Synopses & Reviews
The growth of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at local and international levels has attracted considerable interest from policy-makers, development practitioners, academics and activists around the world. But how has this phenomenon impacted on struggles for social and environmental justice? How has it challenged - or reinforced - the forces of capitalism and colonialism? NGOization - the professionalization and institutionalization of social action - has long been a hotly contested issue in grassroots social movements and communities of resistance. NGO-ization pulls together for the first time unique perspectives of social struggles and critically-engaged scholars from wide range of geographical and political contexts, to offer an evidence-based insight into the tensions and challenges of the NGO model while considering the feasibility of alternatives.
Synopsis
The growth of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at local and international levels has attracted considerable interest from policy-makers, development practitioners, academics and activists around the world. But how has this phenomenon impacted on struggles for social and environmental justice? How has it challenged - or reinforced - the forces of capitalism and colonialism? NGOization - the professionalization and institutionalization of social action - has long been a hotly contested issue in grassroots social movements and communities of resistance. NGO-ization pulls together for the first time unique perspectives of social struggles and critically-engaged scholars from wide range of geographical and political contexts, to offer an evidence-based insight into the tensions and challenges of the NGO model while considering the feasibility of alternatives.
Synopsis
As the struggle against neoliberalism becomes ever more global, Just Work will be the definitive book on the growing social and political power of one its major forces: migrant labor. From trade unions in South Africa to resistance in oppressive Gulf states, migrating forest workers in the Czech Republic, and illegal workers’ organizations in Hong Kong, Just Work brings together a wealth of lived experiences and frontline struggles for the first time. Highlighting developments in the wake of austerity and attacks on traditional forms of labor organizing, the contributors show how workers are finding new and innovative ways of resisting. The result is both a rich analysis of where the movement stands today and a reminder of the potentially explosive power of migrant workers in the years to come.
About the Author
Aziz Choudry is Assistant Professor in the Department of Education, McGill University, Canada.
Dip Kapoor is Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies, University of Alberta, Canada. He is a voluntary Research Associate, Center for Research and Development Solidarity (CRDS), a rural people's organization in Orissa, India and President/founding member of a voluntary development organization that has been working with Adivasi (original dweller) and Dalit ('downtrodden' castes) communities on land, forest and food sovereignty struggles/movements in India since 1995.
Table of Contents
Preface by
Sangeeta Kamat Introduction - NGOization: Complicity, Contradictions and Prospects - Aziz Choudry and Dip Kapoor
1. Saving Biodiversity, for Whom and for What? Conservation NGOs, Complicity, Colonialism and Conquest in an Era of Capitalist Globalization - Aziz Choudry
2. Social Action and NGOization in Contexts of Development Dispossession in Rural India: Explorations into the Un-civility of Civil Society - Dip Kapoor
3. NGOs, Indigenous Peoples and the United Nations - Sharon H. Venne
4. From Radical Movement to Conservative NGO and Back Again? A Case Study of the Democratic Left Front in South Africa - Luke Sinwell
5. Philippine NGOs: Defusing Dissent, Spurring Change - Sonny Africa
6. Disaster Relief, NGO-led Humanitarianism and the Reconfiguration of Spatial Relations in Tamil Nadu - Raja Swamy
7. Seven Theses on Neobalkanism and NGOization in Transitional Serbia - Tamara Vukov
8. Peace-building and Violence against Women: Tracking the Ruling Relations of Aid in a Women's Development NGO in Kyrgyzstan - Elena Kim and Marie Campbell
9. Alignment and Autonomy: Food Systems in Canada - Brewster Kneen