Synopses & Reviews
Huffington Post A fascinating new book
Anti-capitalism, this book reminds us, is a politics of walking and of love.”
Barbara Epstein, University of California, Santa Cruz
A beautiful and insightful evocation of an emergent radical perspective...Occupying Language uses the vocabulary of new and emergent movements around the world to highlight the striking similarities of their practices and visions.... crucial reading for those who would like to understand why so many in the new movements are more interested in occupying public spaces and institutions, and remaking them through democratic participation, than in making demands on governments dominated by remote and resistant elites."
Antonio Negri
"There are words that are rocks. Rocks, like geological layers, which have accumulated over decades of struggles, and are colored with meanings irreducible to capitalist power. Rocks heavy with hope. Marina Sitrin and Dario Azzellini show how these rocks are movedrolling them against masters, police and the ideologists of neoliberalism. Occupy language!"
The New York Times
By occupying language, we can expose how educational, political, and social institutions use language to further marginalize oppressed groups; resist colonizing language practices that elevate certain languages over others; resist attempts to define people with terms rooted in negative stereotypes; and begin to reshape the public discourse about our communities, and about the central role of language in racism and discrimination. As the global Occupy movement has shown, words can move entire nations of people even the world to action. Occupy Language, as a movement, should speak to the power of language to transform how we think about the past, how we act in the present, and how we envision the future.”
Sitrin and Azzellini introduce the reader to the theory and practices of the new global movements and explore linkages connecting widespread struggles for justice, democracy and emancipation. Poetic and concrete, Occupying Language is a map toward new forms of democratic community.
Marina Sitrin is an author and activist. An active participant and advocate for social movements around the world, she has been featured on MSNBC, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Democracy Now! and more.
Dario Azzellini is an activist, writer, and filmmaker. He is a lecturer at the Johannes Kepler University (Linz, Austria). His latest book, together with Immanuel Ness, is Ours to Master and to Own.
Synopsis
An exploration of how key terms and words from other movements can help shift consciousness and connect communities of struggle
Synopsis
Huffington Post -A fascinating new book... Anti-capitalism, this book reminds us, is a politics of walking and of love.-
Barbara Epstein, University of California, Santa Cruz
-A beautiful and insightful evocation of an emergent radical perspective...
Occupying Language uses the vocabulary of new and emergent movements around the world to highlight the striking similarities of their practices and visions.... crucial reading for those who would like to understand why so many in the new movements are more interested in occupying public spaces and institutions, and remaking them through democratic participation, than in making demands on governments dominated by remote and resistant elites.-
Antonio Negri-There are words that are rocks. Rocks, like geological layers, which have accumulated over decades of struggles, and are colored with meanings irreducible to capitalist power. Rocks heavy with hope. Marina Sitrin and Dario Azzellini show how these rocks are moved--rolling them against masters, police and the ideologists of neoliberalism. Occupy language -
The New York Times -By occupying language, we can expose how educational, political, and social institutions use language to further marginalize oppressed groups; resist colonizing language practices that elevate certain languages over others; resist attempts to define people with terms rooted in negative stereotypes; and begin to reshape the public discourse about our communities, and about the central role of language in racism and discrimination. As the global Occupy movement has shown, words can move entire nations of people -- even the world -- to action. Occupy Language, as a movement, should speak to the power of language to transform how we think about the past, how we act in the present, and how we envision the future.-
Sitrin and Azzellini introduce the reader to the theory and practices of the new global movements and explore linkages connecting widespread struggles for justice, democracy and emancipation. Poetic and concrete,
Occupying Language is a map toward new forms of democratic community.
Marina Sitrin is an author and activist. An active participant and advocate for social movements around the world, she has been featured on MSNBC, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Democracy Now and more.
Dario Azzellini is an activist, writer, and filmmaker. He is a lecturer at the Johannes Kepler University (Linz, Austria). His latest book, together with Immanuel Ness, is Ours to Master and to Own.
Synopsis
Praise for Marina Sitrin's previous works:
"'Another world is possible' was the catch-phrase of the World Social Forum, but it wasn't just possible; while the north was dreaming, that world was and is being built and lived in many parts of the global south. With the analytical insight of a political philosopher, the investigative zeal of a reporter, and the heart of a sister, Marina Sitrin has immersed herself in one of the most radical and important of these other worlds and brought us back stories, voices, and possibilities."Rebecca Solnit
"Through her deeply respectful documentary editing, Marina Sitrin has produced a work that embodies the values and practices it portrays."Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis
While the global Occupy movement is widely seen as unprecedented, its language and organizing practices are shaped and inspired by diverse historical precedents in the United States and around the world. Marina Sitrin and Dario Azzellini introduce the reader to the theory and practices of the movement and explore linkages and connections toward the dream of a common language of struggle, justice, democracy, and liberation.
Marina Sitrin is an author and activist. An early organizer of the Occupy movement, she has been interviewed in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Democracy Now! and more.
Dario Azzellini is an activist, writer, and filmmaker. He is a lecturer at the Johannes Kepler University (Linz, Austria). His latest book, together with Immanuel Ness, is Ours to Master and to Own.
About the Author
Marina Sitrin: Marina Sitrin is an author, lawyer, organizer and dreamer. She is an active participant in the Occupy movement and a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Globalization and Social Change at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Dario Azzellini: Azzellini is a lecturer at the Institute for Sociology at the Johannes Kepler University (Linz, Austria) and holds a PhD in political science. He is an activist, writer and film maker. His latest film is "Comuna under construction" (2010).