Another World is Possible

Popular Alternatives to Globalization at the World Social Forum

Edited by William Fisher, Thomas Ponniah

The collection explains the history and significance of the World Social Forum, held each year in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and brings together the most important themes and voices expressed by the 30,000 members of citizens’ movements who take part. Their power emerges from the range of disparate activists and organizations — indigenous groups, trade unions, environmentalists, women’s organizations, church groups, students — that make up the global justice movement. This book… (more information)

Muriel Duckworth

A Very Active Pacifist

Marion Douglas Kerans

”Muriel is an extraordinary woman whose life and work has enriched many–through her faith and her practice. A feminist, a pacifist and a compassionate Canadian, her life is an example of what love and selfless intelligence can do.”–Ursula M. Franklin C.C. FRSC ”Muriel Duckworth inspires me. She is living, walking proof that age need not destroy one’s commitment to progressive social ideals. Muriel is a true humanitarian who freely gives herself to others regardless… (more information)

Transforming Ourselves/Transforming the World

An Open Conspiracy for Social Change

Brian K. Murphy

We live in an age where unprecedented numbers of people have joined organizations and involved themselves in social action. Yet many of us are pessimistic when confronted by the powerful forces of big corporations and big government. This book is for all those community workers, adult educators, and social activists of every kind who want to overcome pessimism and play a part in changing society in the direction of peace, justice and dignity for all human beings. Murphy explains the social and personal… (more information)

RESIST!

A Grassroots Collection of Stories, Poetry, Photos and Analysis from the FTAA Protests in Québec City and Beyond

Edited by Jen Chang, Steve Daniels, Darryl Leroux, Bethany Or, Eloginy Tharmendran, Emmie Tsumura

In late April, tens of thousands of people gathered to protest at the Second People’s Summit of the Americas (the FTAA Summit). RESIST! is a collection of young peoples’ experiences from Quebec City. Surprising in their honesty, these accounts, including poems, photos and essays, look at what happened during the FTAA weekend. The contributors seek answers to explain the treatment of the protesters, marvel at the strength of character of those that they encountered, and celebrate many… (more information)

Alternative Budgets

Budgeting as if People Mattered

John Loxley

Alternative budgets are becoming an increasingly popular form of political action both in Canada and internationally. They are a means of advancing an alternative social and economic perspective to the neo-conservative agenda of slashing social services, reducing the role of the government and cutting taxes for the rich, all in the name of “necessity.” Alternative budgets demonstrate that there really are more enlightened alternatives which are, at the same time, fiscally responsible… (more information)

Identity, Place, Knowledge

Social Movements, Contesting Globalization

Janet M. Conway

Grassroots organizations have long been involved in the education and mobilization of local populations. Through the development of coalition formation, broad-based campaign-organizing and popular and activist education, information and experiences are shared amongst activists and interested individuals. Janet M. Conway looks at how social justice organizations struggle to build momentum when many of the groups are disparate and the development of ideas are often articulated through actions. Conway… (more information)

Grassroots Leaders Building Skills

The Henson College Certificate in Community Development

Anne Bishop

“Empowerment is the word. I’ve been forced to break out of my own circle and see more. I have a direction now in my community, more involvement in activism.”—student evaluating the Henson College Certificate in Community Development. This course was designed to sharpen social analysis and develop skills in leaders of low-income and marginalized communities in Nova Scotia. Taught by two experienced community workers and funded by two major Canadian foundations, it graduated… (more information)

Playing Left Wing

From Rink Rat to Student Radical

Yves Engler

What makes a student radical? Can students in the 21st century play a part in changing the world? What were those troublemakers thinking when they blocked former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from speaking at Concordia University in Montreal? Playing Left Wing answers these and other questions by telling the story of how a former junior hockey player became media spokesperson for the “most radical” university students in Canada. An entertaining read, Playing Left Wing is… (more information)

Sociology for Changing the World

Social Movements/Social Research

Edited by Caelie Frampton, Gary Kinsman, Andrew Thompson, Kate Tilleczek

This book for activists and researchers on building connections between social movements and social research sets out practical ways activists can map the social relations of struggle they are engaged in and produce knowledge for more effective forms of activism for changing the world. Grounded in political activist ethnography, this work does not see social movements as “objects” to be studied from the outside. Rather they are to be analyzed from the standpoint of insiders’ knowledge… (more information)

Illusion or Opportunity

Civil Society and the Quest for Social Change

Henry Veltmeyer

The failure of development strategies in the past few decades has given rise to a worldwide movement in the direction of “another development.” This is a form of development that is social as well as economic, oriented towards people’s basic needs, people-centred and initiated from below. It is human in scale and form, equitable and socially more inclusive, capacitating and empowering of the poor, sustainable in terms of both the environment and livelihoods, participatory and community… (more information)

Edible Action

Food Activism and Alternative Economics

Sally Miller

Hunger is up, obesity is up, food-borne illness is up, farms are lost to debt and despair; the food system fails growing numbers of people across the world every day. Yet if we adjust our lens, we see ubiquitous commitments to change: food movements and enterprises dedicated to making the world a better place to eat and to live. Food initiatives—from farmers’ markets to fair trade coffee—offer a pattern of powerful alternatives to conventional food economics, which benefit only… (more information)

Victim No More

Women’s Resistance to Law, Culture and Power

Edited by Ellen Faulkner, Gayle MacDonald

This book challenges the idea that women are simply victims. It celebrates women’s resistance. It explores the moments beyond victimization. It argues that women do not stay crushed and broken, but move on, build and grow. The contributors to this edited edition celebrate the various forms of resistance: political resistance at both the collective and individual levels, legal resistance and resistance to cultural forms and labels. The editors argue that “Women-as-victim is not an emancipatory… (more information)

Raise Shit!

Social Action Saving Lives

Susan C. Boyd, Donald MacPherson, Bud Osborn

This book tells a story about community activism in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side (DTES) that culmi-nated in a social justice movement to open the first official safe injection site. This story is unique: it is told from the point of view of drug users — those most affected by drug policy, political decisions and policing. It provides a montage of poetry, photos, early Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) meetings, journal entries from the Back Alley, the “unofficial&rdquo… (more information)

Economic Democracy

The Working Class Alternative to Capitalism

Allan Engler

Identifying capitalism as a system of socialized labour, privately owned capitalist collectives (corporations) and workplace (dictatorships), this book proposes economic democracy as an alternative form of organization. Unlike the capitalist system, which centralizes power with a small elite, economic democracy entitles everyone to a voice and equal vote in their communities’ economic and political decisions. Workplace and community democracy will replace capitalist (corporate) dictatorship… (more information)

Zapatistas

Rebellion from the Grassroots to the Global

Alex Khasnabish

In 1994 a guerilla army of Indigenous Mayan peasants in Southeast Mexico emerged and declared ‘Enough!’ to 500 years of colonialism, racism, exploitation, oppression and genocide. The effects of the Zapatista uprising were profound and would be felt beyond the borders of Mexico. At a time when state-sponsored socialism had all but vanished and other elements of the left appeared defeated in the face of neoliberalism’s ascendancy, the Zapatista uprising sparked a powerful new wave… (more information)

Activism that Works

Edited by Avery Calhoun, Elizabeth Whitmore, Maureen G. Wilson

How can we understand “success” in relation to social justice and environmental activism? How do activists themselves determine or define their effectiveness? Activism That Works shares the stories of eight diverse social justice movements, from Oxfam Canada, to the Calgary Raging Grannies, to the Youth Project of Halifax, as they contemplate their own successes. What we discover is that success is not measured only in large-scale social reform but is also found in moments of connection… (more information)

Jose Marti

Mentor of the Cuban Revolution

John M. Kirk

In 1953, Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro stated that the “intellectual author” of his revolution was the nineteenth-century writer and revolutionary José Martí. An advocate of social justice, economic democracy and anti-imperialism, Martí wrote extensively about the future of a “Cuba libre,” freed from Spain’s rule, and is celebrated as one of Latin America’s most important thinkers. Based on a detailed analysis of the twenty-five volumes… (more information)