists. Rehearsals take place in living rooms and backyards, and notices of performances travel by personal messaging. Theater Squad grew out of a group of activists concerned with raising awareness about Palestinian issues. All were members of the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) of Seattle; some had been members of the Red Noses, one of many “affinity groups” from the November 1999 World Trade Organization (WTO) protest in Seattle. While a few have some theatre experience, all members are experienced in the usual modes of civic protest: organizing rallies, speeches, signage, teach-ins, picket lines, and marches. Mapping a spontaneous eruption of theatre in an otherwise traditional group of political activists not only provides insights into how these activists came to make aesthetic choices and discovered the effects of affective action...

The futures we imagine for ourselves could not vary more, especially with the many uncertainties of how new technologies are going to affect both everyday life and science specifically. Apocalyptic images of scorched Earth are prevalent in popular media, but utopian visions of peace, green cities and peaceful scientific exploration are on the rise as well. These are, so far, realms of science fiction, but at the same time also reflections of the public hopes and fears and also substrates from which arise new ideas, worries, opinions and interests. These narratives, by incorporating scientific concepts and ideas, possess the power to convey science to the public, whether accurately represented or heavily distorted. At a time when distinguishing between information and misinformation and understanding basic scientific methodology are increasingly vital to our society, exploring the role (positive as well as negative) and potential use of fictional narratives in the perception and understanding of science is not just an interesting research avenue, but a necessity.Here, I will provide a historical as well as present-day perspective of the relationship between science fiction (SF) and space sciences, with particular emphasis on the usage of SF in science outreach and education. Ever since the advent of modern SF, practically hand in hand with the development of modern science, the genre of SF has served as a conduit between science and the wider public and helped shape public opinions about scientific and technological knowledge and possibilities, fostered interest in science and inspired future generations of scientists.Space sciences in particular have been tackled by SF authors, be it early examples of space travel (after Verne’s and other relatively unrealistic visions came e.g. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the “father of rocket science”, but also an author who used his scientific ideas in utopian SF novels and short stories), envisaging space suits (first in 1898 in astronomer and writer Garrett P. Serviss’ novel Edison’s Conquest of Mars) or encountering life beyond Earth and discovering that we are not alone in the Universe (from earliest proto-SF by Kepler or de Fontenelle to a great number of modern works), and possibly communicating with extraterrestrial life (Carl Sagan’s Contact, exploring the issues of understanding without sharing a common life history and of epistemology, and many other works). These and more are "big questions" appealing to scientists, authors and the public alike, and they carry a substantial potential for outreach and educational efforts.  Even early authors such as H. G. Wells reflected the scientific knowledge and speculation in their work (such as thoughts about the possibility of a civilization on Mars at that time), popularized science and even argued for using more of the language and methods of popular fiction in what we would now call science outreach (Wells 1894).However, despite this long tradition, there has been little systematic research into the relationship between SF and science and the specific ways SF can influence public perceptions of the field or even potentially sway (e.g. via shaping preconceptions in the minds of policy-makers) the direction of scientific research and technological innovation and to what extent SF is influenced by existing science of its day, newly explored by Puranen et al. (2024) for exoplanets. The educational and outreach potential of SF has been highlighted for the example of Mars fiction by Lockard and Goggin (2023) of Arizona State University.I will briefly go through the history of SF and space sciences, existing educational and outreach efforts, and specific lessons learned from the SF anthologies of the European Astrobiology Institutes, out of which Life Beyond Us has been presented at the EPSC at its early planning stages (Novakova, 2021). Finally, I'm going to draw potential future directions from these key points, and provide tips for the use of SF in space sciences outreach.ReferencesLockard, J., & Goggin, P. (2023). Teaching Mars Literature. Science & Education, 32(3), 821-844.Novakova, J. N. (2021). Science Fiction for Planetary Science & Astrobiology Outreach: Life Beyond Us (No. EPSC2021-870). Copernicus Meetings.Puranen, E. J., Finer, E., Helling, C., & Smith, V. A. (2024). Science fiction media representations of exoplanets: portrayals of changing astronomical discoveries. Journal of Science Communication, 23(1), A04.Wells, H. G. (1894). Popularising science. The Observatory, Vol. 17, p. 291-294 (1894), 17, 291-294.

Our goal is to analyze strategies of union revitalization that have been successful elsewhere and have the potential to become so in Spain. Within these practices, Social Movement Unionism focuses on alliances with other groups to improve unions’ social efficiency. In this article, we address the applicability of the principles of Social Movement Unionism in the specific case of Spain. Given the transformations in the Spanish economy and labour laws tending towards further deregulation, Spanish unions have had to react. The emergence of new social movements such as theIndignadosorMareas Ciudadanas(civic tides) and the declining confidence in unions among the Spanish population, make this approach timely and appropriate.For this article, we will take certain aspects from the trade union revitalization debate and combine them with the main theories on New Social Movements. We will apply these approaches to a specific case study: The viability of cooperation between the largest Spanish trade unions and the recent social movements arising from theIndignadosmovement. For this purpose, we will primarily use data from secondary sources and transcripts of interviews conducted with unionists and social movement activists. With all these elements taken into consideration, we will conclude by showing the inhibiting and facilitating conditions for the development of a Social Movement Unionism strategy for the referred actors.

New ideas are often born from connecting the dots. What new ideas have emerged among the two highly trending research topics of sustainability and social media? In this study, we present an empirical analysis of 762 published works that included the terms “sustainability” and “social media” in their abstracts. The bibliographic data, including abstracts, were collected from the Scopus database. In order to conduct the analysis, we used the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), an unsupervised machine learning algorithm to extract the latent topics from the large quantity of research abstracts without any manual adjustment. The 10 main topics identified from our analysis revealed topographical maps of research in the field. By measuring the variation of topic distributions over time, we identified hot topics (research trends that are becoming increasingly popular over time) and cold topics. Sustainable consumer behavior, Sustainable community and Sustainable tourism were identified as being hot topics, while Education for sustainability was identified as the only cold topic. By identifying current trends in social media and sustainability research, our findings lay a platform from which further studies may abound.

Partnerships between natural resources agencies and Extension have existed for years and Extension has served in many roles. These roles include writing grants, facilitating meetings, training, and designing collaborative programming. Herein, we highlight a partnership between Purdue Extension and the Indiana Division of State Parks (IDSP) where Purdue Extension used an existing partnership to create programming about eastern hellbenders in a format presentable by interpretive naturalists, Extension educators, and K-12 teachers. The program increased pre/post knowledge gain scores for attendees by 129.27%. This model has successfully expanded Purdue Extension’s outreach efforts while satisfying a need expressed by IDSP. Forming reciprocal partnerships with nontraditional partners can have a tremendous positive impact on the success of outreach and education efforts.

Though the titles and acronyms of policies differ from one country to another, throughout the world a political project has taken root with the assumption that to reduce poverty and inequality, governments should privatize school systems, alter teaching from a career to contract labor, use standardized tests to make students and teachers accountable, and curtail the power and legal rights of teachers unions. This article explores how teacher activists might help reverse neoliberal educational politics by developing mutually-respectful collaborations among teachers, parents and youth in poor communities, in school-based and system-wide partnerships that involve teachers unions. Analyzing events as they were experienced and influenced by a New York City-based NGO of teachers committed to educational justice, the author examines the landscape of educational reform politics and the creation of new spaces and organizational forms not confined by collective bargaining jurisdictions and traditional bargaining demands. The study suggests that development of a social movement of teachers that might edge teachers unions in the direction of social movement teacher unionism may not occur in a linear fashion. Rather, a complex push-pull dynamic occurs with each change, opening and retracting space, remaking networks and influencing longstanding personal ties among activists.

Australian unions currently face a multiplicity of adverse challenges. Union revitalisation has emerged as a key issue. Implicit in much of this debate is the question of what an effective union is. Rather surprisingly, there is a dearth of literature on union effectiveness. A survey of the six empirical studies that do exist reveals that improved terms and conditions, membership orientation, union leadership, union voice and industrial democracy augment union effectiveness. Much can also be gleaned however from related literature, such as that dealing with union goals and strategies. A review of both sets of literature results in the development of a 'core set of dimensions' of union effectiveness, including improved terms and conditions of employment, growth, internal democracy, organisational stability, activism and social movement unionism. Whilst such a conceputalisation contributes to redressing the omission in the literature, union effectiveness remains a fruitful and critical area for further research.

Over the last few decades, Sustainability Science (SS) has gained momentum and emerged in the academy with an extraordinary performance in knowledge production and contributions to the research and publications enterprise, growth in academic programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels, creation of centers/laboratories, and formation of scientific communities, networks and associations. Increasingly, terms like integration, collaboration and bridging of fields and disciplinary boundaries are in the forefront of conversations and/or debates. The key question addressed by this review essay is this: Is interdisciplinarity in Sustainability Science a challenge or opportunity for educational institutions and local communities in the 21st century? Considering the recent momentum in educational advancements and institutional progress, the study outlines relevant literature on interdisciplinarity in SS; synthesizes recent thinking and developments in SS and attempts to address what challenges and opportunities people across the globe face in sustainability education and research and in the development of academic programs and sustainable communities. When scientists, policy makers, academics get together as teams, partners and collaborators they are likely to be engaged in interdisciplinary work and possibly doing sustainability research, policy development and problem-solving to deal with the pressing demands and challenges of the 21st century society. In this context, it is urgent in science and society to seek solutions to major sustainability problems such as climate change and one way to address that is by doing interdisciplinary work in Sustainability Science.

This study provides comprehensive data on sustainable education and research in Korea. Engineering courses offered in Korea have been analysed and categorised with relations to sustainability. A total of 608 sustainability courses were available and the majority of the sustainability courses were concentrated in the area of environment and energy subgroups (78.2%). Major research oriented universities with emphasis in sustainability research had sustainability related courses far below the average, which suggested a disparity between research and education. An analysis of the research articles in journals from the Web of Science resulted in the identification of 12 323 keywords related to sustainability in metals and materials. The USA and Germany had the highest percentage in both absolute numbers and per capita and a significant growth was observed in Korea. From the centrality analysis of keywords, much of the sustainability research in metals and materials seem to be scattered and collaborative efforts are not widespread.

Abstract: While building the necessary institutional and human resource capacity for sustainable development represents an important global issue, it remains one of if not the most critical issue in the Asia-Pacific region. The ecological consequences of rapid industrialization have become all too visible in recent years as the region’s natural resources and biodiversity continue to deteriorate at an alarming rate. At the same time, there has been an increasing call for universities and academic institutions, as the main training ground for the next generation of regional political and business leaders, to respond to this policy challenge in a proactive manner. The specific modality of the sustainable development research and educational agenda may vary between countries and universities, but as institutional symbols of new ideas and policy innovation, universities and research institutes will have to take more concrete steps toward environmentally sustainable development. Using the experiences of Japan’s Keio University at the Shonan Fujisawa campus, Thailand’s Asian Institute of Technology, and United Nations University’s Institute of Advanced Studies, this article discusses the role of universities and research institutes in promoting human resource and institutional capacity building, and designing an effective sustainable development research and educational agenda. Three key issues will guide this institutional development. First, what role if any will APEC play in sustainable development research and education? Second, how will the concerns of the private sector and nongovernmental organizations be reflected in sustainable development research and education? Third, what is the future of regional academic cooperation in sustainable development research and education ?

ABSTRACTBy analysing the 2013 Hong Kong dockworkers’ strike, this article explores how workers, precariously situated in the world’s freest economy, fight for decent wages with the support of civil society. It is argued that the trade union movement in Hong Kong, a Special Administration Region of the People’s Republic of China, is a typical example of social movement unionism. It suggests that the rise of social movement unionism in Hong Kong was a practical strategy of social activists to support labour rights under the specific context of vulnerable structural power, weak institutional power, failed political unionism and a vibrant civil society. Social movement unionism has a “double-edged sword” effect on workers’ power: on the one hand, it has the potential to create societal power and strengthen associational power; on the other hand, it may compromise workers’ militancy and the possibility of stronger workplace bargaining power during workers’ struggle.

In 2019, Oakland teachers joined the wave of teacher strikes across U.S. cities sparked by teacher activism against neoliberal reforms that cut funding to public schools, increased privatization, and led to school closures. As in other cities, a group of progressive rank-and-file teachers working toward transformative change moved their union toward social movement unionism, and in the process, garnered the support of communities of color that had been alienated from organized teachers. Drawing on in-depth interviews with teacher activists involved in the 2019 Oakland teacher strike, I demonstrate how strategic decisions to focus on gaining power within the union and to center the leadership of progressive teachers of color, especially women of color, helped to build public support for both the strike and the broader movement against privatization, yet also led them to focus on an inside strategy that may undermine their more transformative goals. I argue that as activist teachers gain power within their unions, activist groups that function independently from the union provide a critical outside space where teachers can develop an intersectional and transformative praxis that helps them better strategize against the racial politics of advocacy in the neoliberal context.