Synopses & Reviews
People come together in movements to end war from many political traditions. They are socialists, communists and anarchists, people of a variety of faiths, secularists, pacifists and feminists. They share a belief that peace is possible, but have divergent views on the causes of militarism and strategies to end it.
As both peace activist and social researcher, Cynthia Cockburn is well placed to ask, 'How coherent and cohesive are we?' The book presents original case studies of anti-war, anti-militarist and peace movements in Japan, South Korea, Spain, Uganda and the UK, of international networks against military conscription and the proliferation of guns, and of singular campaigns addressing aggression against Palestinians and the expansion of NATO. The stand-alone chapters make ideal course readings.
Scanning the political spectrum, but always with a gender lens, the author carefully uncovers the movements' many tensions and antagonisms, looking for the source of alliance that may make of these and a multitude of other groups, organizations and networks worldwide an unstoppable movement for change. Between the nihilist view that violence is inevitable and the utopian belief in the possibility of a violence-free world is an achievable goal of violence reduction, both in times of war and in times called peace. Violence is, much more often than we think, a choice.
Review
'A new book by Cynthia Cockburn is always cause for cheer.
Antimilitarism is full of gritty cross-national comparisons. You can hear women peace activists debating whether to stay in mixed-gender movements, and when do the cultures of movements replicate the patriarchal structures that perpetuate militarism. Students of social movements, masculinities, feminisms and militarism will each be smarter for having read Cynthia Cockburn.'
- Cynthia Enloe, author of Nimo's War, Emma's War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War
'Cynthia Cockburn's research has done a service to the peace and anti-war groups. Ultimately, it challenges readers to look for "a different common sense". This is the critical, "counter-hegemonic" sense that works for a reduction of every form of violence - from the structural violence of poverty and deprivation and from daily physical violence and intimidation to the organised mass violence of war - and insists that there are other choices we can bring into being.'
- Howard Clark, War Resisters' International
Review
'A new book by Cynthia Cockburn is always cause for cheer.
Antimilitarism is full of gritty cross-national comparisons. You can hear women peace activists debating whether to stay in mixed-gender movements, and when do the cultures of movements replicate the patriarchal structures that perpetuate militarism. Students of social movements, masculinities, feminisms and militarism will each be smarter for having read Cynthia Cockburn.'
- Cynthia Enloe, author of Nimo's War, Emma's War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War
'Cynthia Cockburn's research has done a service to the peace and anti-war groups. Ultimately, it challenges readers to look for "a different common sense". This is the critical, "counter-hegemonic" sense that works for a reduction of every form of violence - from the structural violence of poverty and deprivation and from daily physical violence and intimidation to the organised mass violence of war - and insists that there are other choices we can bring into being.'
- Howard Clark, War Resisters' International
Synopsis
A lively, first hand account of the ideas and activities of women and men in anti-war, anti-militarist and peace movements. The author looks at the tensions and divergences in and between organizations, and their potential for cohering into a powerful worldwide counter-hegemonic movement for violence reduction.
Synopsis
This book investigates the implications of technology on identity in embodied performance; the discussion within it forms a forum of debate exploring the interrelationship of and between identities in performance practices, informed by new technologies. This collection considers how identity is formed, deformed, constructed, deconstructed, blurred and celebrated within diverse approaches to technological performance practices.Digital practices as experimental artworks and performances both serve as critique and have an indirect affect on the social and political. The discussions included in this collection highlight how a redefinition of the latter term comes about in as much as they question the very nature of our accepted ideas and belief systems regarding new technologies. These essays demonstrate how embodied technological practice, as with all avantgarde art, presents itself and any analysis applied to it as an experimental extension of the sociopolitical and cultural experience of an epoch.
Synopsis
People come together in movements to end war from many political traditions. They are socialists, communists and anarchists, people of a variety of faiths, secularists, pacifists and feminists. They share a belief that peace is possible, but have divergent views on the causes of militarism and strategies to end it.
As both peace activist and social researcher, Cynthia Cockburn is well placed to ask, 'How coherent and cohesive are we?' The book presents original case studies of anti-war, anti-militarist and peace movements in Japan, South Korea, Spain, Uganda and the UK, of international networks against military conscription and the proliferation of guns, and of singular campaigns addressing aggression against Palestinians and the expansion of NATO. The stand-alone chapters make ideal course readings.
Scanning the political spectrum, but always with a gender lens, the author carefully uncovers the movements' many tensions and antagonisms, looking for the source of alliance that may make of these and a multitude of other groups, organizations and networks worldwide an unstoppable movement for change. Between the nihilist view that violence is inevitable and the utopian belief in the possibility of a violence-free world is an achievable goal of violence reduction, both in times of war and in times called peace. Violence is, much more often than we think, a choice.
About the Author
CYNTHIA COCKBURN Visiting Professor, Department of Sociology, City University London, and Honorary Professor at the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender atUniversity of Warwick, UK. She is a feminist researcher and writer. She lives in London, where she is active in Women in Black against War and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Finding a Voice: Women at Three Moments of British Peace Activism
War Resistance and Pacifist Revolution
Legitimate Disobedience: An Anti-militarist Movement in Spain
Midlands City: Faiths and Philosophies together for Palestine
Saying No to NATO: Divergent Strategies
Seeing the Whole Picture: Anti-militarism in Okinawa and Japan
A State of Peace: Movements to Reunify and Demilitarize Korea
Guns and Bodies: Armed Conflict and Domestic Violence
Towards a Different Common Sense
References