Democracy Works: Joining Theory and Action to Foster Global Change

by Dickinson,Torry D.

• ISBN13: 9781594516030
• ISBN10: 1594516030
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781317261476
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2009-01-30
• Publisher: Routledge
• More Book Details

Summary

Throughout the world, from the United States to Tanzania, Chechnya, and Sri Lanka, everyday people are working together and taking actions to improve their lives, end inequality, and change global society. Action groups and movements see dialogue and learning as important ways to extend democracy and, with its inclusiveness, remake society. Long-term change often takes place in civil society and its institutions. By putting strategy with theory, local groups and movements are able to begin making changes in institutions that allow people to begin living in new ways. Inclusive, multicultural projects make dedicated efforts to end hierarchy and global injustice and reinvent culture, ideas, and social relations. Written for laypeople and students interested in change, these multidisciplinary essays take readers on a journey of discovery as they show how various groups have brought theory and action together to make urban, rural, and transnational change. These case studies and explanatory articles reveal how feminist, antiracist, ecological, and peace movements reinforce each other. This collection is an analytical organizing tool that demonstrates how people can initiate well-placed and enduring change. The writings also identify the inadequacies of academic change theories and highlight the contributions of intellectual activists across the world.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Joining Theories and Action Methodologies to Promote Change

Making History Together: Inclusive Participation in Global Change

Deliberative Democracy: A Foundation for Sustainable Social Change

Participatory Action Research at the Western Institute for Social Research: Sound Research Goes Hand in Hand with Inclusiveness and Effective Community Action

Individual Engagement and Collective Change for New Cultures: Working within Global Institutions and Civil Society

Education for Nonviolent Change For Life: From Danish Folk Schools to Highlander and Beyond

Becoming an Activist for Global Change

Small Farmers, Alienated Consumers, Social Movements, and the Corporatization of Fair Trade

The Power of One: Democracy and the Fear of Freedom as Political Paradigm

Taking on Global Institutions: Gender/Sexuality, Racialized Ethnicity, Class, North-South Divides Firm and Market, State, and Household

Addressing the State and Racism: Abolishing the Death Penalty, Abolishing Prisons

Addressing the Violence of Patriarchal State, Household, and Gender: Reframing the Debate-Nonviolence as a Language and a Strategy

A Addressing the Global North's Firm, Market, and Imperial Advantages and the Global South's Disadvantages: "Comercio con Justicia" and a Guatemalan Women's Textile Coop-Theory in Action

Addressing Global Institutional Inequalities in Production, Distribution, Exchange, and Consumption: Social Change through Global Fair Trade-Travel Letters from Fair Trade Advocates

Addressing War, the State, and the Reproduction of Gender and Racial Divides: Ending Violence Together-Women's Civil Societal Movements for Peace in Chechnya and Russia

Making New Social Relations by Changing Civil Society

Civil Societal Movements to Change Twentieth-Century Industrial Agriculture: Re-Embracing Sustainable Development

Building New Food-Growing and Consuming Relations in Civil Society: An Act of Social Change-Creating Sustainable Agriculture and Sustainable Consumers

Confronting Sexism, Racism, and Global Inequality in Civil Society: "Have I Got an Ethic for You!" Ecofeminism as the Heart of Progressive Environmental Action

Reinventing People's Relationship to Water in Civil Society: We're All in This Together Addressing Global Water Issues

Change from Civil Society, the State, and Global NGOs: Feminists Make the Right Call-Redesigning Water Governance in Sub-Saharan Africa

Developing Women's Cooperatives in Civil Society: Women Take the Lead-Changing Global Economics through Grassroots Cooperatives

Initiating Cross-Border, Inclusive Networks in Civil Society: Thought and Action across Borders-The Small Farmers Movement of Cajibfo, Colombia and the Central New York Sister-City Partnership

Conclusion: Reinventing Democracy to Construct New Societies

A Review: Developing Theory by Participating in Democratic Social Change

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