Marcel Paret “The Politics of Local Resistance in Urban South Africa”

Paret, Marcel. 2018. “The Politics of Local Resistance in Urban South Africa: Evidence from Three Informal Settlements.” International Sociology 33(3): 337-356.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0268580918764837?journalCode=issa

Between 2009 and 2014, South Africa experienced widespread protests. In contrast to prominent examples of global protest during the same period, they were localized and did not push for broad political and economic transformation. To explain these features, this article draws from three ethnographic and interview-based case studies of local protest and organizing within informal settlements in and around Johannesburg. The author argues that urban poverty and the experience of market insecurity, on the one hand, and democratization and the experience of state betrayal, on the other hand, gave rise to specific political orientations. Residents responded to market insecurity by demanding collective consumption for place-based communities, and they responded to state betrayal by demanding fulfillment of a national liberation social contract through administrative fixes. Both strategies confined activism to the local level and limited broader challenges. The findings have implications for research on both the urban poor and social movements.

Marcel Paret “Citizenship and Work in Global Capitalism”

Paret, Marcel. 2018. “Citizenship and Work in Global Capitalism: From Domination to Aspiration.” Sociology Compass 12(8): 1-13.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/soc4.12602

The sociology of citizenship emerged during an exceptional period in which workers benefitted from economic growth and gains in productivity. Yet the field grew against the backdrop of a market‐oriented global capitalism defined by high levels of precarious work, surplus labor, and economic insecurity. Tracing the evolution of global capitalism in the wake of World War II, and across the unequal regions of the world, I outline three different perspectives on the relationship between capitalism and work. These include an outdated and untenable perspective of citizenship as workplace product, a critical perspective of citizenship as worker domination, and an optimistic perspective of citizenship as aspiration and agency. The analysis suggests that citizenship represents an important terrain of struggle within global capitalism, simultaneously enabling patterns of domination and inspiring movements for liberation. 

Suzanne Mills' The geography of skill

Suzanne Mills, 2018, “The Geography of Skill: Mobility and Exclusionary Unionism in Canada’s North,” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 0(0) 1–19

Jenny Chan writes a chapter in The SAGE Handbook of Contemporary China (edited by Weiping Wu and Mark Frazier, 2018)

Jenny Chan, 2018, “Economic Growth and Labor Security,” Pp. 166-88 in The SAGE Handbook of Contemporary China, 2 Volume Set, edited by Weiping Wu and Mark Frazier, London: SAGE.

Jenny Chan contributes to HKFP on Shenzhen Jasic Technology

Jenny Chan, 2018, “Shenzhen Jasic Technology: the birth of a worker-student coalition in China?” Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP), 1 September.

Kim Scipes publishes an article in Journal of Labor and Society

Kim Scipes, 2018, “Another type of trade unionism IS possible: The KMU Labor Center of the Philippines and social movement unionism,” Journal of Labor and Society 21: 349-67.

Aziz Choudry and Salim Vally (co-edited Education As Change)

Education As Change, 22(2), 2018

Editorial: “Learning from, in, and with independent community and activist archives: The past in our present and future”   

Co-edited by Aziz Choudry (Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University) and Salim Vally (Faculty of Education, University of Johannesburg)

Articles:

9 articles (on South Africa, Canada, Fiji, India, and Kuwait)

By Benita Bunjun, Koni Benson, Mudney Halim, Mondi Hlatshwayo, Susan Kennedy Nour al Deen, Nisha Thapliyal, Daryl Braam, Tui Nicola Clery and Robin Metcalfe, Heidi Grunebaum