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Dark PR: How Corporate Disinformation Undermines Our Health and the Environment
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Dark PR: How Corporate Disinformation Undermines Our Health and the Environment
USD $ 6.99 USD $ 21.00Price range: USD $ 6.99 through USD $ 21.00If you’re interested in how powerful forces of marketing & manipulation make the positive change we badly need MUCH harder, read @grantennis.bsky.social’ great book “Dark PR.” – Brent Toderian, Bluesky
“Think global, act local!” “Be the change you want to see in the world!” “Every little bit counts!” We can all get on board with such sentiments, right? That, of course, is exactly what corporate spin-masters across the world are banking on. By weaponizing such seemingly innocuous yet powerful narratives, change becomes a matter of personal choice, something each of us must slave away at day by day: switching off lightbulbs to save the environment or exercising to shed the weight we’ve gained from consuming junk food. All the while, the corporate welfare tap continues to flow, with over $6 trillion worth of annual subsidies dished out to industries that directly contribute to the deaths of over 5.5 million people each year through diabetes, road deaths, global warming, and other crises. But such framing is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the corporate disinformation playbook. This playbook is the dark matter of activist work: the unseeable element shaping harmful spin across all issues. It has never been reverse engineered – until now.
In Dark PR, Grant Ennis – drawing on his decades of experience working in the environmental, philanthropy, and public health sectors – reveals exactly how multinationals go about hoodwinking and manipulating us. In doing so, he lifts the lid on the nine devious frames contained within the cross-industry corporate disinformation playbook: through denialism, normalization, victim-blaming, multifactorialism, and a variety of other tried-and-tested tactics, corporations divert citizens’ attention away from the real causes of global problems, leading them into counter-productive blind-alley “solutions” like ethical consumerism and divestment. Sadly, though, buying Fair Trade chocolate has not and never will save the world. Only by collectively organizing to lobby our governments can we break this destructive cycle of lies and deadly incentives and reclaim control of our lives.
Dark PR: How Corporate Disinformation Harms Our Health and the Environment referenced in the UK House of Lords.
“I’m really interested in a piece of work that’s written by a guy named Grant Ennis, and I would advise you to have a look at his book on subsidy. So actually the Government provide an awful lot of subsidy to unhealthy food producers. Actually we could reduce the subsidy that is provided for that food and use the money in a different way to do different things. He is the expert in that”
– Alice Wiseman, Director of Public Health for Gateshead, EnglandLink: https://lnkd.in/e6AnKssm Minute 11:34:24
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The revolutionary ecological legacy of Herbert Marcuse – 2nd Edition
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The revolutionary ecological legacy of Herbert Marcuse – 2nd Edition
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The author appeals to the energies of those engaged in a wide range of contemporary social justice struggles such as ecosocialism, antiracism, the women’s movement, LGBTQ rights, and antiwar forces. As the dialectical counterpart of Marcuse’s Great Refusal, the book, which culminates with the ‘EarthCommonWealth Project’ is keyed to what we are struggling for, not just what we are struggling against. The author argues that regressive political forces must be countered today, and this is best accomplished through radical collaboration around an agenda recognizing the basic economic and political needs of diverse subaltern communities. System negation must become a new general interest. The author discusses core ethical insights from African philosophical sources, indigenous American philosophy, and radical feminist philosophy. Humanity’s first teachings on ethics are to be found in ancient African proverbs. These subsequently served also as a critique of colonialism and neocolonialism. Long-suppressed indigenous American sources supply a philosophical and political critique of Euro-centric economic and cultural values. They also offer an understanding of humanity’s place in nature and the leadership of women and attest to modes of cooperative and egalitarian forms of community. Feminist anthropology furnishes an historical context for understanding the origins of patriarchy and how to move beyond dominator power to new forms of partnership power.The book envisions the displacement and transcendence of capitalist oligarchy as such, not simply its most bestial and destructive components. This is a green economic alternative because its ecological vision sees all living things and their non-living earthly surroundings as a global community capable of a dignified, deliberate coexistence. It is searching for a new system of ecological production, egalitarian distribution, shared ownership, and democratized governance, having its foundation in the ethics of partnership productivity with an ecosocialist and humanist commitment to living our lives on the planet consistent with the most honorable and aesthetic forms of human social and political fulfillment.
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Racism, Capitalism, and COVID-19 Pandemic
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Racism, Capitalism, and COVID-19 Pandemic
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 15.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 15.00he COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp relief the deep structural problems affecting nonwhite racialized workers in the core and periphery. Yet, many social scientific analyses of the global political economy, at least in the pre-COVID era, are race neutral or willfully indifferent to the persistent racial pattern of global inequalities. This pamphlet explains how the unremitting super-exploitation of Black and other nonwhite racialized labor in the core and the periphery persisted throughout the COVID-19 crisis through the lens of Black radical scholarship on racism and capitalism.
Edwards not only captures how people of African descent have been disproportionately impacted by COVID, but also the historical, sociological and structural roots of the inequalities that affect vulnerable groups across the world, tied to what she has described as the architecture of the global economy linked to race and gender. She represents a refreshing voice in our time and part of a Caribbean radical tradition in the spirit of Claudia Jones, Eric Williams, Oliver C. Cox, and C.L.R. James, from her native Trinidad, as well as Guyana’s Walter Rodney and Andaiye.Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
Unearthing justice: How to protect your community from the mining industry AFRICA EDITION
ONLY AVAILABLE IN EASTERN AND SOUTHERN AFRICA
We are pleased to announce that Daraja Press will soon be making Unearthing Justice, originally published by Between The Lines, available in Africa through our partners at Zand Graphics Ltd (throughout East Africa and the Horn) and Sherwood Books (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland).
Originally published in 2019, this new edition has an Introduction by Yao Graham, TWN-Africa. The author, Joan Kuyek, is a community-focused mining analyst and organizer living in Ottawa. She was the founding National Co-ordinator of MiningWatch Canada from 1999–2009 and continues to do work for MiningWatch and for a number of communities affected by mining.
The mining industry continues to be at the forefront of colonial dispossession around the world. It controls information about its intrinsic costs and benefits, propagates myths about its contribution to the economy, shapes government policy and regulation, and deals ruthlessly with its opponents.
Brimming with case studies, anecdotes, resources, and illustrations, Unearthing Justice exposes the mining process and its externalized impacts on the environment, Indigenous Peoples, communities, workers, and governments. But, most importantly, the book shows how people are fighting back. Whether it is to stop a mine before it starts, to get an abandoned mine cleaned up, to change laws and policy, or to mount a campaign to influence investors, Unearthing Justice is an essential handbook for anyone trying to protect the places and people they love.
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Agroecología Abolicionista, Soberanía Alimentaria y Prevención de Pandemias
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Agroecología Abolicionista, Soberanía Alimentaria y Prevención de Pandemias
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 15.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 15.00La COVID-19 ha expuesto la naturaleza racializada de los sistemas alimentarios, pero también potencialmente otorga oportunidades para construir de nuevo. Maywa Montenegro explora una serie de defectos, desde las cadenas de suministro fracturadas hasta las infecciones no controladas entre los trabajadores de alimentos esenciales y comunidades negras, marrones e indígenas victimizadas por el virus a lo largo de viejos surcos de opresión racial. Ella rastrea los orígenes probables de la COVID-19 hasta los sitios de desborde forjados por la expansión agroindustrial en regiones boscosas donde los patógenos brotan libremente e infectan a los humanos. La agricultura animal de tipo industrial impulsa estos cambios ecológicos que incuban futuros brotes. Las pandemias tienen sus raíces en la separación violenta de las comunidades de sus territorios, semillas, conocimientos y riqueza. El racismo permite ese robo como elemento fundamental para la expansión capitalista.
Para hacer frente a las pandemias y las injusticias alimentarias, Montenegro invoca una agroecoecología abolicionista. Ninguna alternativa anticapitalista puede ignorar el racismo que es fundamental para el sistema alimentario industrial transnacional. Académicos como Angela Davis, Ruth Wilson Gilmore y Mariame Kaba han argumentado que, aunque la abolición se ve con frecuencia como una estrategia de oposición, para erradicar, por ejemplo, prisiones y policía: la abolición es igualmente propositiva. Una agroecología abolicionista abre múltiples posibilidades que responden a las exigencias de un planeta pandémico: no existe una “normalidad” a la que podamos regresar con seguridad.
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Extracting Profit: Imperialism, Neoliberalism and the New Scramble for Africa
A piercing historical explanation of poverty and inequality in African societies today and the social impact of resource-driven growth, Extracting Profit explains why Africa, in the first decade and a half of the twenty-first century, has undergone an economic boom. Rising global prices in oil and minerals have produced a scramble for Africa’s natural resources, led by investment from U.S., European and Chinese companies, and joined by emerging economies from around the globe. African economies have reached new heights, even outpacing rates of growth seen in much of the rest of the world. Examined through the lens of case studies of the oil fields of the Niger River Delta, the Chad-Cameroon Pipeline and the East African infrastructure boom, this period of “Africa rising” did not lead to the creation of jobs, but has instead fueled the extraction of natural resources, profits accruing to global capital, and an increasingly wealthy African ruling class.
Extracting Profit argues that the roots of today’s social and economic conditions lie in the historical legacies of colonialism and the imposition of so-called “reforms” by global financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The chokehold of debt and austerity of the late twentieth century paved the way for severe assaults on African working classes through neoliberal privatization and deregulation. And while the scramble for Africa’s resources has heightened the pace of ecological devastation, examples from Somalia and the West African Ebola outbreak reveal a frightening surge of militarization on the part of China and the U.S.
Yet this “new scramble” has not gone unchallenged. With accounts of platinum workers’ struggles in South Africa, Nigerian labor organizing and pro-democracy upheavals in Uganda and Burkina Faso, Extracting Profit offers several narratives of grassroots organizing and protest, pointing to the potential for resistance to global capital and fundamental change, in Africa and beyond.
And in an updated Preface, the author analyses the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic and escalating climate emergency, as both the crises and resistance to extraction accelerate across the continent.
Reviews-
“Lee Wengraf’s Extracting Profit – Imperialism, Neoliberalism and The New Scramble for Africa is at once historical and contemporary. It unpacks ongoing resource crimes by analytically exposing its historical roots and pointing to ways by which the oppressed can cut off the bonds that lock in their subjugation.” —Nnimmo Bassey, Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation
“Lee Wengraf provides an important reminder that Africa’s position within the world economy is heavily determined by its unequal insertion into the global capitalist system and ongoing manifestations of imperialism.” –James Chamberlain, Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute
“Lee Wengraf’s Extracting Profit provides a breathtakingly detailed account and analysis of some of the major socioeconomic ills that have been plaguing Africa for centuries. Amongst the host of issues she tackles, arguably the most consequential are mass poverty in African societies, their indefensible economic inequalities and the steady plundering of the continent’s resources, starting from the slave-trade era up till the present-day.” –Remi Adekoya, Review of African Political Economy
“Extracting Profit offers several narratives of grassroots organizing and protest, pointing to the potential for resistance to global capital and fundamental change, in Africa and beyond.” –Developing Economics
“Evidently, this book is well-researched and it contributes to the expansion of the frontiers of Marxist scholarship on Africa’s development dilemma within the global capitalist order. This book lends credence to the pioneering works of such notable radical scholars as Andre Gunder Frank, Walter Rodney, and Samir Amin among several others. It should be read by students and teachers of political economy, development studies, Marxism and philosophy.” –Marx & Philosophy Review of Books
“Extracting Profit provides a great arch of scutiny from the earliest carve-up of the African continent, through colonialism, war, imperialism, to the recent neoliberal takeover. The book demonstrates the continued importance of Marxist analysis on the continent, asserting the centrality of class analysis and a project of revolutionary change. Wengraf provides us with a major contribution, that highlights contemporary developments and the role of China on the African continent that has perplexed and baffled scholars. An indispensable volume.” —Leo Zeilig, author of Frantz Fanon: The Militant Philosopher of Third World Revolution
“The history of resource frontiers everywhere is always one of lethal violence, militarism, empire amidst the forcing house of capital accumulation. Lee Wengraf in Extracting Profit powerfully reveals the contours of Africa’s 21st century version of this history. The scramble for resources, markets, and investments have congealed into a frightening militarization across the continent, creating and fueling the conditions for further political instability. Wengraf documents how expanded American, but also Chinese, presence coupled with the War on Terror, point to both the enduring rivalry among global superpowers across the continent and a perfect storm of resource exploitation. Wengraf offers up a magisterial synopsis of the challenges confronting contemporary Africa.” —Michael Watts, University of California, Berkeley
“One of the most well-known stylized facts of Africa’s recent growth experience is that it has been inequality-inducing in ways that previous growth spurts were not. Lee Wengraf, in her new book Extracting Profit , expertly utilises the machinery of Marxian class analysis in making sense of this stylized fact. Along the way we learn much about Africa’s historical relationship with imperialism and its contemporary manifestations. This book should be required reading for all those who care about Africa and its future.” —Grieve Chelwa, Contributing Editor, Africa Is A Country
“In recent years countries in the African continent have experienced an economic boom—but not all have benefited equally. Extracting Profit is a brilliant and timely analysis that explodes the myth of “Africa Rising,” showing how neoliberal reforms have made the rich richer, while leaving tens of millions of poor and working class people behind. Lee Wengraf tells this story within the context of an imperial rivalry between the United States and China, two global superpowers that have expanded their economic and military presence across the continent. Extracting Profit is incisive, powerful, and necessary: If you read one book about the modern scramble for Africa, and what it means for all of us, make it this one.” —Anand Gopal, author, No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes
“Thorough and thoughtful, Wengraf’s book has a radical depth that underscores its significance. It’s definitely a must-read for anyone who cherishes an advanced knowledge on the exploitation of Africa as well as the politics that undermines Africa’s class freedom.” —Kunle Wizeman Ajayi, Convener, Youths Against Austerity and General Secretary of the United Action for Democracy, Nigeria
“Extracting Profit is a very important book for understanding why the immense majority of the African population remain pauperised, despite impressive growth rates of mineral-rich countries on the continent. It continues the project of Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. And in several ways, it also goes beyond it, capturing the changing dynamics of global capitalism 45 years after Rodney’s magnus opus.
In this book, Lee Wengraf debunks the myth of “Africa Rising” and the supposed expansion of an entrepreneurial middle-class, revealing “reforms” imposed by international financial institutions as mechanisms for fostering imperialism in an era of sharpening contradictions of the global capitalist economy. The adverse social, economic, political and environmental impact of these are elaborated on as a systemic whole, through the book’s examination of the sinews of capital’s expansion in the region: the extractive industries.
But, Wengraf does not stop at interrogating the underdevelopment of Africa. Her book identifies a major reason for the failures of national liberation projects: while the working masses were mobilised to fight against colonial domination, the leadership of these movements lay in the hands of aspiring capitalists, and intellectuals. The urgency of the need for a strategy for workers’ power internationally, she stresses correctly, cannot be overemphasized.
Reading Extracting Profit would be exceedingly beneficial for any change-seeking activist in the labour movement within and beyond Africa.” —Baba Aye, editor, Socialist Worker (Nigeria)
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We Rise for Our Land: Land Struggles and Repression in Southern Africa
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We Rise for Our Land: Land Struggles and Repression in Southern Africa
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 18.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 18.00In recent years southern Africa has aroused the interest of domestic and foreign investors targeting several sectors. Agrarian and extractive capital has been penetrating the countryside, causing land conflicts, displacement of local peasant communities and in worse cases, deaths. Rural people in general have not, been passive—alone or in alliance with non-governmental organizations and activists, they have organized raised their voices. Resistance movements to capital are taking place throughout the region, even when faced with repression. The book provides critical assessments of the dynamics of agrarian and extractive capital in southern Africa: with contributions from DRC, Namibia, Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Mozambique, Mauritius and Madagascar.
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Abolitionist Agroecology, Food Sovereignty and Pandemic Prevention
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Abolitionist Agroecology, Food Sovereignty and Pandemic Prevention
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 15.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 15.00COVID-19 has exposed the racialized nature of food systems, but also potentially grants opportunities to build anew. Maywa Montenegro explores a series of breakdowns, from fractured supply chains to uncontrolled infection among essential food workers to Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities scythed through by the virus along old grooves of race-class oppression. She traces the likely origins of COVID-19 to spillover sites forged by agroindustrial expansion into forested regions where pathogens spring free and infect humans. Industrial animal agriculture drives these ecological changes that incubate future outbreaks. Pandemics have their roots in the violent separation of communities from their territories, seeds, knowledge and wealth. Racism enables such theft as fundamental to capitalist expansion.
To tackle pandemics and food injustices, Montenegro calls for an abolitionist agroecology. No anti-capitalist alternative can ignore the racism that is central to the transnational industrial food system. Scholars including Angela Davis, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and Mariame Kaba have argued that although abolition is frequently seen as an oppositional strategy — to eradicate, for example, prisons and police — abolition is equally propositional. An abolitionist agroecology cracks open multiple possibilities that respond to the exigencies of a pandemic planet — there is no ‘normal’ to which we can safely return.
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Aporias de Moçambique pós-colonial: Estado, Sociedade e Capital
USD $ 20.00Moçambique celebrou, em Junho de 2020, 45 anos de sua independência. Os ganhos e avanços que o país alcançou nesta quase meia década de independência são inegáveis, mas os desafios que subsistem são muitos. Este livro reflecte sobre Moçambique contemporâneo nos seus vários aspectos, destacando a formação e o papel do Estado, a democracia, a participação dos cidadãos, a política económica e social e o desenvolvimento. Como se pode ver, o livro não é temático e oferece diversas perspectivas de autores e autoras que se dedicam à investigação, ao jornalismo e ao activismo. O livro pretende exactamente oferecer uma leitura do país a partir dos olhos daqueles que não ocupam uma posição de poder mas que vivem, experienciam e lêem a realidade do país a partir de uma perspectiva crítica da sociedade.
O objectivo deste livro é dar uma melhor compreensão do que tem sido o processo de independência em Moçambique e porque é que o país pós-colonial ainda é ‘colonial’ na sua estrutura política e económica. Assim, são dados muitos exemplos para dar ao leitor a possibilidade de confrontar as perspectivas teóricas aqui utilizadas com os casos concretos.
Todos os estudos deste livro mostram que quarenta e cinco anos de independência não foram vividos da mesma forma pelas elites que governam o país e pelas populações que vivem sob o seu domínio. Por um lado, as elites no poder e os seus parentes beneficiaram, e ainda beneficiam, dos recursos do país, enquanto que uma grande parte da população continua à espera das promessas da independência. De um ponto de vista político e económico, os estudos que compõem o livro destacam como o “desenvolvimento” em Moçambique tem estado em contradição com as necessidades do país. Significa que o actual modelo de desenvolvimento responde muito mais ao capital internacional do que à transformação social de Moçambique.Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
I am a man of peace: Writings inspired by the Maynooth University Ken Saro-Wiwa Collection
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I am a man of peace: Writings inspired by the Maynooth University Ken Saro-Wiwa Collection
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 20.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 20.00This book marks the 25th anniversary of the execution of Nigerian activist and written Ken Saro-Wiwa. The 21 essays, by international contributors, and 42 poems by new and established poets, are inspired by his ideals and activism.
The volume includes contributions by people intimately connected with Saro-Wiwa. His brother Dr Owens Wiwa recounts how his older brother awakened and nurtured his awareness of the tremendous damage Royal Dutch Shell was doing to their homeland, in collaboration with the then Nigerian military government. His firsthand account of the brutality of the military government and its impact; his unsuccessful efforts to save the life of his brother; his time in hiding and subsequent escape, with his family, from Nigeria and his efforts to retrieve the remains of his brother for burial, makes for very moving reading. Likewise, Noo Saro-Wiwa shares her story of growing up in England with strong links to family in Nigeria, and the trauma of hearing of her father’s execution while at University.
Maynooth University, where the editor works as Deputy Librarian, holds the death row correspondence from Ken Saro-Wiwa to Sister Majella McCarron. McCarron provides two personal essays. One, a reflection on the events that shaped her work with Saro-Wiwa in Nigeria and her subsequent efforts to save the lives of the Ogoni 9: the second essay explores her experience as a table observer of the Shell to Sea campaign, which strove to have gas, discovered off the west coast of Ireland, refined at sea rather than inland.
The damage that Shell has caused in Ogoni and the issue of redress are topics addressed in essays by experts including Mark Dummett, of Amnesty International, who investigated how Shell and other oil companies have caused or contributed to human rights abuses through their operations in the Niger Delta. Daniel Leader, a barrister and partner at Leigh Day’s international law department, the firm who have led a number of ground breaking human rights cases, including a series of cases against Shell on behalf of Nigerian communities, explores the issue of legal redress. Architect, environmental activist, author and poet Nnimmo Bassesy’s wide ranging essay presents Saro-Wiwa as activist and writer and creator of the Ogoni Bill of Rights, against the backdrop of the UNEP report of the Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland, which recorded that drinking water in Ogoni had benzene, a carcinogen, at over 900 times the level permitted
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Ghostlines – Re-Drawing the LAPSSET Corridor in Kenya
Ghostlines is a graphic novel that describes the journey of the author and three Kenyan artists along the LAPSSET development corridor, a braid of roads, pipelines, and resort cities that promises to bring development to Kenya’s marginalized north. It mixes conceptual and empirical insights into the human geography of infrastructure with the narrative flexibility and depth afforded by the medium graphic novel – a geo-graphic novel.
They meet Peter, a retired pilot who had previously worked for a conservancy and can tell stories about the LAPSSET from high above and from the ground. He understands how everyone involved is seeking to benefit from the corridor in their own way, even if that means building uninhabited “ghost huts” that manifest the presence of pastoral communities and thus qualify them for compensation. Jane is an activist for a women’s and Indigenous rights organization. She’s been fighting invisible monsters her entire life: stalking hyenas (metaphorical and real), corrupt politicians, and the patriarchy itself. The spectre of the LAPSSET is only the last one of these hidden monsters. They meet Joseph, a herder, who hopes that the LAPSSET might connect him to far places but worries that it will instead cut him off of the grazing grounds that are essential for the survival of his family. What is the LAPSSET – a road or a fence? In Oldonyoro they meet Rashid, a poet, who writes about the long history of the corridor. In his mind, it reaches far back to colonial times. “My grandfather suffered greatly,” he writes, “Is it my turn to face the worst? I wonder, a tricky treasure”. In the last village on their journey, they meet a group of women who have come together to support each other. Their position on the LAPSSET is more optimistic. The real connections of solidarity they forged contrast with the imaginary ghostlines of the LAPSSET. The narrative structure of the geo-graphic novel draws connections between the narrators, that is, the team of researchers and artists and the interviewees. They seek to unravel the idea of the omniscient or unbiased narrator and to reveal how storytellers bring their own ghosts into stories. By connecting all of these narratives along their journey, they challenge the single, universalist story that planners tell about large-scale infrastructure projects. Instead, they invite the reader to embrace the often-contradictory multiplicity of infrastructural relations, to see the ostensibly solid lines on maps for what they are: a messy, ever-changing braiding of multitudes.
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Rooted in struggle
Edited by
Anne Harley and Jonathan LangdonWith
Edward Adeti, Coleman Agyeyomah, Sheena Cameron, Amanor Dzeagu, Leocadio Juracan Salome, Thapelo Mohapi, Zodwa Nsibande, Ro Paradela, Alhassan Shani, Wojciech Tokarz, & Nyeya YenThis book is the culmination of several years of partnership between social movements, social justice organizations and academics in Ghana, South Africa, Guatemala and Canada. Called the Translocal Learning Network, this partnership has generated a space for those facing the multiple and overlapping crises of our time to come together and share knowledge and mutually solidarize with each other’s struggles. This knowledge exchange and mutual solidarity has been non-hierarchical and collaborative in nature, and has taken the form of sharing and commenting on complex stories of these struggles through a participatory research methodology known as narrative restorying. As such, this book will focus on the stories each partner has shared, along with engagement with these stories by other members of the network. This interplay of knowledge sharing will provide a window into the social movement learning of network members.
The central argument of the book was best captured by Thapelo Mohapi from South Africa’s Abahlali baseMjondolo: “It is always assumed that when you are poor, when you are living in a shack, when you live in a rural area, when you are marginalized, that you cannot think for yourself, that you cannot be involved in development, because you are poor”; instead of this “People must make decisions and must be consulted, and they must have a voice to speak about their own development. It must be initiated and completed with the people.” This book is literally a space where those on the front line of struggles against land & livelihood dispossession, violent resource exploitation, climate-fueled emergencies, and the denigration of cultural and traditional indigenous knowledge share their experiences, learning, successes, and defeats, with those facing similar and related struggles but in different contexts.
In addition to the stories of these front-line voices, scholars working alongside these struggles also share some of their learnings and ideas that have emerged from the partnership in the book. Students supporting the partnership also share their learning in the book, as well as describing how their activism also provoked learning in the network. In other words, this book provides a window into a rich, ongoing dialogue of mutual learning and support that will speak to audiences in the activist and critical academic communities.
To that point, this translocal network uses the notion of translocality to push back on the capitalist, colonial, and neo-liberal agenda of a) maintaining divisions between people struggling against oppression in different parts of the world (through border controls, language divisions, and colonial racialized othering); and, b) maintaining a knowledge hierarchy that states, international institutions, intellectual institutions, and corporations are those best able to contend with the many crises we face, and even within activists, it is those movements and organizations with broad, multinational reach that can best speak for the affected. Translocality argues that it is those with local knowledge of crises and context that are best positioned to speak to what needs to change, and that local struggles meeting each other as equals, translocally, is the best way to learn from one another without imposing new forms of knowledge hierarchies. Everaldo Morales Baján, from Commité Campisino del Altiplano (CCDA) in Guatemala captures this sentiment well when he says: “This book captures the essence and importance of the different struggles that exist in various parts of the world, but which converge on always caring for the planet and human rights.”
Chapter Summaries
Introduction: Translocal social movement learning: building mutual solidarity and contesting development for social and environmental justice
Jonathan Langdon; Sheena Cameron; Rodrigo Paradela; Wojciech Tokarz
In an effort to encourage connection and mutual learning between local movements, the Translocal Learning Network (TLN) serves as an effective social justice framework that attempts to build and maintain local to local (i.e. translocal) non-hierarchical connections between movements. The overall goal of this research partnership is to catalyze and animate translocal learning as a means to build capacity among localized movements in their struggles for a climate just and anti-capitalist future, and in so doing trace the contours of a theory of translocal learning – learning based on local to local learning as opposed to top down learning that mimics the very problematic of global dominance these movements contest. Key to this process is an insistence that movements and groups rooted in local social change efforts are crucial authors and actors of a climate just and anti-capitalist future. The members of the TLN address ongoing and emergent injustices to claim rights, assert agency, and demand representation and the redistribution of resources for marginalized communities in South Africa, Ghana, Guatemala and Canada. Creating shared spaces for connection, support, and learning through the ongoing struggles of each social movement has provided continuous moments of solidarity and opportunities for reimagining being in the world. This book showcases the perspectives of our partners, providing rich accounts of their experiences that illuminate struggles, insights, and successes. It also includes academic reflections on intercultural exchanges and offers an in-depth analysis of the collaborative learning process.
‘Players change but the game remains the same’: current realities of the poor, particularly in KwaZulu Natal
Zodwa Nsibande, Church Land Programme
This phrase was used by one member of Abahlali baseMjondolo in a meeting where we were talking about elections and the impact it has on people on the ground, especially who are marginalized and yet they are still expected to participate in the upcoming elections. She cautions that we need to be mindful that even if we change the ruling party, the ‘game’, the electoral system, remains the same, producing elites. Apartheid system favored ‘white’ people. Now the current system favors the elite. The ones who are poor remain poor and left with hope that someday things will change; hope that is shattered yet renewed every five years.
While there is less intense focus on South Africa now that apartheid is over, the sociological legacies continue and the fundamental nature or rules of the game remain intact. It points to the idea that regardless of who is involved, the main objectives, strategies, and overall dynamics of the game do not change. It emphasizes the notion that although the participants may alter, the essence of the game remains unchanged.
CLP will discuss the current realities of the poor, particularly in KwaZulu Natal, under the ongoing oppressive systems in South Africa, that permeates to all aspects of life, including the electoral system that favors the elites, the failing electricity system with load-sharing, and the improper stormwater drainage systems in townships and shack settlements, flood-prone areas (compounded by climate change) that results in loss of homes, food, and lives when it rains.
The Talensi-Nabdam Gold Rush: Local Complicity, Resource Exploitation, and the Crisis of Dignity
Coleman Agyeyomah Venceremos & Alhanssan Shani
This discussion will delve into the profound impact of multi-national mining activities on the communities of the Upper East Region in Ghana, specifically focusing on the alarming stories of dispossession of ancestral lands. The region, rich in cultural heritage and agricultural livelihoods, faces a growing threat as multi-national mining companies seek to exploit its abundant gold resources in collusion with State Institutions.
Through an exploration of real-life stories, light will be shed on the multifaceted consequences of multinational mining-induced dispossession of community lands. From the loss of cultural identity to the disruption of traditional farming practices and land degradation, this narrative will highlight the social, economic, and environmental toll on the affected communities.
The discussion will also provide a comprehensive overview of the mechanisms employed by multinational mining companies to acquire land and the subsequent displacement of local populations. Additionally, throws light on the challenges and complicity faced by these communities in seeking justice and recognition of their rights in the face of powerful corporate interests.
Gold Slavery in Talensi
Edward Adeti & Yen Nyeya, Savannah Research and Advocacy Network
Talensi is a small community in the Upper East Region of Ghana. The Upper East is one of the smallest regions in the country in terms of land size. The people of Talensi are predominantly subsistence farmers who rely on livestock and crop cultivation for their livelihoods.
Mining is one of the commercial activities that require huge parcels of land. Lands earmarked for mining are often fenced and are not available for any other activity even grazing of animals is often not allowed.
The people of Talensi stand the risk of losing their livelihoods due to the influx of a number of mining companies taking up almost 70% of lands earmarked for farming activities
The Río Negro massacre: The abandonment and criminalization of communities in Resistance by the State of Guatemala
Leocadio Juracan Salome, Commité Campisino del Altiplano (CCDA)
The water resource in the highlands of Guatemala, especially in the Verapaces region, has been the scene of large massacres against Indigenous peoples for the implementation of Hydroelectric Plants.
In the 70’s, resistance communities in the banks of Río Negro began facing persecution, dispossession, and criminalization. Río Negro is one of the great rivers that supply the largest Hydroelectric Plant in Guatemala called Chixoy. There were massacres, many disappeared, others forcibly displaced, exiled from their territories where they were born and others who remained in resistance.
With the largest hydroelectric plant in the country 4 kilometers away and despite suffering dispossession and criminalization, more than 500 families from the departments of Quiché, Alta and Baja Verapaz live in conditions of abandonment, without electricity, without development programs for health, housing, education etc.
Despite all the violations against humanity committed in the Río Negro Massacre, many Q’eqch’i’ Mayan families are still waiting for compliance with the resolutions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights -IACHR-, which mandates the recognition of the violations of Human Rights, the compensation to the families and the legalization of some 1,500 caballerías of territory in favor of the families by the State of Guatemala.
We are not opposed to the energy transition, but respect for the lives of families, their development, respect for the life cycle of Rivers and Mother Nature.
Nothing about us without us – Everybody Thinks!
Thapelo Mohapi, Abahlali baseMjondolo
The dignity of the poor can only be achieved if they are part of their own development, becoming stewards and active participants on their own terms and by their own design. This must be a process undertaken from below, democratically, with people being consulted and making decisions, having a voice to speak about their own development. It must be initiated and completed with the people. “Nothing about us, without us”, the slogan used by many movements to demand that the full and direct participation of members must be integral to decision-making, grounds the work of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a shack dwellers movement in South Africa, with more than 180,000 members that was formed in 2005 to fight for, promote and advance the interests of the poor and marginalized.This contribution grows out of a critique of development and is grounded in the understanding that development is neo-colonial and neo-imperial and that is something that is imposed and done to poor people in the formerly colonized countries, with the backing and financial support of Western governments, aid agencies, companies, and local governments. It is always assumed that when you are poor, when you are living in a shack, when you live in a rural area, when you are poor and marginalized, that you cannot think for yourself, that you cannot be involved in development, because you are poor. AbM demonstrates that people and movements are capable of determining what is best for themselves and to ensure the dignity and rights of the poor.
Ada Songor Lagoon; Our Heartbeat!
Amanor Dzeagu, Radio Ada
November 6, 2023 has become another taboo day for the local salt producers in Ada, just as the police confrontation with community members that led to the death of a pregnant woman in 1985. The Story of the Songor Lagoon: Who Killed Maggie?
Mr. John Korletey Agormedah, a 52 year old salt winner died of bullet wounds after he has been shot three times during an attempt to protect his salt winning business. His killing occurred when a joint taskforce and state police sent by Electrochem Ghana Limited, a private company awarded the entire Ada Songor Lagoon in a monopoly lease by the government and some local chiefs to destroy the community members salt winning equipment in the lagoon communities. Local chiefs fail to condemn the barbaric killing of their subject after three months, rather, they quickly reacted and condemn a political candidate for his comments which has been deemed, uncultured language in a viral video. He has been fined 30,000 Ghana cedis, 4 Rams, 4 foreign schnapps or face a ban in the elections. The police continue to arrest, detain and prosecuting community members including chiefs with the offence of inciting community members against the private company.
Translation, Care, and Political Commitment in the Translocal Learning Network
Ro Paradela; Wojciech Tokarz
This chapter examines translation within the Translocal Learning Network as political infrastructure that shapes collaborative knowledge production. Through translator Ro Paradela’s work – employing gender-inclusive Spanish, strategic domestication, and simultaneous interpretation – translation emerges as relational labor that negotiates power, affirms identities, and fosters belonging across linguistic boundaries, transforming communication into an act of care and solidarity.
Research Assistant Learning from Social Movements (Pending)
Sheena Cameron; Ro Paradela
Cameron and Paradela add another dimension of learning in their chapter, sharing their own learnings and reflections from their participation in this network as research assistants, in relation to the changing context and expressed learnings of other former research assistants over the last twelve years, while simultaneously engaged in their own studies – Paradela as an undergraduate honours student, and Cameron as a PhD student.
Learning from subaltern social movements
Anne Harley; Jonathan Langdon
As engaged scholars, with a long interest in social movements, we have been working with some of the social movements who form part of this group over a number of years. We have learned a great deal from our interaction with them, and have worked together to begin to theorize this learning. In this contribution, we discuss what we mean by the concept ‘subaltern social movement’, and why we feel that the learning from such social movements is critical in current times.
Concluding Chapter
Translocal Learning Network
This chapter emerges from the collective reflections of the network on the process of creating the book, and what we have learned along the way. It will respond to the emergent themes and interlinkages identified in the opening chapter, but also highlight the ways in which we have all responded to each other’s stories, comments and analyses.
Author Bios
Edward Adeti, is a Ghanaian-born investigative journalist widely known for his anti-corruption work and courageous journalism despite facing threats. He was named Ghana’s best journalist in 2024 and won the best investigative journalist award the same year. Some of his notable works include: exposing Ghana’s justice system, leading to a judge’s recusal and a minister’s resignation; the documentary “Cash for Justice”, which led to a senior state attorney’s dismissal; “Stealing from the Sick”, an investigative piece exposing medicine theft at a government hospital, leading to arrests and prosecution of some members of a syndicate; and “Blood Gold”, a series he co-authored with Eryk Bagshaw, an Australian investigative journalist, on human rights violations by mining companies in Ghana, winning multiple international awards in 2023. He is a member of SRAN.
Coleman Agyeyomah formerly of Venceremos Development Consult is currently the Director, of Innovation Development Alternatives (IDEAs), a devolvement and organizational change NGO. Agyeyomah has over 20 years in facilitating and the mobilizing of Community Based Organizations/leaders for social change in poor and vulnerable communities of northern Ghana. Above all, he also teaches and provides field-based experiential learning support for students from Universities of Trent and St. Francis Xavier Canada.
Sheena Cameron is a Lecturer at St. Francis Xavier University (Canada) as well as a Research Coordinator of the Translocal Learning Network. She brings decades of community work in West Africa, Guatemala and Canada and community radio and podcasting experience to the writing of her chapter. She holds a Masters in Communication and Social Justice and she is currently completing a PhD in Social Justice Education at the Ontario Institute for the Study of Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto.
Amanor Dzeagu is a community radio practitioner and development communicator working with Radio Ada, a community radio station in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. He works closely with local communities to tell their stories, document their traditions, and advocate for inclusive development through radio and community engagement. With a deep respect for the Dangme culture and indigenous systems, Amanor uses the community radio as a bridge between tradition, development, and the voices of the people. He brings more than two decades of community broadcasting experience to the writing of this chapter.
Anne Harley is a senior lecturer in adult education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Pietermaritzburg) in South Africa. Working within the radical adult education tradition, she is particularly interested in informal adult education/learning in/through/with struggle, and her work focuses on counter-hegemonic learning and theorising, particularly in subaltern social movements, and is thus related to issues of emancipatory politics, the notion of civil society, and discourses of ‘development’ in South Africa and beyond.
Leocadio Juracan Salome is one of the leaders of the Comité Campasino del Altiplano (CCDA), a large movement of peasant farmers in Guatemala. Leocadio brings decades of political and community organizing experience to CCDA’s contribution to the book.
Jonathan Langdon is a Professor at St. Francis Xavier University (Canada) in Development Studies and Adult Education. Langdon has over 20 years of community engagement, activist organizing and facilitation work, as well as being the convener of the Translocal Learning Network for the last 3 years.
Thapelo Mohapi was born in Matatiele in the Eastern Cape and raised in Durban, KwaZulu Natal. He is the current elected General Secretary of Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA, the movement of informal settlements in South Africa, numbering over 180,000 members. Prior to that, he was the chairperson of the Briardene branch in Durban within the movement. He also served as the Provincial Secretary of KwaZulu Natal. AbM is a movement that fights for land, housing and the dignity of the poor in South Africa.
Zodwa Nsibande is a social justice advocate and community leader from Durban, South Africa. She served as General Secretary of the Abahlali baseMjondolo youth league in 2009, she spoke out against the harmful effects of the FIFA 2010 World Cup on shack settlements , leading to threats that forced her into hiding. In 2011, she joined the South African delegation to the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Israel and Palestine (EAPPI), spending three months advocating for peace and human rights. Since 2013, Zodwa has served as a Programme Activist at the Church Land Programme, supporting marginalized communities in securing land rights and dignified living conditions in both rural and urban areas. Most recently, she was a visiting scholar at the University of Sheffield’s School of Law in the United Kingdom from June 24 to July 26, 2024.
Ro Paradela (they/she) is a transfeminist activist from Mexico City. They graduated St. Francis Xavier University with Honours in Sociology and a Subsidiary in Women’s and Gender Studies. They are currently organizing in the fight against the crisis of transfemicidal violence in Mexico.
Alhassan Shani is a development practitioner and works with IDEAs, Northern-Ghana. He has over nine (9) years of experience in development research, community mobilization, social accountability, monitoring and evaluation of projects and development planning process. Alhassan’s development orientation is firmly rooted in participatory development. Additionally, he is passionate about research that encourages community participation, learning and action.
Wojciech Tokarz is a scholar and administrator serving as Associate Professor of Spanish and Interim Dean of the Faculty of Arts at St. Francis Xavier University (Canada). His research examines post-dictatorship Argentine literature, Indigenous representation, and translation theory, in particular how translation facilitates negotiation of Indigenous and LGBTQ+ identities, fostering belonging and advancing decolonial ethics. More information: https://wojciechtokarz.academia.edu
Nyeya Yen is a lifelong social justice activist with over 50 years of advocacy in Ghana and Africa. Exiled in 1982 under the Rawlings regime, he lived in Togo and the UK while campaigning for political justice. Returning in 2014, he continues to fight marginalization in mining-affected communities in Ghana’s Upper East Region.
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Silence Would Be Treason
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Silence Would Be Treason
USD $ 10.00 USD $ 20.00Price range: USD $ 10.00 through USD $ 20.00These letters and poems are invaluable fragments of a living conversation that portrays the indomitable power in humans to stay alive in the face of certain death – to stay alive even in death.
Reading through the treasure trove of the letters and poems compiled here as The Last Writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa evokes intense memories of his resolute struggles against an oil behemoth and a deaf autocratic government. His crusade frames one of the most tumultuous periods of Nigeria’s history; his tragic story evokes anger and demands action to resolve the crises that first led the Ogoni people to demand that Shell clean up Ogoni lands or clear out of the territory.
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Stratégies familiales, diasporas et investissements
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 30.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 30.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
Stratégies familiales, diasporas et investissements
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 30.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 30.00À rebours des thèses soutenant que la migration contribue au développement ou que l’in- vestissement dans le développement réduit la croissance de la migration « irrégulière », ce livre marque une rupture tonifiante avec les idées communes abondamment véhiculées dans la littérature sur les liens entre migration, mobilités et développement en Afrique. Il accorde un intérêt manifeste pour la plus grande part des mobilités africaines, lesquelles se situent à l’intérieur du continent, et à la formation des diasporas en dehors des fron- tières nationales et continentales. Cette considération conjointe des mobilités « Sud-Sud » et « Sud-Nord » permet de remettre en cause l’hypothèse selon laquelle il existe des diffé- rences fondamentales entre elles.
Cet ouvrage examine les fluctuations ordinaires des mouvements de populations – à travers l’Afrique, comme dans le reste du monde –, qui étendent les familles, génèrent de nouvelles relations, reconfigurent les connexions économiques et politiques, et sont intégrées dans l’expérience quotidienne des millions de personnes qui y prennent part.
The in-depth knowledge of the mostly African authors adds to the quality of a research field, which was for long far too Eurocentric. – Ilke ADAM, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium)
Il était temps de mettre en lumière ce que migration et mobilité représentent en Afrique. L’ouvrage offre une perspective originale et décoloniale sur le sujet. – Eric HAHONOU, Roskilde Universitet (Denmark)
Christian Bouquet, « Quelques éclairages nouveaux sur les migrations africaines », EspacesTemps.net [En ligne], Books, 2020 | Mis en ligne le 20 November 2020, consulté le 20.11.2020. URL : https://www.espacestemps.net/en/articles/quelques-eclairages-nouveaux-sur-les-migrations-africaines/ ; DOI : 10.26151/esapcestemps.net-jc2a-6b03
Avec la participation de John O. IGUE, Saydou KOUDOUGOU, Pierre-Joseph LAURENT, Bassirou MALAM SOULEY, Hamidou MANOU NABARA, Marème NIANG NDIAYE, Amadou SARR DIOP, Sadio SOUKOUNA , Eric Stève TAMO MBOUYOU et Astadjam YAOUBA.
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Mobilités, circulations et frontières
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Mobilités, circulations et frontières
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 30.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 30.00Ce livre est un apport précieux pour demander à changer de focale et de perspective au sujet des migrations à l’intérieur du continent africain. Celles-ci sont bien plus importantes quan- titativement, mais aussi économiquement et historiquement, que les migrations de l’Afrique vers l’Europe. Elles sont beaucoup plus silencieuses et infiniment moins étudiées que celles du Sud vers le Nord. Ces migrations sont vitales, tant pour les pays de départ que pour ceux d’arrivée. Ainsi, des millions de jeunes partent chaque année pour les pays de la côte, et cela sans susciter les mêmes résistances, fantasmes et peurs qu’en Europe.
Cet ouvrage a le grand mérite d’intégrer les migrations dans la perspective plus large des mobilités, puis d’en examiner les liens avec le développement. Il est rédigé par de jeunes chercheurs africains, qui produisent à partir de leurs terrains spécifiques des analyses à valeur générale sur les sociétés contemporaines. Ils contribuent ainsi au renouvellement des sciences sociales à partir des pays africains.
On peut en revanche souligner que l’ouvrage a relevé un défi important : celui d’éclairer à la fois les dynamiques de l’expérience migratoire, des trajectoires suivies par les migrants et des espaces migratoires à l’intérieur de l’Afrique. — Sylvie Ayimpam, « Mobilités, circulations et frontières. Migrations, mobilités et développement en Afrique », Anthropologie & développement [En ligne], 51 | 2020, mis en ligne le 01 décembre 2020, consulté le 23 février 2021. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/anthropodev/1068 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/anthropodev.1068
These companion volumes are refreshing because they introduce us to many less well- known instances which amply illustrate just how mobile African populations really are at the regional, intra-regional and global scales. – Paul NUGENT, University of Edinburgh (United Kingdom)
Un ouvrage d’une grande actualité qui aborde la question des migrations sous un angle radicalement nouveau et original : l’articulation dynamique entre la migration, la mobilité et le développement en Afrique de l’Ouest. Ces deux volumes bilingues renouvellent le débat sur les migrations : de quoi faire réfléchir ensemble l’Afrique et l’Europe. – Marie-Caroline SAGLIO-YATZIMIRSKY, INALCO, CESSMA Paris (France)
Christian Bouquet, « Quelques éclairages nouveaux sur les migrations africaines », EspacesTemps.net [En ligne], Books, 2020 | Mis en ligne le 20 November 2020, consulté le 20.11.2020. URL : https://www.espacestemps.net/en/articles/quelques-eclairages-nouveaux-sur-les-migrations-africaines/ ; DOI : 10.26151/esapcestemps.net-jc2a-6b03
Avec la participation de Naluwembe BINAISSA, Alimou DIALLO, Nyalo Barkissa DRABO, Sylvester KOHOL, A. Aziz MOSSI, Loppa NGASSOU, Lawrence Rafaih OKELLO, Mutiat Titilope OLADEJO, Zakaria SORÉ, Astadjam YAOUBA et Irissa ZIDNABA.
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Cradles
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Cradles
USD $ 5.00 USD $ 15.00Price range: USD $ 5.00 through USD $ 15.00Cradles is a collection poems on the nature(s) and nurturing that cradle us. They are divided into four parts: Womb is the first cradle, both ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’, under-acknowledged and often unmentioned. Beyond the physical womb of individuals, there are collective wombs that incubate on yet grander and greater scales. Land(s) are the cradles we typically identify as our ‘origins’, but as the Cradle of Humankind teaches, the many lands of today are interlaced in many concealed ways and originated in a single, little understood place. Tides are the many migrations and cycles of time that shape us. They can shift, upset and remake the nurturing of cradles; but also cradle us in cycles of wreckage. Wind sets us free of places and times of origin. This detachment can bring freedom, a sense of loss/lostness, and the many things in between. The freedom/loss/lostness spiral whirls with the wind and transforms. In surrendering to it we can alter its pace to our needs and desires.
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