Introduction: social movements and forums in times of authoritarian capitalism

ABSTRACT

On all continents the enormity of the violence and danger of the times gives rise to multiple new practices of struggle and to conceptual innovations, which seek to serve justice, solidarity, and dignity for all. We explore the possibilities and different worlds intended in the main slogan of the World Social Forum ‘Another world is possible’. During its early years the World Social Forum was characterized by a fair amount of optimism. We know now that most of the high hopes of the movements have not been adequately materialized. The rise of authoritarian leaders and the nexus between capitalism and populism emerging in different parts of the world has created a new context for the attempts to create democratic futures. This collection presents and interrogates a variety of diagnoses of the present and of new strategies for transformative change that are emerging out of the forum process.     

Introduction:

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Introduction:

No abstract available for this article.     

Doing good when times are bad: volunteering behaviour in economic hard times

This paper examines how the 2008–9 recession has affected volunteering behaviours in the UK. Using a large survey dataset, we assess the recession effects on both formal volunteering and informal helping behaviours. Whilst both formal volunteering and informal helping have been in decline in the UK since 2008, the size of the decline is significantly larger for informal helping than for formal volunteering. The decline is more salient in regions that experienced a higher level of unemployment during the recession and also in socially and economically disadvantaged communities. However, we find that a growing number of people who personally experienced financial insecurity and hardship do not explain the decline. We argue that the decline has more to do with community‐level factors such as civic organizational infrastructure and cultural norms of trust and engagement than personal experiences of economic hardship.     

Introduction: Globalisation and identity

Abstract

This paper examines the identities of early leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) at a time when British influences still prevailed in South Africa. African attitudes to the “British World” reveal complex identities that also reflected political and cultural variations according to race, class and region. Relations between ANC leaders and the African “elite” and between the elite and subaltern strata were not straightforward. A careful reading of the discourses in and around Congress points to contradictory attitudes to things British and to ambiguous identities that lingered and contributed to the mix of social and national ideas and identities that influence contemporary South Africa.     

Zero and Literature: Introduction

Jean‐Luc Nancy's The Inoperative Community is now one of the most celebrated interventions in rethinking community beyond the traditional substantialist discourses of unity and essence. It challengingly counters contemporary articulations of both communitarianism and liberalism in order to rescue the concept of community from forms of immanentism (Nancy's term for totalitarianism) and absolute individualism. Writing and literature feature quite prominently in Nancy's thesis. They are the “voice of interruption” that destabilises the mythical articulations of community and deconstructs its immanentist figurations. They are the spaces of sharing, exposure and being‐with, which according to Nancy, bring about the experience of community. This paper is, as such, an attempt to engage with Nancy's captivating approach to the concept of community and show how writing and literature provide, to some extent, the condition of possibility for interrupting the metaphysics of subjectivity and opening up an alternative space of community.     

Introduction: Sociolinguistics and computer-mediated communication

This theme issue of Journal of Sociolinguistics comprises a number of empirical studies focusing on a range of ways in which people use language in computer-mediated communication (CMC). This introduction contextualizes the contributions to this issue by providing an outline of linguistically focused CMC studies. A critique of the research on the 'language of CMC' is given, and aspects of CMC research from a sociolinguistic viewpoint are presented: the move from the 'language of CMC' to socially situated computer-mediated discourse; its grounding in the notion of online community; and the application of sociolinguistic methodologies to its study. It is argued that CMC provides a new empirical arena for various research traditions in sociolinguistics; conversely, sociolinguistics can contribute to the interdisciplinary theorizing of CMC by demonstrating the role of language use and linguistic variability in the construction of interpersonal relationships and social identities on the Internet.     

Best of times,worst of times,and occupational mobility: the case of Soviet immigrants in Israel

This article compares the incorporation of two groups of immigrants from the former Soviet Union into the Israeli labour market.
The first group arrived in Israel in 1979 and the second group arrived in 1990. The first period was characterized by a small number of immigrants (best of times), and the second period was characterized by mass migration (worst of times).
Using data sets assembled by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, labour force status of the two groups in Israel were examined four years after arrival (1983 and 1994, respectively). We found no difference in rate of labour force participation but considerable differences in the rate of occupational mobility between the two groups of immigrants.
Specifically, the data reveal that immigrants were able to find employment in both periods. However, during periods of mass migration, recent immigrants had experienced higher rates of downward occupational mobility and greater loss of occupational status.