Temporal blindspots in Occupy Philadelphia

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes the disjunctive temporalities of Occupy Philadelphia’s political constituencies. Drawing on both an ethnographic participant observation study of the Occupy Philadelphia movement and Philadelphia’s neoanarchist political communities, and on recent social scientific theorization of events, the paper argues that contradictory ideas about temporal timescales, momentum, duration, sequences, and rhythms of tactical and strategic action problematized interaction and coordination among movement participants. These points of coordinative disjuncture can be traced back to differences in participants’ ideas about prefigurative politics and strategic temporalities. Limning the temporal expectations and experiences of social movement participants, this paper contributes to the examination of both linkages and disjunctures between eventful temporalities experienced in moments of protest and in social movements with diverse timescales.     

Social movement schools: sites for consciousness transformation,training, and prefigurative social development

ABSTRACT

We develop the concept of “social movement school’ (SMS), showing how these organizational spaces are deliberately designed for purposes of educating, mentoring, training, and coordinating individuals as effective, committed movement agents. SMSs can also be important sites of prefigurative design and practice for future societal development consistent with movement goals. We motivate the theoretical significance of SMSs based on five perspectives in social movement scholarship: (1) resource mobilization; (2) cultural approaches to repertoires of contention; (3) cognitive perspective; (4) micro-mobilization; and (5) biographical consequences of participation. We then offer a typology to capture primary purposes, and spatial reach within the broad field of SMSs. Within-movement variation is illustrated by focusing on a variety of SMSs in the U.S. civil rights movement; and the cross-movement breadth of the concept is illustrated by highlighting contemporary SMS forms drawn from three very different movements–labor, radical feminism, and mindfulness meditation movements. In the interest of launching a research agenda on SMSs, we end with several key questions that could serve to guide future research. Important theoretical, empirical, and practical considerations suggest that SMSs deserve the attention of scholars and activists alike.     

Migration and the senses

Recent scholarship in the sociological subfields of culture and immigration offers several promising directions for studying how people experience the world in embodied ways and move through and across boundaries. Yet, the lack of overlap between fields has left numerous theoretical angles unexplored. In this review, I consider the limited existing scholarship at the intersection of migration and the senses. I discuss literature on the role of sensation during three critical moments of migration: movement, encounter, and return. These moments highlight the sensorially dislocating nature of travel, the felt politics of inclusion and exclusion, and the transporting power of embodied memories. These works dive deep into the everyday realities of bodies on the move that public and academic discourse has previously ignored. I conclude by briefly outlining exciting new directions to expand work connecting migration and the senses and suggest that we begin to explore globalized migrant sensibilities.     

疲劳裂纹扩展试验裂纹图像采集系统

针对目前金属疲劳裂纹扩展检测方法存在效率低、操作繁琐、精度不高，不能实现实时性等缺点，文章提出了基 于机器视觉的裂纹检测方法。根据金属疲劳裂纹扩展试验过程中裂纹图像的采集要求，设计了摄像头位置可自动调整 的疲劳裂纹图像采集系统，包括摄像头安装运动装置，裂纹图像采集装置以及摄像头运动控制系统。图像采集装置由高 分辨率黑白面阵CCD摄像头、光学镜头，光源照明装置和图像采集卡组成，前3者安装在摄像头支架上，与摄像头运动 装置相连。摄像头运动装置中的X，Y，，Z轴运动机构由步进电机带动滚珠导轨机构。在基于ARM技术的运动控制系统 的控制下摄像头可沿X，Y，，Z轴作高精度直线运动，实现和试件之间精确位置的调整。实验结果表明，所设计的系统可 采集到疲劳裂纹扩展试验过程中高清晰度、高分辨率的试件裂纹图像，满足下一步裂绞尺寸计算的要求；摄像头运动定 位精度可达到0. 02 mm，满足精确的系统聚焦、位置调整、跟踪采集的要求。     

Remaking the labour movement in Italy: the revival of strikes at Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles in 2015–17

ABSTRACT

After the Fiat-Chrysler merger in 2009, CEO Sergio Marchionne imposed a drastic reorganization of labour relations in Italy’s plants, precipitating a profound crisis of the system of industrial relations in the country. But between 2015 and 2017 a significant section of workers at Melfi, Atessa and Termoli plants went on strike against compulsory overtime and labour intensification, establishing links with grassroots unions that successfully organized in logistics. The metalworkers’ union FIOM-CGIL, however, delegitimized the union representatives who resisted Marchionne’s plans. In this article, we trace the context and development of these still little-known strikes. Because of their growing institutionalization, we argue, the confederal unions (CGIL, CISL, UIL) have both failed to mobilize workers and repressed workers’ attempts to resist the deterioration of their conditions. The strikes at FCA and in logistics, however, show that new forms of radical unionism are emerging, pointing to new possibilities for working-class organizing.     

Needed: a new international for a just transition and against fascism

ABSTRACT

We urgently need a new global solidarity movement, but it will not be shaped like the old ones, with failing solidarity when it is most needed or at the service of anti-imperialist regimes. What we need, urgently, is a global movement for a just transition, combining social and environmental justice, as well as a strong movement against re-emerging fascism, in North and South.     

Challenges and Dilemmas of Civil Society movements in India

Civil Society spaces provide citizens opportunities to frame their collective identities and interests through the formation of voluntary interest groups and organisations set to specific purposes. In the west, historically these interest groups have contributed to the development of political thought that assisted to forge the economic interests of emerging bourgeoisie. This paper situated in the context of India begins with a thematic perspective and reviews the challenges that emerge as a result of the demands that emerge within the civil society space. The paper considered three broad range organizations for this review such as the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the river Narmada Campaign); National Alliance for People's Movement (NAPM); and the Self‐Employed Women's Association (SEWA). The authors see civil society as a conciliating place—where individual interests appear to mingle with societal requirements while providing adequate representation to the marginalized groups and expression of concerns around economic and environmental rights.     

Mobile pensioners: retirement migrants’ perspectives of EU citizenship and free movement

The European institutions picture EU citizens as important actors in the process of transforming EU citizenship into a “tangible reality”. By knowing and practising EU citizenship rights, EU citizens are supposed to give meaning and depth to the otherwise hollow concept of EU citizenship. What EU citizenship means for mobile citizens themselves and how EU citizens practice and evaluate their rights (“lived citizenship”) is generally not a central theme in reports and studies on EU citizenship. In this article the value of EU citizenship will be discussed by applying a qualitative research approach and by focusing on retired EU citizens’ perspectives and practice of, in particular, free movement. This article applies a comparative approach and includes EU citizens who move or return from the Netherlands to Spain or Turkey after retirement. Four groups of EU citizens move between these countries: Dutch nationals who move to Spain, Spanish nationals who return to Spain, Dutch nationals who move to Turkey and Turkish dual-nationals who return to Turkey after retirement. This article shows that migratory background, country of origin, country of retirement and the way in which EU citizenship is acquired determine retirement migrants’ perspectives and practice of EU citizenship.     

Mapping movement landscapes in South Africa

ABSTRACT

The concept of a movement landscape is used to analyse continuities and changes in popular mobilization since the end of formal apartheid. Focusing on four different episodes of protest since 1997, the article examines their relationship to the ANC movement and traditions, and their organizational forms. It finds a general theme of fluid and ephemeral organization, and a distrust of formal hierarchal organization, that is relatively new in South Africa. The Marikana strikes produced the most far-reaching organizational realignments, while the student struggles generated the most innovative re-imaginings of political forms and discourses. It concludes that although there have been critiques of and challenges to the ANC tradition, and experiments with new forms of organizing, they have not produced alternatives that have lasted or dislodged the dominant approaches defined and popularized by the ANC movement.     

浅析武术套路中的动静观思想

中国武术的动静观,不仅注意身体运动表面的动静变化,而且强调人的身体和心灵整体内外的动静运动变化。动静是武术中最重要的一对阴阳范畴,武术讲究动与静的和谐,它深刻地反映在各种技术特点之中。