Synopses & Reviews
"Anybody researching or writing anything about contemporary U.S. political life should be familiar with
The Activist's Handbook. Anybody attempting to influence local, state, or national political decisions needs it desperately. Politicians may read it and tremble a bit. For that matter, the rich and powerful will probably read it to see how smart some of their enemies are becoming."Ernest Callenbach, author of
Ecotopia"Provides rare insight into the strategies and tactics environmentalists must use if they are to succeed in today's political climate. A must read."Barbara Dudley, Executive Director, Greenpeace
"This is a unique book, wise, realistic, and enormously valuable for anyone interested in social change. It is practical in its advice, and inspiring in its stories of ordinary people successfully confronting powerful interests."Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States
"The Activist's Handbook could not have come at a more opportune time. In an era when poverty is growing and national social programs are threatened, the Handbook is an invaluable tool for community groups wishing to mobilize efforts in the service of escalating human needs."Ben Bagdikian, author of The Media Monopoly and Double Vision
"Randy Shaw gives us a serious and respectful treatment of the strategic problems and opportunities that confront grassroots activists. This is a dimension of contemporary politics that is rarely treated, and welcome for that reason. Moreover, in developing his analysis, Shaw draws on numerous cases of local struggles to remind us of what the media has come to ignore, the persistent and insuppressible popular activism that is part of American political life."Frances Fox Piven, City University of New York
"The Activist's Handbook lives up to its title and will likely join the company of organizing classics. It is the kind of book that should be on every activist's reading list."Chris Ney, Nonviolent activist
Review
"Its a remarkable, unsentimental record of modern Bay Area politics and causes, yet hardly belongs to a niche readership."
Review
"A stunning success and an enormously important contribution to not only LGBT history, but also to the labor, feminist, legal, aviation, and AIDS historiographic literatures. . . .and#160;
Plane Queer is essential reading for anybody interested in LGBT history. . . .and#160;Pick the book up. Read it. You won't be disappointed, I promise."
and#160;
Review
"In this seemingly narrow demographic, Tiemeyer finds notable achievements in equal rights, from the first workplace health benefits for domestic partners, in 2001, to a 1984 legal decision forcing an airline to reinstate a flight attendant with AIDS, which he argues was a key step in the run-up to the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act."
Review
"Tiemeyer's fascinating, in-depth study reveals that the very assumption that male flight attendants are gay has led to major conflicts--and major progress."
Synopsis
Every user knows the importance of the @ symbol in internet communication. Though the symbol barely existed in Latin America before the emergence of email, Spanish-speaking feminist activists immediately claimed it to replace the awkward o/a used to indicate both genders in written text, discovering embedded in the internet an answer to the challenge of symbolic inclusion. In repurposing the symbol, they changed its meaning.
InInterpreting the Internet, Elisabeth Jay Friedman provides the first in-depth exploration of how Latin American feminist and queer activists have interpreted the internet to support their counterpublics. Aided by a global network of women and men dedicated to establishing an accessible internet, activists have developed identities, constructed communities, and honed strategies for social change. And by translating the internet into their own vernacular, they have transformed the technology itself. This book will be of interest to scholars and students in feminist and gender studies, Latin American studies, media studies, and political science, as well as anyone curious about the ways in which the internet shapes our lives."
Synopsis
The Activist's Handbook is a hard-hitting guide to making social change happen. Shaw, a longtime activist for urban issues, shows how positive change can still be accomplished despite an increasingly grim political orderif activists employ the strategies set forth in this desperately needed primer. In a new preface, Shaw describes how the power of grassroots activism has won newfound respect. Mass protests against globalization and in favor of stricter gun controls have led once-invulnerable targets like the World Bank and the National Rifle Association to take citizen action more seriously.
Inspiring "fear and loathing" in politicians, building diverse coalitions, and harnessing the media, the courts, and the electoral process to one's cause are only some of the key tactics Shaw advocates and explains. Central to all social-change activism, Shaw shows, is being proactive: rather than simply reacting to right-wing proposals, activists must develop an agenda and focus their resources on achieving it.
The Activist's Handbook details the impact of specific strategies on campaigns across the country: battles over homelessness, the environment, AIDS policies, neighborhood preservation, and school reform among others. Though activist groups can have widely different aims, similar tactics are shown to produce success.
Further, the book offers a sophisticated analysis of the American power structure by someone on the front lines. In showing how people can and must make a difference at both local and national levels, this is an indispensable guide not only for activists, but for everyone interested in the future of progressive politics in America.
Synopsis
In this thoroughly revised and updated edition of
The Activist's Handbook, Randy Shaws hard-hitting guide to winning social change, the author brings the strategic and tactical guidance of the prior edition into the age of Obama. Shaw details how activists can best use the Internet and social media, and analyzes the strategic strengths and weaknesses of rising 21st century movements for immigrant rights, marriage equality, and against climate change. Shaw also highlights increased student activism towards fostering greater social justice in the 21st century.
The Activist's Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century details the impact of specific strategies on campaigns across the country, from Occupy Wall Street to battles over sweatshops, the environment, AIDS policies, education reform, homelessness, and more: How should activists use new media tools to expose issues and mobilize grassroots support? When should activists form coalitions, and with whom? How are studentsbe they DREAMers seeking immigration reform or college activists battling ever-increasing tuition costswinning major campaigns? Whether its by inspiring "fear and loathing" in politicians, building diverse coalitions, using ballot initiatives, or harnessing the media, the courts, and the electoral process towards social change, Shawa longtime activist for urban issuesshows that with a plan, positive change can be achieved.
In showing how people can win social change struggles against even overwhelming odds, The Activist's Handbook is an indispensable guide not only for activists, but for anyone interested in the future of progressive politics in America.
Synopsis
Donna M. Goldstein presents a hard-hitting critique of urban poverty and violence and challenges much of what we think we know about the "culture of poverty" in this compelling read. Drawing on more than a decade of experience in Brazil, Goldstein provides an intimate portrait of everyday life among the women of the favelas, or urban shantytowns in Rio de Janeiro, who cope with unbearable suffering, violence and social abandonment. The book offers a clear-eyed view of socially conditioned misery while focusing on the creative responsesand#151;absurdist and black humorand#151;that people generate amid daily conditions of humiliation, anger, and despair. Goldstein helps us to understand that such joking and laughter is part of an emotional aesthetic that defines the sense of frustration and anomie endemic to the political and economic desperation among residents of the shantytown.
Synopsis
"Goldstein returns anthropology to what it does best while taking the reader on a no-holds-barred ride through the tragicomic world of a Rio favela. She captures the bittersweet laughter of Brazil's vast subterranean underclass of domestic servants who keep their anger and despair at bay by laughing and spitting into the face of chaos, injustice, and premature death. In this affecting and deft 'comedy of manners,' Goldstein emerges as urban anthropology's new Jane Austen."and#151;Nancy Scheper-Hughes, author of
Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil"Goldstein takes us right to where anthropology should be: into the blood, sweat, tears of shantytown life. Laughter Out of Place tells the story of a Brazilian family on the edge of survival where women and children struggle, not just to stay alive, but also for joy in the face of poverty, men, and mutual betrayal."and#151;Philippe Bourgois, author of In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio
"A stunning ethnographic achievement that should become an urban anthropological classic. Goldstein brings us close to women who under extraordinary circumstances of poverty use humor to reveal the penetrating truth of their relationship to structures of power and the ironies of their raced, classed, and gendered lives. Superb and engaging ethnographic analysis is framed by sophisticated social theory and a comprehensive treatment of the literature on contemporary Brazilian society."and#151;Judith Goode, co-editor of The New Poverty Studies: The Ethnography of Power, Politics and Impoverished People in the United States
Synopsis
In this vibrant new history, Phil Tiemeyer details the history of men working as flight attendants. Beginning with the founding of the profession in the late 1920s and continuing into the post-September 11 era, Plane Queer examines the history of men who joined workplaces customarily identified as female-oriented. It examines the various hardships these men faced at work, paying particular attention to the conflation of gender-based, sexuality-based, and AIDS-based discrimination. Tiemeyer also examines how this heavily gay-identified group of workers created an important place for gay men to come out, garner acceptance from their fellow workers, fight homophobia and AIDS phobia, and advocate for LGBT civil rights. All the while, male flight attendants facilitated key breakthroughs in gender-based civil rights law, including an important expansion of the ways that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act would protect workers from sex discrimination. Throughout their history, men working as flight attendants helped evolve an industry often identified with American adventuring, technological innovation, and economic power into a queer space.
Synopsis
and#147;Tiemeyer takes a completely original approach to a fascinating subject in aviation history and American history. He deftly reconstructs the careers of gay flight attendants and relates them to changes in urban nightlife, the technological and regulatory revolutions in aviation, the cold war backlash against homosexuality, the civil rights movement, feminism, neoliberalism, and the AIDS pandemic. His postmortem on the and#147;patient zeroand#8221; legend of Gaand#235;tan Dugas is nothing short of a revelation.and#8221;and#151;David Courtwright, author of
Sky as Frontierand#147;Phil Tiemeyerand#8217;s terrific book delivers the long, forgotten history of the male flight attendant. That history stretches back to the dawn of commercial aviation, and was characterized by waves of toleration and scorn in which the male steward was repeatedly drawn in and then forced out of the occupation. Through jack-of-all-trades research methods, Tiemeyer has broken the boundaries that separate labor, legal, and LGBT history, and given us a unique vantage on the history of AIDS. Pioneering and important.and#8221; and#151;Margot Canaday, author of The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth Century America
and#147;Plane Queer demonstrates the usefulness of thinking about the treatment of workers seen as "gender-queers": those who refuse to act in the ways expected of individuals of their sex, regardless of their own sexual orientation. In doing so, he expands notions of gender rights, queer rights, and the impact of homophobia on all workers.and#8221; and#150;Ileen A. DeVault, Professor of Labor History, Cornell University
About the Author
Randy Shaw is Director of San Franciscos Tenderloin Housing Clinic and Editor of BeyondChron.org. His previous books include The Activists Handbook: A Primer, Reclaiming America, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century, all from UC Press.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Foreword
Preface to the 2013 Edition
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Hard Laughter
1. Laughter "Out of Place"
2. The Aesthetics of Domination:and#160;Class, Culture, and the Lives of Domestic Workers
3. Color-Blind Erotic Democracies, Black Consciousness Politics,and#160;and the Black Cinderellas of Felicidade Eterna
4. No Time for Childhood
5. State Terror, Gangs, and Everyday Violence in Rio de Janeiro
6. Partial Truths, or the Carnivalization of Desire
7. Whatand#8217;s So Funny about Rape?
Notes
Glossary
References
Index