Cuban Postcards Author Margaret Randall describes developments in Cuba through her artistic lens using photographs and words. Her intimate knowledge of the country and its struggles give the essay its poinancy and power. Cuba, artists Citation: Social Justice Vol. 40, No. 4 (2013): 118-136
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Margarita López Maya
Venezuela: The Political Crisis of Post-Chavismo In the context of the death of Hugo Chávez and the election of Nicolás Maduro, this article describes some of the main causes and features of the political crisis developing today in Venezuela. It shows the continuities and differences of the Chávez era in regard to the previous years […]
María de la Luz Arriaga Lemus
The Mexican Teachers’ Movement: 30 Years of Struggle for Union Democracy and the Defense of Public Education Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect, the region’s education sector has been the site of a great number of mass protests. This article analyzes social movements in the education sector in the context […]
Maria Fernanda Espinosa
Working Children in Ecuador Mobilize for Change This interview with Maria Fernanda Espinosa, provides a startling and moving account of her work with urban children who are the most marginalized. Together, over a period of many years, working children as young as eight were able to organize themselves in alternative spaces and draw attention to […]
Mariana Favela
Redrawing Power: #YoSoy132 and Overflowing Insurgencies Favela reflects on her participation in the phenomenon known as #YoSoy132, a mass insurgency that erupted in the midst of the Mexican presidential electoral campaign of 2012. For her, this was neither a political organization, a structure, nor a movement, but rather a convocatory that gathered and unleashed a […]
Marie Gottschalk
Razing the Carceral State This article examines the deeply racialized and classed architecture of the American carceral edifice to illustrate how the growing opposition to mass incarceration in the United States has tended to gravitate toward two equally flawed positions. The first focuses on racial discrimination as the main line of attack against the carceral […]
Mark Jay & Virginia Leavell
Material Conditions of Detroit’s Great Rebellion This article analyzes the conditions, and political significance, of Detroit’s Great Rebellion in 1967. We first discuss the pre- and postwar political economy in Detroit. Second, we analyze the state of technology and automation at the plants and its relationship to the class struggle. Third, we address the uniquely […]
Marsha Woodbury
Clinton, Reno, and Freedom of Information: From Waldheim to Whitewater Marsha Woodbury analyzes Bill Clinton and Janet Reno’s record with regard to the Freedom of Information Act. Woodbury reviews the origins and development of FOIA, the many ways in which Presidents Reagan and Bush restricted its operation, and the bureaucratic and judicial obstacles that block […]
Martin B. Miller
A Heartless Anatomy of Five Prison Riots The reviewer argues that authors Bert Useem and Peter Kimbal seriously search for the causes of prison riots, but etiology is a trap that has seduced many a scholar. The climate of fear, hatred, and destruction that pervades prison life is publicly exposed when riots occur; the fault […]
Maurice Rafael Magaña
From the Barrio to the Barricades: Grafiteros, Punks, and the Remapping of Urban Space Magaña analyzes the mass social movement in Oaxaca that originally formed in June 2006 following the violent eviction of striking teachers from their labor union’s annual encampment in the zócalo (main square) of Oaxaca City. By employing an understanding of politics […]
Maylei Blackwell
Geographies of Difference: Transborder Organizing and Indigenous Women’s Activism Based on a collaborative research relationship with activists of the Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales forged over many years, this essay explores the uneven transnational terrains of power that structure indigenous transborder organizing and the radically uneven geographies of difference that organizers must learn to navigate […]
Meena Singh
Environmental Security and Displaced People in Southern Africa When nations are in political transition, environmental issues become a low public and state priority. The case of Central and Eastern Europe is an obvious example. There, although environmental activism played a part in bringing about political change leading to the events of 1989, environmental victimization remains […]
Megan Sallomi
Coopting the Antiviolence Movement: Why Expanding DNA Surveillance Won’t Make Us Safer Expanding the number of individuals with DNA “profiles” stored in nationwide criminal databanks appears to be a promising criminal justice reform, particularly for resolving crimes of sexual violence. Bills like the Violence Against Women Act provide for DNA databank expansion, and many anti-rape organizations support this development. Yet, […]
Melissa Archer Alvaré
Gentrification and Resistance: Racial Projects in the Neoliberal Order Gentrification amplifies the precarity of marginalized people of color and reproduces white supremacy as neighborhoods are redeveloped in accord with affluent actors’ interests. Representations of poor Black communities as blighted neighborhoods inhabited by dangerous criminals and welfare queens demonize residents and construct them as threatening to […]
Michael E. Deutsch and Jan Susler
Political Prisoners in the United States: The Hidden Reality The authors describe the treatment of political prisoners at Marion Federal Penitentiary. Because California, Oklahoma, and Maryland have modeled prisons after Marion, other states will likely also employ their facilities for the segregation and punishment of political activists and protest organizers. political prisoners, SHUs Citation: Social […]
Michael E. Deutsch, Dennis Cunningham, and Elizabeth M. Fink
Twenty Years Later—Attica Civil Rights Case Finally Cleared for Trial Attorneys for the Attica Brothers provide an account of the uprising and its suppression that has been largely hidden. The Attica civil rights case went on trial almost 20 years to the day after the world was shocked by the unparalleled use of excessive force […]