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The Oxford Handbook of Sociology for Social Justice calls on sociologists to be first and foremost activists who apply sociological skills and imaginations to the work of organizing, mobilizing, educating, and envisioning radical social change. There has never been a more important time for such work. As millions of people are organizing and mobilizing in new and unparalleled ways to challenge the global powers responsible for political repression, exploitation and poverty, social devastation and ecological destruction, authoritarian movements are growing just as rapidly. This transformative political and social moment calls for the boldest forms of praxis from radical scholar-activists.
This Handbook includes theoretical framing pieces on the decolonization of sociology and its demand for an alternative approach to social science developing from grassroots engagements to challenge powers of exploitation and oppression. This collection also provides critical case studies on sociological work committed to progressive policy initiatives and a variety of local and global organizing efforts from the classroom to industrial labor unions, from farmers and farm workers to musicians and journalists, and other public intellectual efforts. It has been written and edited in a way that might inspire students and faculty not to abandon the passion for political change and social justice that may have brought them to sociology in the first place.
The contributors to this volume come from around the world and are finding ways to link their skills and interests to struggles for justice and liberation in powerful and creative ways. The possibilities are limited only by the collective imagination of groups' and movements' capacities to develop solidarity and find meaning and joy in struggle. Scholars are trained to look for new knowledge in the physical and virtual stacks of libraries where philosophers have tried to interpret the world. The Oxford Handbook of Sociology for Social Justice is an attempt to inspire sociologists to look and engage elsewhere if we hope to change it.
