KPFA - Against the Grain

How does a social movement attract younger participants, who may be turned off by older activists’ approaches, styles, and understandings? Elisabeth Jay Friedman describes how Ni Una Menos, an influential feminist formation in Argentina, managed to build an intergenerational mass movement. (Encore presentation.) Elisabeth Jay Friedman and Ana Laura Rodríguez Gustá, ‘“Welcome to the Revolution’: Promoting Generational Renewal in Argentina’s Ni Una Menos,” Qualitative Sociology (Image on main page by TitiNicola.) The post Mobilizing Across Generations appeared first on KPFA.

What happens to survivors of violence — often perpetrated by intimates — who defend themselves against their attackers? According to legal scholar Leigh Goodmark, it often depends on whether those survivors look suitably victim-like. She discusses the circumstances that frequently lead to the criminalization of survivors of violence –- and makes the case for the abolition of a punitive legal system. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Leigh Goodmark, Imperfect Victims: Criminalized Survivors and the Promise of Abolition Feminism UC Press, 2023 The post Criminalizing the Victims of Intimate Partner Violence appeared first on KPFA.

To be queer and communist at a time when the Communist Party in the U.S. banned LGBT people was tricky and often perilous. In her new book Bettina Aptheker profiles Lorraine Hansberry (who famously penned the play “A Raisin in the Sun”), Harry Hay (best known for founding the Mattachine Society), and other figures with radical sensibilities and closeted sexualities. (Encore presentation.) Bettina Aptheker, Communists in Closets: Queering the History 1930s-1990s Routledge, 2023 The post Hansberry and Hay appeared first on KPFA.

Historian Peter Linebaugh discusses the relationship between the Commons and communism, including the history of enclosure, the influence of the Commons on Marx's work, and the association of women with the commons. It also explores the three waves of enclosure, the historical significance of wood accessibility, and Marx's study of the commons and indigenous influence.

The pandemic, the Muslim bans, the US-backed Saudi bombing of Yemen, counterterrorism initiatives – Yemeni Americans have faced, and continue to confront, major challenges to their well-being and their ability to connect with loved ones in Yemen. Sunaina Maira’s recent ethnographic work focuses on Oakland-based Yemeni corner store owners and their families. (Encore presentation.) Nadia Kim and Pawan Dhingra, eds., Disciplinary Futures: Sociology in Conversation with American, Ethnic, and Indigenous Studies NYU Press, 2023 (Photo on main page by Sunaina Maira.) The post Yemeni American Realities & Resilience appeared first on KPFA.

Can classic organizing methods be effective in gig economy workplaces? Paul C. Gray examines how methods like organizing conversations, social mapping, social charting, leader identification, and the identification of strategic chokepoints were applied by food couriers in Toronto to the peculiar circumstances of their platform-based work environment. (Encore presentation.) Labour/Le Travail Gig Workers United (Photo on main page by Kai Pilger.) The post Organizing in the Gig Economy appeared first on KPFA.

At a time when media ownership was held in a few hands, rightwing press barons combined celebrity coverage with xenophobic and nationalist politics, lauding authoritarian leaders and playing down the threat of fascism. In the lead up to World War Two, the likes of William Randolph Hearst and Robert McCormack in the U.S., and Lords Rothermere and Beverbrook in the UK, flirted with fascism and promoted imperialism. Historian Kathryn Olmsted argues that they paved the way for far-right mass media today.(Encore presentation.) Resources: Kathryn S. Olmsted, The Newspaper Axis: Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler Yale University Press, 2022 The post The Roots of the Far Right Press appeared first on KPFA.

In many immigration holding facilities, detainees can choose to work for wages. But is the language of choice in this context misleading? Katie Bales deploys the concept of unfree labor to explain what’s going on within what she calls the immigration industrial complex. She emphasizes the historical and geopolitical factors that compel many detainees to agree to work for often miniscule wages. (Encore presentation.) Boris et al., eds., Global Labor Migration: New Directions University of Illinois Press, 2022 (Photo on main page by DIAC Images.) The post “Unfree” Labor in Immigration Detention appeared first on KPFA.

Mike Davis was an exceptional thinker and writer: a deeply committed socialist who dazzlingly illuminated the unfolding ecological and social contradictions of late capitalism. Whether writing about his native Southern California, or contemplating the fate of billions in the world’s mega-slums, Davis gave us new ways of seeing — always with a post-capitalist world in his sights. Geographer Richard Walker discusses the many contributions of his fellow urbanist and radical. (Encore presentation.) The post Remembering Mike Davis appeared first on KPFA.

How did the influential scholar Cedric Robinson understand black radicalism and global capitalism? Yousuf Al-Bulushi has written about what he sees as several constituent elements of the Robinsonian black radical tradition, including an appreciation of culture (which pushes back against Marxism’s materialism) and a critique of state-based models of self-determination. Al-Bulushi also considers Robinson’s engagement with world-systems analysis. Yousuf Al-Bulushi, “Thinking Racial Capitalism and Black Radicalism from Africa: An Intellectual Geography of Cedric Robinson’s World-System” Geoforum (pdf) (Image on main page by Doc Searls.) The post Cedric Robinson’s World appeared first on KPFA.