Organize! Building from the Local for Global Justice

What are the ways forward for organizing for progressive social change in an era of unprecedented economic, social, and ecological crises? How do political activists build power and critical analysis in their daily work for change?

Grounded in struggles in Canada, the United States, Aotearoa/New Zealand, as well as transnational activist networks, Organize! Building from the Local for Global Justice links local organizing with global struggles to make a better world. In over twenty chapters written by a diverse range of organizers, activists, academics, lawyers, artists, and researchers, this book weaves a rich and varied tapestry of dynamic strategies for struggle. From community-based labor organizing strategies among immigrant workers to mobilizing psychiatric survivors, from arts and activism for Palestine to organizing in support of Indigenous Peoples, the authors reflect critically on the tensions, problems, limits, and gains inherent in a diverse range of organizing contexts and practices. The book also places these processes in historical perspective, encouraging us to use history to shed light on contemporary injustices and how they can be overcome. Written in accessible language, Organize! will appeal to college and university students, activists, organizers and the wider public.

Contributors include: Aziz Choudry, Jill Hanley, Eric Shragge, Devlin Kuyek, Kezia Speirs, Evelyn Calugay, Anne Petermann, Alex Law, Jared Will, Radha D’Souza, Edward Ou Jin Lee, Norman Nawrocki, Rafeef Ziadah, Maria Bargh, Dave Bleakney, Abdi Hagi Yusef, Mostafa Henaway, Emilie Breton, Sandra Jeppesen, Anna Kruzynski, Rachel Sarrasin, Dolores Chew, David Reville, Kathryn Church, Brian Aboud, Joey Calugay, Gada Mahrouse, Harsha Walia, Mary Foster, Martha Stiegman, Robert Fisher, Yuseph Katiya, and Christopher Reid.

Praise:

“This superb collection needs to find its way into the hands of every activist and organizer for social justice. In a series of dazzling essays, an amazing group of radical organizers reflect on what it means to build movements in which people extend control over their lives. These analyses are jam-packed with insights about antiracist, anticolonial, working-class, and anticapitalist organizing. Perhaps most crucially, the authors lay down a key challenge for all activists for social justice: to take seriously the need to build mass movements for social change. Don’t just read this exceptionally timely and important work—use it too.”
—David McNally, author of Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance

“To understand the world, you have to try to change it. That’s what the authors of this fine set of essays and meditations have taken to heart. The result? Some of the best insights on power, organizing, and revolution to be found.”
—Raj Patel, author of The Value of Nothing

Aziz Choudry (1966-2021) was associate professor in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University and visiting professor at the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation, Faculty of Education, University of Johannesburg. He is the author of Learning Activism: The Intellectual Life of Contemporary Social Movements (University of Toronto Press, 2015); coauthor of Fight Back: Workplace Justice for Immigrants (Fernwood, 2009); and coeditor of Learning from the Ground Up: Global Perspectives on Social Movements and Knowledge Production (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Unfree Labour? Struggles of Migrant and Immigrant Workers in Canada (PM Press, 2016); and NGOization: Complicity, Contradictions and Prospects (Zed Books, 2013). He served on the board of the Immigrant Workers Centre, Montreal.

Jill Hanley is assistant professor in the McGill School of Social Work, where she teaches community organizing, social policy, and applied research. Her research focuses on access to social rights for precarious status migrants and the organizing strategies used by migrants to access these rights. She is cofounder and an active member of Montreal’s Immigrant Workers Centre. She is coauthor of Fight Back: Workplace Justice for Immigrants.

Eric Shragge teaches at the School of Community and Public Affairs, Concordia University, in Montreal. He remains active in grassroots organizations and he is coauthor of Fight Back Workplace Justice for Immigrants (Fernwood 2009) and coauthor of Contesting Community: The Limits and Potential of Local Organizing (Rutgers 2010).

See and hear editor interviews, book reviews, and other news on Aziz Choudry's page HERE, Jill Hanley's page HERE and Eric Shragge's page HERE

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