Challenging Power Structures Research Articles

Managing the tensions between service and advocacy: The case of the AJEEC Social Change Service Organization, Naqab, Israel

The tension between providing services to marginalized groups and organizing them for advocacy to challenge power structures is a fundamental dilemma for Social Change Service Organizations (SCSO). This dilemma exists in many civil society organizations, especially those that work with indigenous communities, such as the Bedouin in Israel, where providing immediate services and advocating for policy change are crucial. Literature shows the tensions that arise from combining service provision and advocacy. However, there are very few studies showing how these organizations manage and overcome these tensions sustainably. The present study is an exploratory case study using the AJEEC (Arab‐Jewish Center for Empowerment, Equality, and Cooperation) in the Naqab as an instrumental single case. It provides an in‐depth understanding of the tensions AJEEC is facing and reveals AJEEC’s unique approach and strategies for managing these tensions effectively and sustainably within the social, political, and cultural contexts. It presents implications for research, policy, and practice.

Peace in Analogue/ Digital International Relations

ABSTRACT This article outlines a preliminary perspective of peace in IR resting on analogue and digital versions in mainstream and critical forms. It discusses their implications for long standing key debates in the discipline about war and peace. It argues that digital IR/ international relations were initially thought to be a breakthrough for global civil society and rights, which promised a more emancipatory form of peace by allowing individuals and civil society to challenge power structures more effectively, and by curtailing the bounding effects of territorialism, sovereignty and nationalism. This gave critical forms of agency space to network. However, a brewing ‘counter-revolution’ of what might be now called the ‘ancien regime’ once again, points to digital forms of governmentality, which replicates the liberal and neoliberal governmentalities of the last few decades. This may make the analogue ‘liberal peace’ look like a virtuous high-water mark in recent history. Furthermore, a digital version of peace has yet to be developed.

III. From Single-Stranded to Braided Histories of Race and Ethnicity in the Southern California Quarterly

This article finds an emphasis on “foreignness” in early SCQ articles on the Asian American experience. Early twentieth-century authors explored changing racial identities. By the 1960s, articles in the Southern California Quarterly were comparing the evolving racial identities of various racial groups and exploring the transnational stigmatization of immigrant race and culture. The “new” social history shifted focus to the powerless and the analysis of racial power structures. By the 1990s authors were utilizing a relational analysis of multiple racial and cultural groups’ experience. Recent scholarship has examined oppressed communities taking agency and challenging power structures in multilayered contexts, pointing the way to the braided interactions of racialized groups.

New media coming to Kapkoi

This article, by partly adopting a historical perspective, examines the introduction of new media in a Kenyan rural village, Kapkoi, and how it changes the communication ecology in the village. Further it explores how people in Kapkoi use and ascribe meaning to media. The article argues that categories such as gender, age and financial situation influence people’s access to and use of media and demonstrates how media use can simultaneously reinforce and challenge power structures. Moreover, it highlights the clear digital divide between rural areas and urban centres, and yet suggests that the introduction of new media is partly owing to the connection between the urban and the rural and that media and communications technologies sustain and increase the connectedness of the local.

Challenging power structures of the academy that marginalize and silence women: A call to resistance and social action—Psychology’s ethical mandate.

Challenging power structures of the academy that marginalize and silence women: A call to resistance and social action—Psychology’s ethical mandate.

Advancing the Disaster and Development Paradigm

Consolidation of disaster and development studies as an integrated field of action research that influences policy has proved to be fundamental to global disaster risk reduction, sustainable development, climate change, and humanitarian agreements. However, challenges in achieving targets, such as those of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals, requires further advances of the disaster and development paradigm underpinning these aspirations. This article presents perspectives that grew primarily from local action research, particularly research carried out with marginalized and highly at-risk groups of people in Southern Africa and South Asia. Analytical fronts from these findings emphasize disaster and development risk assessment opportunities that consolidate earlier ideas and extend understanding of disaster and development-related risk intervention options. These acknowledge severe shortcomings in disaster risk reduction progress while including greater use of hope as an active ingredient. This process of paradigm exploration remains fundamental to achieving disaster risk reduction, sustainable development, and associated policy objectives. The analysis presented here reiterates earlier groundings in people-centric perspectives, emphasizing social relations and systems of meaning as essential active ingredients for challenging power structures, technology, education, and human behavior. The analysis proposes some consequent thematic fronts for increased investment. These include investing in early buildup of well-being before a disaster, better living with uncertainty, and overcoming the barriers to desired disaster and development outcomes. The article is intended to contribute to an ever-evolving paradigm of disaster and development risk that requires impetus from personal and collective values beyond calculations of disaster and development.

Not So Natural an Alliance? Degrowth and Environmental Justice Movements in the Global South

Both environmental justice (EJ) and degrowth movements warn against increasing the physical size of the economy. They both oppose extractivism and debt-fuelled economies, as well as the untrammelled profit motive which fails to incorporate full environmental and social costs. They both rely upon social movements that have led scholarship in its activities and achievements, in part through challenging power structures. Therefore, some argue the existence of an obvious alliance between degrowth and EJ movements in the Global South. Yet, direct observation unveils concerns from EJ activists in the Global South about the plausibility of alliances until some significant divergences have been examined and reconciled. Activists inspire, promote and disseminate transformations that overcome several forms of domination. Their perspectives on degrowth advance informed cooperation. Our aim is thus to systematically evaluate tensions and possible analogies between the scope of action of EJ organisations operating in the Global South and the main propositions of the Degrowth movement. The argument relies on methodical scrutiny of core themes in the degrowth debate by critical thinkers in the Global South. It incorporates insights from EJ struggles in Ecuador, Italy, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uruguay, with important implications in Brazil, Mozambique, and Indonesia. The paper contributes to an exploration of the implications of the degrowth debate for the Global South, with the purpose of strengthening potential synergies, through an assertive recognition of the barriers to doing so.

The Idea of Socialism: From 1968 to the Present‐day Crisis

Abstract: In 2008 the 40th anniversary of that iconic year, 1968, was celebrated in the media in relation to student uprisings and cultural revolts, largely neglecting the very significant movements of workers and peasants who were challenging power structures around the world at that time. This omission reflects the failures of socialism in the twentieth century, which are explored in this essay. Beginning from a more complete picture of 1968, the essay examines the history of socialism, identifying the main sources of failure in its theory and practice, in particular that of the revolutionary left. If the failure lies in the elite character of socialist politics and its focus on distribution rather than production, it is to be remedied by a firm focus on the politics of the workplace and the goal of substantive equality. The concluding section reviews the prospects for such an alternative in the current circumstances of global crisis.

An Ad-Hoc Collaborative Exercise between US and Australian Students Using ThinkTank: E-Graffiti or Meaningful Exchange?

Introduction Traditional business models have typically built upon the idea of competition as a key strategy but increasingly the growth of global communication systems has led to a position where collaborative activities can also be seen as having a potential benefit for the parties involved. The availability of a growing range of collaborative tools within the Web 2.0 environment has led many large organisations to utilize global communication systems to build new alliances that help them to share ideas, skills and resources and create new market opportunities. Transparent supply chains allow both internal and external integration using shared data throughout the supply chain and offer opportunities for improved flow of materials, improved stock management, enhanced decision support and so on. What is emerging is a dynamic business environment in which the various players can act in ways that involve them both collaborating and competing at various times with other players in their field, an idea characterised by Ray Noorda, founder of Novell, as 'co-opetition'. Gnyawali and Park (2009) describe co-opetition as the simultaneous cooperation and competition between firms and report that learning to work with rivals is becoming increasingly important to realize new business opportunities. Collaboration, however, is not an easy task and can potentially produce disruptive effects both within and between organizations. Within an organization collaboration may mean that more individuals within the organization need to be drawn into discussion and decision making and this may start to challenge power structures. Between organizations the need to make previously hidden data available to a wider range of organizations that may once have been direct competitors clearly poses risk and trust becomes a highly significant issue. Equally, ensuring that multiple information systems, possibly using different architectures, can be aligned and support secure data flow between systems becomes a significant concern. In the case of global collaboration, differences in human language and culture begin to take an increasingly important role as various communication channels, from email to video conferencing, are introduced to support collaborative ventures. All of these issues provide both opportunities and threats for organizations and for individuals. Within the classroom opportunities for collaboration and competition also exist. For many student groups there is a tension between the recognition that fellow group members are extra resources and the lack of individual control over the final outcome of group projects. Many students are highly competitive and for them groupwork can be seen as a threat to their final grades if they are in a dysfunctional group. In courses where many nationalities are represented cultural differences, particularly in the collectivism versus individualism dimension, can further exacerbate these tensions. The Australian Course Co-opetition is thus an important area for consideration in both education and business. For students it is doubly significant given their wish to successfully complete group-based course assessments combined with their aspiration to gain employment in a world that is itself grappling with emerging views of competition and collaboration. Students need to be provided with tools to help them monitor and reflect upon their progress in authentic educational group projects and to understand the technical, organizational and human aspects of the broader business community that they will join. It is against this background that a masters course originally titled 'Collaboration and E Commerce' was developed at the University of South Australia (UniSA) some years ago (Banks, 2003). The course was later re-named 'Collaborative Information Systems' in an effort to clarify the expectations of those students who incorrectly perceived this as a web development course. …

Residents Speak Out: Sharing Concerns about Environmental Problems, Public Health, and Justice in Clarksville, Tennessee

Over the last decade, I have worked with Environmental Justice (EJ) groups on issues facing minority communities. I collaborated with the Red River District Environmental Justice Group (RRDEJG) on issues facing the Red River community (RRC) in Clarksville, Tennesse. By applying social science research to challenge power structures, EJ groups often represent one of the few voices disenfranchised communities have for mobilization and social action. In this case it documents the voices of a community facing long standing problems and injustice