Search for material for a book on new movement, new politics

We, as editors, are searching for material for a book that is tentatively titled Worlds of Movement, Worlds in Movement (or New Movement, New Politics). This note is to invite your help in finding such material, either written or produced by you yourself or by someone you know.
This will be the fifth of a series of books that we as editors have been working on over some years now, looking at current world movement, collectively titled Challenging Empires. The first volume, in 2004, was titled World Social Forum : Challenging Empires (http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/1557.html), and was brought out in other languages and then in a second and updated edition in 2009 (http://www.blackrosebooks.net/wsf.htm). The third one, due out shortly, is titled World Social Forum : Critical Explorations, and the fourth one The Movements of Movements : Struggles for Other Worlds.

As with the third and fourth books, this book will initially be published by OpenWord in India (http://www.openword.in); we are also in discussions with other publishers in the global south (in particular at the moment, in South Africa and Peru) for them to bring out other editions. OpenWord was created in and from the South, and wants to contribute to the publication and publicisation of knowledges of the global south.

All of these books have contributions from women and men of different ages, from many points of view and from many parts of the world. We encourage all our authors to critically engage with what they are writing on – delving deep into their experiences and understandings, and asking hard questions. Wherever appropriate, we also encourage our authors to, in their essays, allow their own roles with respect to the movements to come through – whether as participants or as researchers – and to try and reflect on and discuss their own roles and contributions. In addition, in all our books we try to speak to younger women and men – students, workers, activists, professionals – and more generally to the general public, rather than only to academia (or to seasoned activists). All these are the hallmarks of our books.

On Worlds of Movement, Worlds in Movement / New Movement, New Politics

The book we are inviting you to help us with has 2-3 specific aims : To document movements and struggles over the past 15-20 years and in different parts of the world; in particular to try to bring out the many new political practices that have been forged and practised in this time and to critically discuss and reflect on them; and most especially, to attempt to generate material from within and/or by movements.

To do this, we want to make a book where, alongside essays by those whose profession it is to write about movement and politics (scholars, journalists, scholar-activists), there is also generous space for essays by people from within movements (activists, movement supporters, and also occasional participants and sympathisers) : For their knowledges. (We already have in hand some material by ‘professionals’, and so we are especially looking for the latter.)

In addition, we want to draw not only on the experiences and perceptions of better-known, visible movements but also from within less known and less articulated movements, including the countless groundswells, stirs, and heavings that are today so visible around the world.

And we are also very interested in hearing from the everyday ‘movements’ that are part of the struggle of daily life. Here, we start from the perspective that the social, cultural, political, and economic orders that we all live within – at local, national, and world levels – are created not only by institutions up there but also by the myriad ways peoples all over the world engage and struggle with the world systems they confront. Especially at this time in history, we want to try and find ways to make visible these practices and political levels that are often invisible.

We are open to receiving material that explore these questions in different forms: In addition to normal essays written as prose and analysis, poems, songs, and diaries, and transcripts of (say) especially striking vimeos or audio-recordings, or plays are also welcome. All must however have at their core a critical presentation, exploration, and/or engagement with ‘new’ political practices; and all must be in text form, for us to consider. (We don't have the resources to convert them.)

As editors, we are however willing to work with contributors to give shape to their writings and to achieve the qualities we are looking for – which we hope will take writing on political practice to new levels. The contributions will be not only on politics ‘out there’ but also on the politics within us, as individuals and as collectivities such as movements; and on dissent within movement as well as on agreement and assent. We believe that it is when we touch this depth that both comprehension and richer conversations begin. Through creating this collection, we hope to push beyond normal boundaries of social and political dogma and doctrine, and to open up new thinking, new conversations, new syntheses, new visions; and just maybe, new theories and new practices.
We’d like to invite your help in finding such material, either written or produced by yourself, or by people you know. Thanks!

Jai Sen, Michal Osterweil, and Peter Waterman, editors, October 2011
[email][email protected] / [email][email protected]