Marxism And Social Movements: Historical Materialism, Volume 46

Description

Marxism and Social Movements is the first sustained engagement between social movement theory and Marxist approaches to collective action. The chapters collected here, by leading figures in both fields, discuss the potential for a Marxist theory of social movements, explore the developmental processes and political tensions within movements, set the question in a long historical perspective and analyse contemporary movements against neo-liberalism and austerity.

Colin Barker is honorary lecturer in sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University. He co-organizes the annual international conferences on Alternative Futures and Popular Protest. He has published many books and articles on social movements and revolutions and is an active socialist. Laurence Cox co-directs the MA in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism at Maynooth. He co-edits the social movement journal Interface and has also published Understanding European Movements (Routledge, 2013, with Cristina Flesher Fominaya). John Krinsky is associate professor of political science at The City College of New York. He co-edits the journal Social Movement Studies, and published Free Labor: Workfare and the Contested Language of Neoliberalism (Chicago 2007). Alf Gunvald Nilsen is associate professor of sociology at the University of Bergen. He co-edits the journal Interface and has published widely on social movements. He is the author of Dispossession and Resistance in India (Routledge, 2010).

"The impressive diversity and scope of the contributions [...] shows the fruitfulness of an encounter between Marxism and social movements research not just within academia. [...] [I]t is the editors' merit to have contributed to a necessary revival of Marxist debate and theoretisation[.]" Dietmar Lange, JahrBuch fur Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung. "The Financial Times positively dissects Marx's ideas in their weekend edition, while today's radical movements such as Climate Camp, Slutwalk, or Occupy treat Marx with suspicion or even contempt. These contradictory phenomena make Barker et al.'s Marxism and Social Movements all the more important. The essays in this collection aim to develop both the tools necessary to understand today's social movements, and an analysis that can explain the marginality of Marxism within them. More fundamentally, the book also sets out to establish a Marxist framework for social movement research and practice, where otherwise one has been absent. Mark Bergfeld, the Oxford Left Review "Given the dearth of politically judicious and penetrating analyses of contemporary popular mobilisations, Marxism and Social Movements is a timely and refreshing contribution to social movement studies. Though the subject matter examined in each chapter is diverse spanning, in total, struggles across six continents and over 150 years the edited volume as a whole presents a compelling case for reviving Marxist analytical frameworks to examine social movements." Puneet Dhaliwal , Ceasefire"Marxism and Social Movements is a special collection, offering scholars and social movements not just tools, but also the keys to an otherwise locked box of necessary radical theory and practice." -Interface Journal "The impressive diversity and scope of the contributions [...] shows the fruitfulness of an encounter between Marxism and social movements research not just within academia. [...] [I]t is the editors' merit to have contributed to a necessary revival of Marxist debate and theoretisation[.]" -Dietmar Lange, JahrBuch fur Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung. "The Financial Times positively dissects Marx's ideas in their weekend edition, while today's radical movements such as Climate Camp, Slutwalk, or Occupy treat Marx with suspicion or even contempt. These contradictory phenomena make Barker et al.'s Marxism and Social Movements all the more important. The essays in this collection aim to develop both the tools necessary to understand today's social movements, and an analysis that can explain the marginality of Marxism within them. More fundamentally, the book also sets out to establish a Marxist framework for social movement research and practice, where otherwise one has been absent. -Mark Bergfeld, the Oxford Left Review "Given the dearth of politically judicious and penetrating analyses of contemporary popular mobilisations, Marxism and Social Movements is a timely and refreshing contribution to social movement studies. Though the subject matter examined in each chapter is diverse- spanning, in total, struggles across six continents and over 150 years-the edited volume as a whole presents a compelling case for reviving Marxist analytical frameworks to examine social movements." -Puneet Dhaliwal , Ceasefire