Bridging Scholarship and Activism: Reflections from the Frontlines of Collaborative Research
edited by Bernd Reiter and Ulrich Oslender
Michigan State University Press, 2015 Paper: 978-1-61186-147-1 | eISBN: 978-1-60917-434-7 Library of Congress Classification HM881.B75 2015 Dewey Decimal Classification 300.72
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
This timely book brings together activist scholars from a number of disciplines (political science, geography, sociology, anthropology, and communications) to provide new insights into a growing trend in publicly engaged research and scholarship. Bridging Scholarship and Activism creatively redefines what constitutes activism without limiting it to a narrow range of practices. Acknowledging that the current conjuncture of neoliberal globalization has created constraints on as well as possibilities for activist scholarly engagement, the book argues that racism and its intersections with gender and class oppression are salient forces to be interrogated and confronted in the predicaments and struggles activist scholarship targets. The book’s ultimate goal is to create a decolonized and democratized forum in which activist scholars from the Global South converse and cross-fertilize ideas and projects with their counterparts from the United States and other North Atlantic metropolitan-based academy. The coeditors and contributors attempt to decenter hegemonic knowledge and to create some of the necessary (if not sufficient) conditions for a more pluriversal (rather than orthodox “universal”) context for producing enabling knowledge, without the naiveté and romanticism that has characterized earlier projects in critical and radical social science.
CONTENTS:
Introduction, Ulrich Oslender and Bernd Reiter Part One. The Promises and Pitfalls of Collaborative Research
Of Academic Embeddedness: Communities of Choice and How to Make Sense of Activism and Research Abroad, Bernd Reiter
New Shapes of Revolution, Gustavo Esteva
The Accidental Activist Scholar: A Memoir on Reactive Boundary and Identity Work for Social Change within the Academy, Rob Benford
Leaving the Field: How to Write about Disappointment and Frustration in Collaborative Research, Ulrich Oslender
Invisible Heroes, Eshe Lewis
Part Two. Negotiating Racialized and Gendered Positionalities
El Muntuen America, Manuel Zapata Olivella
Activism as History Making: The Collective and the Personal in Collaborative Research with the Process of Black Communities in Colombia, Arturo Escobar
Out of Bounds: Negotiating Researcher Positionality in Brazil, Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman
Between Soapboxes and Shadows: Activism, Theory, and the Politics of Life and Death in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, Christen A. Smith
State Violence and the Ethnographic Encounter: Feminist Research and Racial Embodiment, Keisha-Khan Y. Perry
The Challenges Resulting from Combining Scientific Production and Social-Political Activism in the Brazilian Academy, Fernando Conceição
The Challenge of Doing Applied/Activist Anti-Racist Anthropology in Revolutionary Cuba, Gayle L. McGarrity
Conclusion, Ulrich Oslender and Bernd Reiter
About the Authors
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Bernd Reiter is Associate Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of South Florida, where he has a joint appointment with the Institute for the Study of Latin America and the Caribbean and the Department of Government and International Affairs.
Ulrich Oslender is Assistant Professor of Geography in the Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University in Miami.
REVIEWS
“This is a timely book that offers provocative new insights to an important trend among social scientists interested in grounding their scholarship in activist convictions and public engagements . . . this impressive interdisciplinary collection thoughtfully interrogates constraints as well as opportunities the current juncture presents for activist research in its multiple modalities.” —Faye V. Harrison, author of Outsider Within: Reworking Anthropology in the Global Age
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTENTS:
Introduction, Ulrich Oslender and Bernd Reiter Part One. The Promises and Pitfalls of Collaborative Research
Of Academic Embeddedness: Communities of Choice and How to Make Sense of Activism and Research Abroad, Bernd Reiter
New Shapes of Revolution, Gustavo Esteva
The Accidental Activist Scholar: A Memoir on Reactive Boundary and Identity Work for Social Change within the Academy, Rob Benford
Leaving the Field: How to Write about Disappointment and Frustration in Collaborative Research, Ulrich Oslender
Invisible Heroes, Eshe Lewis
Part Two. Negotiating Racialized and Gendered Positionalities
El Muntuen America, Manuel Zapata Olivella
Activism as History Making: The Collective and the Personal in Collaborative Research with the Process of Black Communities in Colombia, Arturo Escobar
Out of Bounds: Negotiating Researcher Positionality in Brazil, Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman
Between Soapboxes and Shadows: Activism, Theory, and the Politics of Life and Death in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, Christen A. Smith
State Violence and the Ethnographic Encounter: Feminist Research and Racial Embodiment, Keisha-Khan Y. Perry
The Challenges Resulting from Combining Scientific Production and Social-Political Activism in the Brazilian Academy, Fernando Conceição
The Challenge of Doing Applied/Activist Anti-Racist Anthropology in Revolutionary Cuba, Gayle L. McGarrity
Conclusion, Ulrich Oslender and Bernd Reiter
About the Authors
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
Bridging Scholarship and Activism: Reflections from the Frontlines of Collaborative Research
edited by Bernd Reiter and Ulrich Oslender
Michigan State University Press, 2015 Paper: 978-1-61186-147-1 eISBN: 978-1-60917-434-7
This timely book brings together activist scholars from a number of disciplines (political science, geography, sociology, anthropology, and communications) to provide new insights into a growing trend in publicly engaged research and scholarship. Bridging Scholarship and Activism creatively redefines what constitutes activism without limiting it to a narrow range of practices. Acknowledging that the current conjuncture of neoliberal globalization has created constraints on as well as possibilities for activist scholarly engagement, the book argues that racism and its intersections with gender and class oppression are salient forces to be interrogated and confronted in the predicaments and struggles activist scholarship targets. The book’s ultimate goal is to create a decolonized and democratized forum in which activist scholars from the Global South converse and cross-fertilize ideas and projects with their counterparts from the United States and other North Atlantic metropolitan-based academy. The coeditors and contributors attempt to decenter hegemonic knowledge and to create some of the necessary (if not sufficient) conditions for a more pluriversal (rather than orthodox “universal”) context for producing enabling knowledge, without the naiveté and romanticism that has characterized earlier projects in critical and radical social science.
CONTENTS:
Introduction, Ulrich Oslender and Bernd Reiter Part One. The Promises and Pitfalls of Collaborative Research
Of Academic Embeddedness: Communities of Choice and How to Make Sense of Activism and Research Abroad, Bernd Reiter
New Shapes of Revolution, Gustavo Esteva
The Accidental Activist Scholar: A Memoir on Reactive Boundary and Identity Work for Social Change within the Academy, Rob Benford
Leaving the Field: How to Write about Disappointment and Frustration in Collaborative Research, Ulrich Oslender
Invisible Heroes, Eshe Lewis
Part Two. Negotiating Racialized and Gendered Positionalities
El Muntuen America, Manuel Zapata Olivella
Activism as History Making: The Collective and the Personal in Collaborative Research with the Process of Black Communities in Colombia, Arturo Escobar
Out of Bounds: Negotiating Researcher Positionality in Brazil, Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman
Between Soapboxes and Shadows: Activism, Theory, and the Politics of Life and Death in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, Christen A. Smith
State Violence and the Ethnographic Encounter: Feminist Research and Racial Embodiment, Keisha-Khan Y. Perry
The Challenges Resulting from Combining Scientific Production and Social-Political Activism in the Brazilian Academy, Fernando Conceição
The Challenge of Doing Applied/Activist Anti-Racist Anthropology in Revolutionary Cuba, Gayle L. McGarrity
Conclusion, Ulrich Oslender and Bernd Reiter
About the Authors
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Bernd Reiter is Associate Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of South Florida, where he has a joint appointment with the Institute for the Study of Latin America and the Caribbean and the Department of Government and International Affairs.
Ulrich Oslender is Assistant Professor of Geography in the Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies at Florida International University in Miami.
REVIEWS
“This is a timely book that offers provocative new insights to an important trend among social scientists interested in grounding their scholarship in activist convictions and public engagements . . . this impressive interdisciplinary collection thoughtfully interrogates constraints as well as opportunities the current juncture presents for activist research in its multiple modalities.” —Faye V. Harrison, author of Outsider Within: Reworking Anthropology in the Global Age
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTENTS:
Introduction, Ulrich Oslender and Bernd Reiter Part One. The Promises and Pitfalls of Collaborative Research
Of Academic Embeddedness: Communities of Choice and How to Make Sense of Activism and Research Abroad, Bernd Reiter
New Shapes of Revolution, Gustavo Esteva
The Accidental Activist Scholar: A Memoir on Reactive Boundary and Identity Work for Social Change within the Academy, Rob Benford
Leaving the Field: How to Write about Disappointment and Frustration in Collaborative Research, Ulrich Oslender
Invisible Heroes, Eshe Lewis
Part Two. Negotiating Racialized and Gendered Positionalities
El Muntuen America, Manuel Zapata Olivella
Activism as History Making: The Collective and the Personal in Collaborative Research with the Process of Black Communities in Colombia, Arturo Escobar
Out of Bounds: Negotiating Researcher Positionality in Brazil, Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman
Between Soapboxes and Shadows: Activism, Theory, and the Politics of Life and Death in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, Christen A. Smith
State Violence and the Ethnographic Encounter: Feminist Research and Racial Embodiment, Keisha-Khan Y. Perry
The Challenges Resulting from Combining Scientific Production and Social-Political Activism in the Brazilian Academy, Fernando Conceição
The Challenge of Doing Applied/Activist Anti-Racist Anthropology in Revolutionary Cuba, Gayle L. McGarrity
Conclusion, Ulrich Oslender and Bernd Reiter
About the Authors
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE