International Activism
While globalism foregrounds cross-cultural transformations, international activism forces people to address the quest of cross-cultural solidarity. An increasingly transnational process, protest transforms both cultures and cultural identification, creating both local and global social movements.
TfC research considers the ways in which international activism engages in the processes of re-ordering or re-claiming cultural forms, the ways in which it refigures both social movement ideologies (such as socialism or feminism) as well as those of place and space (especially those of nationalism). The underlying conception of solidarity as a cross-cultural process allows for comparative studies of activisms that function within national boundaries, especially activisms of indigenous cultures.
More information about the concerns and aims of this area of TfC can be accessed via the Research Initiative on International Activism website.
TfC is strongly committed to cross-boundary, interdisciplinary work, and most of our research projects relate to other program areas, and to TfC Events.
Current TfC projects in this area include:
Social Movements and the Asia-Pacific
Social Movements, Nationalism and Globalism
State Power and Social Movements
Transnational Corporations and Contestation
Union Carbide Demonstration, Washington, April 2000
Photograph: Subramanya Sastry
Environmentalism and Activism
Researchers: James Goodman, Heather Goodall, Devleena Ghosh
Partner: Parkland Institute, Canada
As part of his involvement in the Globalism Project, James Goodman has co-edited a book on the global eco-social politics, Nature's Revenge: reclaiming sustainability in an era of corporate globalism, PhD researchers Jeremy Walker and Leopold Podlashuc are especially associated with this project.
Globalism Project
Researchers: James Goodman
Partner: Parkland Institute, Canada; Ray Broomhill, University of Adelaide
This is a five year project, funded by the Canadian Social Science Research Council, began in 2002. It compares the impacts of globalism in Norway, Canada, Mexico and Australia, and their experience in responding to globalism. The Project has resulted in a conference series and publications program, including six edited books. Two of these are co-edited by James Goodman, the first relating to environmental issues (see Environmentalism and Activism project), and the second relating to nationalisms across the four countries. The penultimate conference of the Project is to be held in Adelaide in April 2005. James Goodman is co-applicant with Ray Broomhill, the Adelaide host pf the 2005 conference, on an ARC application for support for the current stage of the project. Also, as part of this project, James is writing papers on 'Remapping Gender' and on 'Social Movement Learning'.
Social Movements and the Asia-Pacific
Researchers: Devleena Ghosh; James Goodman; Kate Barclay; members of the Institute for International Studies, UTS; researchers at the University of Guadalahara, Mexico
Partner: Asia-Pacific Research Network, Manila
The Project has involved participation in a series of conferences mounted by the UTS Institute for International Studies and the University of Guadalahara, to debate aspects of Asia-Pacific regionalization. Papers from the third conference, Regionalization, Marketization and Political Change in the Pacific Rim, is edited by James Goodman, and will be published in 2005. In addition, James has published an investigation into social movement politics in the region, in the TransPacific Press book, Globalisation, Culture and Inequality in Asia (2003). As part of this project James is presenting a paper 'Contested Fields: international studies in flux' at the 2004 Oceanic International Studies Conference. In 2004 he will also embark on a visit to ARENA - the Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives - in Beijing, along with TfC research student, Mei Chung. Both researchers will be presenting papers on themes of Asia-Pacific social movement mobilization at the 2004 World Congress of Sociology to be held in Beijing.
Social Movements, Nationalism and Globalism
Researchers: James Goodman, Paul James
Partner: Arena Magazine; Globalism Institute, Melbourne; Parkland Institute, Canada
This Project looks at the spatial logic of social movement mobilization, debating impacts and responses to globalism. A colloquium was held under this Project in 2002, 'Gobalism + Nationalism', and papers from this are be to be published in a book co-edited by Paul James, from the Globalism Institute in Melbourne, and James Goodman. The Globalism Institute has convened a research network focused on 'Sources of Insecurity' and James Goodman has taken up a position on the Executive Committee of the network, in the role of convenor of a research group on 'Nationalisms, National Identities and Security'. In addition to this, James has been involved with Arena Magazine, writing a series of articles, appearing in successive issues of the Magazine from late 2003, on questions of mobilization and globalisation. In 2003, immediately prior to the Australia-backed invasion of Iraq, the Research Initiative on International Activism, under TfC mounted a series of public meetings on the theme of 'Axis of Hope', with speakers from a variety of Australian, Indonesian, US and Canadian social movements.
State Power and Social Movements
Researchers: Devleena Ghosh, Heather Goodall, James Goodman
Partner: Sydney Civil Rights Network
This Project is an on-going series of public explorations into themes of justice, detention, and public protest. The first was held in May 2001, as a forum connecting the experience of refugees and indigenous peoples in Australia. Titled Imprison and Detain: racialised violence today, it attracted several hundred participants to join with a number of activists and academics to discuss urgent issues of racialised detention and violence in Australia. The second, Civil Disobedience Today, was held at NSW Parliament House immediately prior to the visit of the World Trade Organisation to Sydney. The Forum stimulated a very broad-based public debate on the role and legitimacy of protest in political change. The Forum hosted several academic and activist papers, and was well attended. Press coverage of the event led a member of TfC to take a complaint to the Australian Press Council (the action was successful). The third stage of this project was held in March 2003, with a series of three forums on the theme of 'Axis of Hope', designed as a counterpoint to the proposed intervention in Iraq, offering a critique of the worldview promoted by the US-led 'Coalition of the Willing'. The forums attracted over six hundred participants, listening to speakers from the US, Indonesia, India, Sweden and Australia, including a number of indigenous Australian speakers. The latest Forum in this series is to be held in early June 2004, and its entitled Terror and Justice. It will explore the impacts and responses to 'counter-terror' in Australia and internationally, with participants from affected communities and the non-government sector.
Transnational Corporations and Contestation
Researchers:James Goodman
Partner: Minerals Policy Institute, Sydney; Asia-Pacific Research Network, Manila
The Project analyses conflicts between social movements and transnational corporations. It has involved the Asia-Pacific Research Network, a Manila-based research network of Non-Government Organizations (NGO), and the Mineral Policy Institute, a Sydney-based NGO. The Project has resulted in a major international conference on 'Corporate Power or Peoples Power' held in Sydney in 2001, resulting in the publication of conference proceedings by the APRN in 2002. Chapters from this book, along with another book that resulted from the conference - Effective strategies in confronting TNCs - are likely to be edited for a book in 2005. In addition, the project has produced a compilation of perspectives from social movements contesting mining corporations - Moving Mountains: communities confront mining and globalisation, published by Zed Press in 2002.
