Politics at a Distance from the State

Name: Politics at a Distance from the State
Brand: Unknown
SKU: 9781629639437
Price: 39.99 NZD
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Radical and African Perspectives

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Summary

Politics at a Distance from the State explores how political activities and governance occur independently of formal state structures. The book delves into alternative political practices, showcasing how communities and individuals engage in political work outside of traditional governmental frameworks, offering a fresh perspective on the practice of politics beyond official state influence.
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Format: Paperback / softback

$39⁹⁹

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Politics at a Distance from the State

$39⁹⁹

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might be intrigued by this book if you're interested in exploring how people and groups organise politically outside traditional state structures. It offers insightful perspectives on grassroots movements and alternative forms of governance, making it particularly appealing to those who are keen on understanding diverse political dynamics and systems.

Politics at a Distance from the State

Description

For decades, most anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements identified radical change with capturing state power.

The collapse of statist projects from the 1970s fostered both neo-liberalism and a global crisis of left and working-class politics. But it also opened space for rediscovering democratic, society-centred and anti-capitalist modes of bottom-up change, operating at a distance from the state.

This resurgent alternative has influenced the Zapatistas in Mexico, Rojava in Syria, Occupy, and independent unions and struggles worldwide around austerity, land, and the city. Its lineages include anarchism, syndicalism, autonomist Marxism, philosophers like Alain Badiou, and popular praxis.

This pathbreaking volume, Politics at a Distance from the State, helps recover this once sidelined politics, with a focus on South Africa and Zimbabwe. It includes a dossier of texts from a century of anarchists, syndicalists, radical unionists, and anti-apartheid activists in South Africa.

Originating in an African summit of scholars, social movements, and anti-apartheid veterans, this book also features a preface from John Holloway.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Politics at a Distance from the State, edited by Kirk Helliker and Lucien van der Walt, challenges the idea that achieving social change requires capturing state power. The book explores various social movements in Southern Africa that have effected change from the grassroots level without seizing state control. It engages with anarchist, community, rural, and worker movements, offering a critical counternarrative to traditional socialist liberation movements and illustrating alternative pathways to social transformation. Scholars praise this collection as an insightful exploration of historical and contemporary social struggles against capitalism and state-centered approaches.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781629639437

Publisher: PM Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 15 September 2022

Country: United States

Imprint: PM Press

Contributors:

Edited by Kirk Helliker
Edited by Lucien van der Walt

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 152.0mm

Height: 228.0mm

Weight: 0g

Pages: 192

Collections

Education & Reference Non-Fiction Politics & Current Affairs

About the Author

Lucien van der Walt is a South African sociologist and labour educator, involved in the working-class movement. His research includes anarchism/syndicalism, working-class and left history, and neo-liberalism. He has been active in workers' education since the 1990s, including for DITSELA, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA, the Vuyisile Mini Workers School, the Unemployed Peoples' Movement, and the Red & Black Forums. Kirk Helliker is research professor in sociology at Rhodes University, South Africa, and director of its Unit of Zimbabwean Studies. His books include the edited Everyday Crisis: Living in Contemporary Zimbabwe (2021) and the authored Fast Track Land Occupations in Zimbabwe in the Context of the Zvimurenga (2021), both in collaboration with Sandra Bhatasara and Manase Kudzai Chiweshe. He was deported by the apartheid regime. John Holloway is a professor of sociology at the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades in the Benemérita Universidad Autùnoma de Puebla, Mexico. He has published widely on Marxist theory, on the Zapatista movement and on the new forms of anticapitalist struggle. His book Change the World Without Taking Power has been translated into eleven languages and has stirred an international debate. His book Crack Capitalism (Pluto, 2010) takes the argument further, suggesting that the only way in which we can think of revolution today is as the creation, expansion, multiplication, and confluence of cracks in capitalist domination.