Este libro narra la conmovedora historia de Patrocinia Polanco Rivas, una campesina salvadoreña que personifica la lucha por la dignidad en medio de la adversidad. A través de su testimonio y el análisis del autor Andrés McKinley, la obra recorre su vida, desde una infancia marcada por la pobreza extrema y la opresión de la oligarquía cafetalera, hasta su participación en la guerra civil como operadora de radio del FMLN tras el asesinato de su mentor, el padre Rutilio Grande. La guerra le arrebata a su padre, pero forja en ella una resistencia inquebrantable.
Tras los Acuerdos de Paz de 1992, la esperanza de una vida digna se desvanece ante la persistente pobreza y las políticas neoliberales que mantienen a las familias campesinas en la miseria. Para sobrevivir, Patrocinia trabaja incansablemente cortando caña de azúcar, mientras la falta de oportunidades lleva a su esposo y, posteriormente, a sus seis hijos a emprender el peligroso viaje migratorio hacia Estados Unidos. El libro documenta los horrores de este periplo: el abandono, la extorsión, el secuestro y la constante amenaza de la muerte.
Una vez en el norte, los hijos de Patrocinia se enfrentan a la dura realidad de la vida indocumentada y a la maquinaria represiva del ICE, especialmente bajo la administración de Donald Trump. La autora establece un poderoso paralelismo entre la violencia de los escuadrones de la muerte en El Salvador y la persecución sistemática de los migrantes.
El Precio de la Dignidad es un testimonio de la resiliencia humana, mostrando que la dignidad no reside en el éxito de la lucha, sino en la propia lucha, un legado que Patrocinia heredó de su padre. El libro se erige como un recordatorio urgente de las consecuencias humanas de la guerra, de la injusticia económica y de las políticas migratorias despiadadas.
Andrés (Drew) McKinley was born in the United States but has worked for over 50 years in programs for sustainable development, environment and human rights in Africa, Latin America and the United States. He has worked for the past 48 years…
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Truth be told, I never thought I would write another volume of poetry after the last, I will not Dance to Your Beat (2011). The reason was that my previous volumes were reactive to the circumstances of the times. Patriots and Cockroaches (1992) was a reaction to the socio-political corruption that had engulfed Africa and dimmed the enthusiasm that had been built by the years of struggle for independence. Whereas we thought we were stepping into a post-colonial era, what we stepped into was a vicious neo-colonial times. The next collection, Poems on the Run (1995) was a reaction to military autocracy and the repression that followed. The volume was literally written underground. This was followed by Intercepted (1998) all written while detained at Kalakuta Republic of Alagbon Close. We Thought it was Oil But it was Blood (2002) responded to two things primarily – extractivism and the accompanying human and environmental rights abuses in the Niger Delta and elsewhere. The massive erosion of biodiversity and attacks on food sovereignty through the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into our agricultural system inspired I Will not Dance to your Beat.
What you have in your hands, or on your screens, is a compilation that is largely more meditative than the previous collections. There are moments of reflection on the colonial and neoliberal foundations that permit a willful disconnection from nature and the resultant destructive extractivism.
Some of the poems came through conversations and poetry writing sessions with Peter Molnar, Maryam al-Khawaja — Rafto Human Rights laureates and Salil Tripathi, a member of the board of PEN International, in August 2017. The sessions held at a beautifully rustic location in Celleno, Italy, were documented on celluloid by the duo of Maria Galliana Dyrvik and Anita Jonsterhaug Vedå of SMAU, a multimedia firm in Norway. Poetic relationship with Maria and Anita has continued over the years and their work continues to inspire more and more poems.
History is written by the victors of any war. But what happens when the victors forget to write down their history or omit the cog of the struggle? This is the untold story of Mathare Slum that has never been told to the world: of the role it played in anti-colonial struggle and the planning ground for the Mau Mau struggle which culminated with the fall of the British Colonial Empire in Kenya in the midnight of December 12th 1963. Mathare has also played a critical role in anti-oppression struggle against the four regimes that we’ve had since independence and continues to do so up to date. This history has not been documented and has only been done piecemeal. This has overtime eroded the rich history of Mathare and led to a distorted history of once a planning ground and a bulwark of Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KFLA). The current generation are not cognizant with the critical role Mathare played in the independence of our country. Presently, Mathare is majorly known for all the negative reasons and its proximity to Mathari Mental Hospital has contorted its image to the outside world. My story tries to re-tell the history of Mathare from an informed insider perspective by threading the struggles from the colonial era to the present day and the role it has played in agitating for social justice. My story brings to view the past history of this informal settlement in the heart of Nairobi, the present struggle and the promising future through community organizing.
Los agentes patógenos surgen una y otra vez de un sistema agroalimentario global arraigado en la desigualdad, la explotación laboral y el extractivismo sin límites por el que se despoja a las comunidades de sus recursos naturales y sociales. Un sistema económico propenso a la crisis que prioriza la producción para obtener beneficios por encima de la satisfacción de las necesidades humanas y la preservación ecológica se organiza en torno a una intensa producción monocultural que, por el camino, permite la aparición de las enfermedades más mortíferas.
La Investigación sobre la Pandemia para el Pueblo (PReP) se centra en cómo la agricultura podría ser reimaginada por el tipo de intervención a nivel de la comunidad que podría detener la aparición del coronavirus y otros patógenos en primer lugar. Abordamos cómo la ciencia convencional apoya los mismos sistemas políticos y económicos que ayudaron a producir la aparición del coronavirus y otros patógenos en primer lugar.
Introducimos la agroecología, un ecologismo de los campesinos, los pobres y los indígenas, que existe desde hace mucho tiempo, y que trata la agricultura como una parte de la ecología de la que la humanidad cultiva sus alimentos. La agroecología -una ciencia, un movimiento y práctica- combina la ciencia ecológica, los conocimientos indígenas y campesinos y los movimientos sociales por la soberanía alimentaria y territorial para lograr sistemas alimentarios ambientalmente justos.
For the past 10 years, the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) has been on the front line of the struggle for environmental justice, climate justice and food sovereignty in Africa and the globe. It has been a decade of non-stop probing of the exploitation of resources, peoples and nations, which has given rise to numerous environmental and climate injustices. HOMEF has had a decade of witnessing and standing against the injustice, the powers and structures (industries and policies) suffocating the rights of the people to a healthy environment and standing with the neglected to take charge of their once self-managed food and agricultural systems. The struggle has necessitated the reawakening of communities’ consciousness to the injustices that besiege them and to their ‘people power’ – power to be utilized in seeking the desired change.mPolitics of Turbulent Waters is a compendium of selected articles in the 36 issues of the Eco-instigator published from 2013 to 2022. The Eco-instigator is yet another tool used by HOMEF to pull together thoughts and reports of activities that advance environmental justice and food sovereignty. Issue by issue, these thoughts and reports flow from within HOMEF and other environmental/climate justice and food sovereignty advocates from across Africa and the globe.They form this rich assemblage (Politics of turbulent waters) to commemorate HOMEF’s 10th anniversary. The title of the book is one of Nnimmo Bassey’s (the director of HOMEF) numerous articles that have graced some pages of the different issues of the Eco-instigator. The article cum title encapsulates the messages that the book intends to convey to you, the reader. It crystallizes the dire condition of Africa and its waters and the power imbalance together with the spatial disposition that plunged the continent into the calamitous environmental situation it faces. It speaks of the politics of economic development and market fundamentalism that avows to maintain the status quo in terms of destructive exploitation of Africa’s marine and other natural resources.
![Aufbruch in Jackson [German edition of Jackson Rising: Black self-management and solidarity economy]](https://darajapress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/174_Akuno_Jackson_web-150x225.jpg)
How black activists are building liberation practically from below: Departure in Jackson documents the history of one of the most exciting revolutionary experiments in the USA Present.
Since the 1970s, black liberation movements in majority-black Mississippi have taken change into their own hands. The Deep South should become the center of their independence – “Free the Land!” In the 2010s, the election of Chokwe Lumumba as mayor in the capital Jackson took an important step towards implementing the vision of assembly democracy, solidarity economy and an end to racial inequality. Lumumba dies unexpectedly in 2014, but his son Antar and the Cooperation Jackson continue to move forward.
We learn about the pitfalls of radical local politics and struggles for housing and land, democratic economic models and ecology, internationalist solidarity and the parallels to the Rojava Revolution and the Zapatistas, about encouraging experiences in which different concerns go hand in hand.
Given the growing interest in understanding the meaning, manifestations, analyses and implications of racism in North/South relations, White Saviorism in International Development seeks to remedy the shortcomings of the development studies literature on the prevalence of White Saviorism in Western development initiatives in the Global South. The volume comprises theoretical chapters, testimonies, stories and lived experiences from 19 contributors from across the Global South. With sensitivity and intelligence, these practitioners and academics create a tapestry that unveils the implicit and explicit forms of White Saviorism in international development.
Nikesha Breeze has taken pages from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, taken his words, and forced them to leave his colonized mind. She has made the words her own in poetic form. She illuminates the invisible Black voices inside, a radical, surgical, and unapologetic Black appropriation, at the same time as a careful birthing and spiritual road map. The resulting poems are sizzling purifications, violent restorations of integrity, pain, wound, bewilderment, rage, and, sometimes, luminous generosity. This is a work of Reclamation. The author, Nikesha Breeze, has slowly, page by page, reclaimed the text of the book Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. This racist turn-of-the-19th-century book was pivotal in the continued dehumanization of Black people and in particular of African people, as it painted an image of bestiality on the Congo people and the continent. It is laced with racist imagery and language. The author has reappropriated the book, page by page, making “BlackOut” poetry for each page, isolating methodically the words to create new poems of power and black voice within the text —stealing the language and reappropriating the power.
Edited by
Anne Harley and Jonathan Langdon
With
Edward Adeti, Coleman Agyeyomah, Sheena Cameron, Amanor Dzeagu, Leocadio Juracan Salome, Thapelo Mohapi, Zodwa Nsibande, Ro Paradela, Alhassan Shani, Wojciech Tokarz, & Nyeya Yen
This 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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Este es un libro sobre la dignidad humana.
A través de las conmovedoras palabras de una mujer extraordinaria,Andrés McKinley teje una historia de los últimos cincuenta años enhonor a las personas del mundo que luchan cada día por sobrevivircon dignidad. Patrocinia Polanco Rivas es una mujer con una historiaque merece ser contada. Nacida en la pobreza y sufriendo bajo eldominio de las oligarquías cafetaleras y azucareras que gobernabanEl Salvador, Patrocinia sobrevive a la violencia de los abusos paramili-tares, a los horrores de una guerra civil alimentada por Estados Unidosque cobró la vida de 75,000 personas (ella fue operadora de radio delejército guerrillero), a la pobreza de una economía desigual, al dolor dever a sus hijos soportar el terror de migrar a Estados Unidos y al temorcotidiano de que sus hijos vivan bajo la maquinaria migratoria del ICEdurante la era Trump.
Al mismo tiempo, Patrocinia comparte las alegrías de una familiaamorosa, el despertar de las Comunidades Eclesiales de Base de ladécada de 1970, las esperanzas de los Acuerdos de Paz de 1992, eldolor y peligro de 20 años de cortando caña para poner comido sobrela mesa de sus 6 hijos, y la extraordinaria fortaleza y valentía que senecesitan para sobrevivir una vida de pobreza; una pobreza nacida depolíticas impuestas por los sectores más ricos de nuestra tierra.
Gran parte de este extraordinario libro está compuesta por las propiaspalabras de Patrocinia, pero Andrés McKinley entrelaza su historia conla historia de las comunidades cristianas de base, el papel de EstadosUnidos en el respaldo al terror de la guerra civil, el milagro y las decep-ciones de los Acuerdos de Paz, la violencia estructural de las políticasde Reagan y de sus aliados salvadoreños que empobrecieron a lamayoría de campesinos de El Salvador, el surgimiento de las pandi-llas y, posteriormente, los años de gobernación autóctona de NayibBukele, así como la dura realidad que enfrentan los salvadoreños enEstados Unidos bajo Trump.
Cada página arde con las palabras que Patrocinia recuerda de supadre en los días más oscuros de la guerra civil: “Nuestra dignidadno siempre se encuentra en el resultado de nuestras luchas; nuestradignidad reside en la lucha misma.”
– John Cavanagh, Instituto de Estudios Políticos (Institute for PolicyStudies), y coautor (junto con Robin Broad) de Los Defensores delAgua: Cómo la gente común salvó a un país de la codicia corporative
Este es un libro extraordinario que conmoverá a sus lectores tantoemocional como intelectualmente. Vincula la crisis actual de crueldadcontra los migrantes salvadoreños en Estados Unidos con la crisis decrueldad ejercida contra los pobres salvadoreños durante la guerrade la década de 1980. Combina la historia personal de Patrocinia,una campesina salvadoreña con una asombrosa trayectoria de sufri-miento, resistencia y resiliencia, con la forma en que Andrés McKinleysitúa su historia dentro de las acciones de los gobiernos de EstadosUnidos y de los poderosos y acaudalados salvadoreños, desde aquellaguerra hasta la actualidad. Esta es una lectura imprescindible paraquienes desean comprender lo que significa ser pobre y carecer depoder, y cómo los salvadoreños, a pesar de todo, han continuadobuscando todas las formas posibles de sobrevivir y vivir con dignidad.– Jenny Pearce, Profesora Visitante, Instituto de DesigualdadesInternacionales, London School of Economics
El Precio de la Dignidad es una lectura indispensable, especialmentepara quienes desean comprender el flujo migratorio hacia el norteprovocado por los conflictos en Centroamérica que fueron finan-ciados en gran medida por Estados Unidos. Está escrito con pasióny con frecuencia da la palabra a las voces elocuentes de campesinosy campesinas, cuyas vidas han sido moldeadas por el sufrimiento yla lucha. Ofrece una mirada actualizada sobre la vida en El Salvador ysobre las vidas valientes, aunque a menudo peligrosas, de las personasindocumentadas.
– Charlie Clements, MD, MPH, autor de Witness to War (Testigo de laGuerra) (Bantam, 1984; Daraja Press, 2025).