Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
World Social Forum (world + social_forum)
Selected AbstractsSouthern African social movements at the 2007 Nairobi World Social ForumGLOBAL NETWORKS, Issue 1 2009MILES LARMER Abstract How relevant is the anti-globalization movement to the ideas and activities of social movements seeking to achieve economic justice and greater democratic accountability in southern Africa? Case study research in four southern African countries (Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Swaziland) indicates that, while aspects of the anti-globalization approach resonate with civil society and social movement actors (for example, an emphasis on mass participation and the internationalization of campaigning), the global social justice movement frequently displays the characteristics of globalization. These include: unaccountable decision-making; profound (yet largely unacknowledged) inequality of access to resources; and an imposed and uniform organizational form that fails to consider local conditions. The World Social Forum (WSF) held in Nairobi in January 2007 provided many southern African social movement actors with their first opportunity to participate in the global manifestation of the anti-globalization movement. The authors interviewed social movement activists across southern Africa before and during the Nairobi WSF about their experiences of the anti-globalization movement and the Social Forum. An assessment of the effectiveness of this participation leads to the conclusion that the WSF is severely limited in its capacity to provide an effective forum for these actors to express their grievances and aspirations. However, hosting national social forums, their precise form adapted to reflect widely varied conditions in southern African states that are affected by globalization in diverse ways, appears to provide an important new form of mobilization that draws on particular elements of anti-globalization praxis. [source] Introduction to a Debate on the World Social ForumINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2005AHMED ALLAHWALA Social Forums, modeled on the World Social Forums, are not social movements in the classic sense. They are not, and do not purport to be, the organizational form through which basic social change will be achieved, or can best be pursued. But they do bring together elements of many social movements, afford an opportunity for coalition-building among them, frequently around urban issues, and thus make a significant contribution to achieving such change. Conceivably they may be the foundation for an international social movement for change, but if so it is likely to coalesce about a specifically political program. Some concrete suggestions are made which might enhance their effectiveness. Les Forums sociaux, sur le modèle des Forums sociaux mondiaux, ne sont pas des mouvements sociaux au sens traditionnel. Ils ne sont, ni ne sont censés être, la forme d'organisation permettant d'atteindre ou de mener au mieux un changement social fondamental. Cependant, ils réunissent des composantes de nombreux mouvements sociaux, leur offrent une possibilité de créer une coalition (souvent autour de problèmes urbains) et contribuent ainsi fortement à l'évolution visée. En théorie, ils peuvent servir de base à un mouvement social international en faveur d'un changement, quoique ayant alors tendance à s'unir sur un programme politique. Les suggestions concrètes qui sont formulées peuvent en améliorer l'efficacité. [source] An alternative urban world is possible: a declaration for urban research and actionINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2003Action (INURA)Article first published online: 17 DEC 200, International Network for Urban Research At its June 2002 meeting in Paris and Caen, France, the members of the International Network for Urban Research and Action (INURA) collectively agreed on a declaration to express the organization's urbanist agenda. This declaration operates on two levels: one makes five statements conceived in the tradition of earlier (for example situationist) manifestos; the other is a set of concise statements on the state of the globalization process in the era of globalization and neoliberalism. Subsections of the declaration deal with an urban world, a global city, migrant cities, unsustainable urban-natural relations, neoliberalization, attacks on democracy, community vulnerability, the rise of racism, and some thoughts on possible alternatives. The strategic purpose of this declaration was to be an intervention at meetings of the international urban community, for example for the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre in January 2003 and similar regional and local events. The declaration is published here in order to invite debate among other scholars and activists on the issues raised in its theses and statements. Lors de ses rassemblements de juin 2002 à Paris et Caen, les membres de l'INURA (International Network for Urban Research and Action) ont convenu ensemble d'une déclaration visant à exprimer le programme urbanistique du Réseu. Cette déclaration agit à deux niveaux: l'un énonce cinq propositions dans la tradition de manifestes antérieurs (situationnistes, par exemple), l'autre est une série de communications concises sur l'état de la démarche mondialiste à l'ére de la globalisation et du néolibéralisme. Les paragraphes de la déclaration abordent univers urbain, ville planétaire, villes de migrants, relations ville-nature insoutenables à terme, néolibéralisation, attaques contre la démocratie, vulnérabilité des communautés, montée du racisme et quelques réflexions sur les options possibles. Cette déclaration avait pour objectif stratégique une intervention lors de rencontres de la communauté urbaine internationale, comme au Forum social mondial de Pôrto Alegre en janvier 2003, ou d'événements locaux et régionaux similaires. Elle est publiée ici afin de susciter un débat entre d'autres intellectuels et militants sur les problèmes que posent ses thèses et propositions. [source] On Open Space: Explorations Towards a Vocabulary of a More Open PoliticsANTIPODE, Issue 4 2010Jai Sen Abstract:, Drawing on my work in and on architecture, urban planning, and socio-political movement including the World Social Forum (WSF), I attempt to critically engage with the increasingly widely used concept of open space as a mode of social and political organising. Arguing that open space, horizontality, autonomous action, and networking are now emerging as general tendencies in the organisation of social relations, and that the WSF is a major historical experiment in this idea, I try to open up the concept to a more critical understanding in relation to the times we live in. In particular, I argue that the practice of open space in the WSF makes manifest three key movement principles: self-organisation, autonomy, and emergence. By exploring its characteristics and contradictions, I also argue that open space cannot be provided and only exists if people make it open, and that in this sense it is related to, but different from, the commons. [source] Place Matters: India's Challenge to Brazil at the World Social ForumANTIPODE, Issue 3 2004Janet Conway First page of article [source] The "Call of Social Movements" of the Second World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, Brazil, 31 January,5 February, 2002ANTIPODE, Issue 4 2002Peter Waterman First page of article [source] | ||||||||||