Community Organizing

A Holistic Approach

Joan Kuyek

“History is full of stories of the oppressed rebelling against the oppressor, only to reinstate an equally oppressive system. What we learn from oppression is how to oppress. If we want a truly transformative politics, then we must take up methods that embody the kind of world we want to create; we have to change deeply embedded beliefs and behaviours.” (from the Introduction) In this engaging and passionate book, long-time community organizer Joan Kuyek offers important insights… (more information)

Uniting Struggles

Critical Social Research in Critical Times (Alternate Routes 2012) Special 25th Anniversary Edition

Edited by Carlo Fanelli, Priscillia Lefebvre

With the reverberations of the Great Recession still wreaking havoc throughout much of the world, this issue of Alternate Routes brings together articles based on their dedication to critical social research in critical times. Includes interventions by Naom Chomsky, Michael Parenti, Sut Jhally, Garry Potter, Michael Perelman and Pat Armstrong. (more information)

Ocean Ranger

Remaking the Promise of Oil

Susan Dodd

On February 15, 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank off the coast of Newfoundland taking the entire crew of eighty-four men — including the author’s brother — down with it. It was the worst sea disaster in Canada since the Second World War, but the memory of this event gradually faded into a sad story about a bad storm — relegated to the “Extreme Weather” section of the CBC archives. Susan Dodd resurrects this disaster from the realm of “history&rdquo… (more information)

Palestinians in Israel

Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy

Ben White

Palestinians in Israel considers a key issue ignored by the official ‘peace process’ and most mainstream commentators: that of the growing Palestinian minority within Israel itself. What the Israeli right-wing calls ‘the demographic problem’ Ben White identifies as ‘the democratic problem’ which goes to the heart of the conflict. Israel defines itself not as a state of its citizens, but as a Jewish state, despite the substantial and increasing Palestinian population… (more information)

About Canada Queer Rights

Peter Knegt

Is Canada a ”queer utopia”? Canada was the fourth country in the world — and the first in the Western Hemisphere — to legalize same-sex marriage. Queer people in Canada enjoy many of the same legal rights as heterosexuals, and social acceptance of homosexuality has grown exponentially. But are these the goals that queer activists hoped to achieve? Is this legal regulation and normalization of homosexuality what the Gay Liberation Movement of the early 1970s fought for? Using… (more information)

About Canada Media

Peter Steven

Canada enjoys a long-held reputation for producing high-quality media, from National Film Board documentaries to the CBC to children’s programming. But in recent years, funding cuts, commercial media concentration and a sour political environment have been steadily eroding this reputation. In About Canada: Media, Peter Steven examines developments in film, television, the internet and newspapers and finds that the quality of our news and entertainment media is steadily declining, as well as… (more information)

Gendered Intersections

An Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies, 2nd Edition

Lesley Biggs, Pamela Downe, Susan Gingell

Following the structure of the successful first edition of Gendered Intersections, this second edition examines the intersections across and between gender, race, culture, class, ability, sexuality, age and geographical location from the diverse perspectives of academics, artists and activists. Using a variety of mediums — academic research, poetry, statistics, visual essays, fiction, emails and music — this collection offers a unique exploration of gender through issues such as… (more information)

Viva

Community Arts and Popular Education in the Americas

Deborah Barndt

With examples from community arts projects in five countries, this collection will inform and inspire students, artists, and activists. ¡VIVA! is the product of a five-year transnational research project that integrates place, politics, passion, and praxis. Learn from Central America: Kuna children’s art workshops, a community television station in Nicaragua, a cultural marketplace in Guadalajara, Mexico, community mural production in Chiapas; and from North America: arts education… (more information)

Global Minotaur

America, the True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the future of the World Economy

Yanis Varoufakis

In this remarkable and provocative book, Yanis Varoufakis explodes the myth that financialization, ineffectual regulation of banks, greed and globalization were the root causes of the global economic crisis. Rather, they are symptoms of a much deeper malaise which can be traced all the way back to the Great Crash of 1929, then on through to the 1970s: the time when a ‘Global Minotaur’ was born. Just as the Athenians maintained a steady flow of tributes to the Cretan beast, so the &lsquo… (more information)

State of Islam

Culture and Cold War Politics in Pakistan

Saadia Toor

The State of Islam tells the story of Pakistan through the lens of the Cold War, and more recently the War on Terror, to shed light on the domestic and international processes behind the global rise of militant Islam. Unlike existing scholarship on nationalism, Islam and the state in Pakistan, which tends to privilege events in a narrowly-defined ‘political’ realm, Saadia Toor highlights the significance of cultural politics in Pakistan from its origins to the contemporary… (more information)

Women in Israel

Race, Gender and Citizenship

Nahla Abdo

Women in Israel provides a fresh, gendered analysis of citizenship in Israel. Working from a framework of Israel as a settler-colonial regime, this important, insightful book presents historical and contemporary comparative approaches to the lives and experiences of Ashkenazi, Mizrahi and Palestinian Arab women citizens. Nahla Abdo shows that no solution to the problems of the region can be found without changing existing racial and gender boundaries to citizenship. ‘Nahla Abdo… (more information)

Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban

Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11

Syed Saleem Shahzad

President Obama may have delivered on his campaign promise to kill Osama bin Laden, but as an Al-Qaeda strategist bin Laden has been dead for years. This book introduces and examines the new generation of Al-Qaeda leaders who have been behind the most recent attacks. Investigative journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad dedicated his life to revealing the strategies and inner workings of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. He had access to top-level commanders in both movements, as well as within the ISI,… (more information)

Research for Social Justice

A Community Based Approach

Karen Schwartz, Adje van de Sande

Most social work research texts are written from an empiricist and positivist perspective, emphasizing the scientific method and the value of objectivity in research. While acknowledging that certain aspects of the scientific method should be preserved, Adje van de Sande and Karen Schwartz argue that social work research should not be value-free. Social work is committed to social justice and social change, and social work research needs to support that commitment. Research for Social Justice examines… (more information)

Get That Freak

Homophobia and Transphobia in High Schools

Brian Burtch, Rebecca Haskell

Bullying in schools has garnered significant attention recently, but despite this, little has been said about the occurrence of homophobic and transphobic bullying in Canadian high schools. Get That Freak fills that gap by exploring the experiences of bullying among youth who identify or are identified as queer. Through interviews with recent high school graduates in British Columbia, Haskell and Burtch share stories of physical, verbal and emotional harassment, and offer important insights into… (more information)

Israeli Rejectionism

A Hidden Agenda in the Middle East Peace Process

Zalman Amit, Daphna Levit

The Palestine-Israel conflict is one of the longest running and seemingly intractable confrontations in the modern world. This book delves deep into the ‘peace process’ to find out why so little progress has been made on the key issues. Zalman Amit and Daphna Levit find overwhelming evidence of Israeli rejectionism as the main cause for the failure of peace. They demonstrate that the Israeli leadership has always been against a fairly negotiated peace and have deliberately stalled… (more information)

Security, With Care

Restorative Justice and Healthy Societies

Elizabeth M. Elliott

Restorative justice, as it exists in Canada and the U.S., has been co-opted and regulated to the sidelines of the dominant criminal justice system. Elizabeth M. Elliott argues that restorative justice cannot be actualized solely within the criminal justice system. If it isn’t who we are the the policies will be be sustainable. Restorative justice must be more than a program within the current system-it must be a new paradigm for responding to harm and conflict. (more information)

Doing Anti-Oppressive Practice

Social Justice Social Work, 2nd Edition

Edited by Donna Baines

Doing Anti-Oppressive Practice introduces students to the emerging tradition, the historical and theoretical roots and the specific contexts of anti-oppressive social work practice. AOP understands the problems faced by clients as rooted in the socio-political structure of society rather than in the personal characteristics of the clients themselves, and argues that social change must be a key component of social work practice. Using practice vignettes, personal experience and case work examples… (more information)

Voices from the Other Side

An Oral History of Terrorism Against Cuba

Keith Bolender

Since the early 1960s, few other countries have endured more acts of terrorism against civilian targets than Cuba, and the US has had its hand in much of it. This book gives a voice to the victims. Keith Bolender brings to bear the enormous impact that terrorism has had on Cuba’s civilian population, with over 1,000 documented incidents resulting in more than 3,000 deaths and 2,000 injuries. Bolender allows the victims to articulate the atrocities the Cuban people have suffered&ndash… (more information)

Broke but Unbroken

Grassroots Social Movements and Their Radical Solutions to Poverty

Augusta Dwyer

In Broke but Unbroken, journalist Augusta Dwyer takes us on an inspiring journey through the slums and villages of Brazil, Indonesia, India and Argentina as she meets with organizers from some of the most successful grassroots social movements struggling against poverty. These organizers are not representatives from NGOs or aid organizations based in developed nations but the poor themselves — people who know intimately the reality of struggling for land, food, housing and the right… (more information)