Anthropological field studies of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in their unique cultural and political contexts.Cultures of Doing Good: Anthropologists and NGOs serves as a foundational text to advance a growing subfield of social science inquiry: the anthropology of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Thorough introductory chapters provide a short history of NGO anthropology, address how the study of NGOs contributes to anthropology more broadly, ...

Years of tremendous growth in response to complex emergencies have left a mark on the humanitarian sector. Various matters that once seemed settled are now subjects of intense debate. What is humanitarianism? Is it limited to the provision of relief to victims of conflict, or does it include broader objectives such as human rights, democracy promotion, development, and peacebuilding? For much of the last century, the principles of humanitarianism were guided by neutrality, impartiality, an...

Harsha Walia has played a central role in building some of North America’s most innovative, diverse, and effective new movements. That this brilliant organizer and theorist has found time to share her wisdom in this book is a tremendous gift to us all.”-Naomi Klein, author of The Shock DoctrineUndoing Border Imperialism combines academic discourse, lived experiences of displacement, and movement-based practices into an exciting new book. By reformulating immigrant rights ...

What do activists know? Learning Activism is designed to encourage a deeper engagement with the intellectual life of activists who organize for social, political, and ecological justice. Combining experiential knowledge from his own activism and a variety of social movements, Choudry suggests that such organizations are best understood if we engage with the learning, knowledge, debates, and theorizing that goes on within them. Drawing on Marxist, feminist, anti-racist, and anti-co...

The struggle for the advancement of women's rights and gender equality globally is impossible without strong women's organizations and movements to provide leadership and momentum. But what does a strong women's organization look like? And what does it take to create effective and sustainable women's movements? This groundbreaking collection of essays by activists from all corners of the globe explores what it means to be an influential women's organization, and what it takes to build the ...

Globalization is undoubtedly the great overarching paradigm of our era. However, there is still little agreement on what globalization actually ‘is’ and some do not accept that it ‘is’ anything at all.This new book addresses the contestation of globalization by the anti- or counter-globalization movement. To contest means to challenge, to call into question, to doubt, to oppose and to litigate. This study shows how globalization is ‘contestable’ in many different ways and how the c...

'Transnationalism' refers to multiple ties and interactions linking people or institutions across the borders of nation-states.This book surveys the broader meanings of transnationalism within the study of globalization before concentrating on migrant transnational practices. Each chapter demonstrates ways in which new and contemporary transnational practices of migrants are fundamentally transforming social, political and economic structures simultaneously within homelands and pla...

Getting Past Capitalism begins with a critique of the impacts of capitalism on human society and the environment. It looks in new ways at what capitalism is and at how it is reproduced. That investigation opens the door to fresh ways of looking at how to challenge it. Cynthia Kaufman looks at some fundamental questions about how capitalism comes to look like a system that is unbeatable, and how people come to have desires that work to reinforce capitalism. Kaufman uses this analysis to dev...

The nature of human security is changing globally: interstate conflict and even intrastate conflict may be diminishing worldwide, yet threats to individuals and communities persist. Large-scale violence by formal and informal armed forces intersects with interpersonal and domestic forms of violence in mutually reinforcing ways. Gender, Violence, and Human Security takes a critical look at notions of human security and violence through a feminist lens, drawing on both theoretical perspectiv...

The struggle for women’s rights and to overcome gender oppression has long engaged the efforts of inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations. Feminist Strategies in International Governance provides a new introduction to the contemporary forms of this struggle. It brings together the voices of academics and practitioners to reflect in particular on the effectiveness of human rights strategies and gender mainstreaming. It covers three international issue areas in which f...

Heralding a push for higher education to adopt a more global perspective, the term "globalizing knowledge" is today a popular catchphrase among academics and their circles. The complications and consequences of this desire for greater worldliness, however, are rarely considered critically. In this groundbreaking cultural-political sociology of knowledge and change, Michael D. Kennedy rearticulates questions, approaches, and case studies to clarify intellectuals' and institutions' responsib...

In Transnational America, Inderpal Grewal examines how the circulation of people, goods, social movements, and rights discourses during the 1990s created transnational subjects shaped by a global American culture. Rather than simply frame the United States as an imperialist nation-state that imposes unilateral political power in the world, Grewal analyzes how the concept of “America” functions as a nationalist discourse beyond the boundaries of the United States by disseminating a...