The need to teach students how to be community activists becomes increasingly relevant as women's studies continues to evolve from its activist roots. Living in a culture that discourages activist work, many women's studies students feel passionately about activist issues, but with frustrating paralysis. For this reason, many of them pursue graduate degrees to equip themselves for an activist-oriented life, since they are not sure how to do this themselves. Without the presence of a concrete social movement, women's studies students need activist behavior and community modeled for them through the institution of the university. Teaching feminist activism to women's studies students will not only provide them with a context in which to discuss women's issues but should also provide tools for a feminist way of life-whether it be deconstructing institutions, feminist networking, policy making or grant writing.

Black women formed the first welfare rights organization in Atlanta composed of recipients and continued anti-poverty organizing for decades. Their strategy adapted to the political climate, including the ebb and flow of social movements. This thesis explores how and why that strategy changed as well as how the experiences of the women involved altered ideas of activism and movements.

This thesis focuses on pro-kurdish activism in Turkey during 2005–2009. It is based on a large number of interviews conducted with activists within the Diyarbakır area. The form of activism that this study seeks to describe is civil and political activism conducted within the legal framework ofTurkey’s judicial system and international law.The purpose of this thesis is to examine what kind of resistance strategies are used by pro-Kurdish political activists in Turkey, focusing on how these strategies are reflected in the language used by the respondents. The main question posed in the thesis is: What resistance strategies are used within the pro-Kurdish movement in Turkey? Two additional questions were also posed in order to make it possible to answer the main question. The first of these is: What external conditions influence pro-Kurdish mobilization in Turkey during the study’s time frame? In order to answer this question a theoretical framework is used that includes theories about ethnopolitical mobilization and political opportunity structures. The second question is: What resistance strategies are reflected in the language used by the pro-Kurdish activists?An important resistance strategy used by the pro-Kurdish activists is to adapt the language used in public communication to the legal and political environment in which they find themselves. They make linguistic choices in order to convey political messages while minimizing the legal consequences of doing so. The resistance strategies reflected in the interviews with the activists also include efforts to build organizations and cooperations at different levels, ranging from the international to the local level. Resistance strategies also include choices regarding what medium and language to use in promoting pro-Kurdish politics.

The virtual and digital world develops and changes frequently, within recent technology and the ways of using it. A complex phenomenon online with variables which isn’t fully defined in how they should be used or their strengths. One such thing is the use of the virtual and it´s tools in social movements. But there exists a stigmatization about the concept of the virtual. And within it how effective or useful cyberactivism is compared to the physical protest. This essay will cover and present a certain case of digital activism where it’s specific quality lies in the almost exclusively presence in the virtual world. Where the main goal of the essay is to shed some light on this certain case and bring forth it’s qualities in terms of the virtual, virtual communities and digital activism. To try to explain, provide and create aspects for further research and new theories. The case in question is Nostalrius, a World of Warcraft private server. And their digital protest against the gaming company Blizzard. Where the main goal of their manifesto was to convince Blizzard that there is a big community hankering for a reinstallation of a certain earlier stage of the game World of Warcraft; vanilla. In which Nostalrius community in the end succeeded with their goal. As it is an already completed case the data was collected through archives from Nostalrius own website and forum as well as their Twitter feed in the form of print screens as well as links. And since the case have taken place online the essay has used and taken the shape of a netnography case study. Where the data was later analyzed in the light of the virtual, virtual communitys and digital activism; to understand its qualities and shape. Nostalrius activism took the shape of a versatile virtual demonstration which used several different digital and virtual tools to promote their manifesto. And from the data a framework was developed of different qualities which emerged from the case in study. Namely different forms concerning the importance of a well-defined activism structure in the dimensions of: leadership, opponent(s), goal(s), community and context. Where it´s believed that virtual activism will become an even more frequent used method in social movements if carried out in good fashion. And that the integration between the virtual world and the physical will be furthered and hopefully breach the conception where the virtual is viewed as something fake or unreliable.

A dissertação que se apresenta é uma investigação realizada a partir da experiência de ativismo de bairro desenvolvida entre os anos de 2012 e 2014 no bairro Jardim Universitário, em Viamão – RS. A experiência foi construída na relação entre moradores, estudantes acadêmicos e militantes de organizações sociais que primaram pela produção do espaço a partir da concepção dos próprios sujeitos que vivem no bairro. Esta proposta diverge da lógica de produção do espaço gerenciada pelo Estado ou pelo setor privado que, em geral, produzem intervenções na perspectiva tecnocrática, negligenciado os interesses dos sujeitos que possuem acúmulo de vivências em determinado espaço. Com este pressuposto, colocamos em movimento o seguinte questionamento: ―como a produção do espaço é condicionado e condicionante dos sujeitos que o vivenciam?‖. Pela ótica teórica de Henri Lefebvre com a Produção do Espaço e de Cornelius Castoriadis, com o Projeto de Autonomia, além de um referencial conceitual composto por autores de matrizes afins, objetivamos sistematizar e refletir a produção do espaço originária de relações sociais inspiradas na geração de autonomia. Metodologicamente, a pesquisa é organizada em uma parte descritiva, que serve de base para o diálogo entre o discurso dos sujeitos que participaram da experiência e o referencial teórico e conceitual. A Geografia como uma ciência do pensar-fazer epistêmico e político dos sujeitos na transformação do espaço e de suas relações sociais. / The presented dissertation is based on an investigation performed since an experience of neighbourhood activism developed between 2012 and 2014 in the Jardim Universitário district, part of Viamão city - RS. The experience was built over the relations among the dwellers, the academic students and militant members of social organizations, which aimed to achieve a production of space established according the concepts of the own dwellers of the district. This proposal diverges from the management applied by the governmental logic for the production of space or by the private sectors that, in general, produce interventions under a technocratic point of view and that neglects the individual ambitions of those who have accumulated experiences in an specific space. According to this assumption, the following query emerges: "How is the production of space a conditioner and it is conditioned by the individuals that experience that?". Regarding to the theoretical perspective of Henri Lefebvre with the concept of Production of Space, and the Project of Autonomy, developed by Cornelius Castoriadis, it is aimed to systematize and to reflect the production of space that is generated by social relations inspired by the production of autonomy. Methodologically, this research is organized with a descriptive section that bases the dialogue between the individuals' speech that took part in the Jardim Universitário experience and the conceptual and theoretical references of this work. The Geography, as a science, belongs to the epistemic and politic "thinking-making" of the individuals in the transforming process of space and about their social relations.

Studying the overlaps between religion and politics in human geography is no longer a niche pursuit. Now, a plethora of literature in the discipline covers various facets of the topic, analysing the role of religion in contexts ranging from welfare contracts to geopolitical imaginations. Furthermore, investigating the religion/politics interface has been enhanced in recent years by increasing theoretical innovation in religious geography, incorporating poststructural epistemologies into the subdiscipline. This shift has directed geographers to the fluid construction of practices and places through the everyday lives of religious subjects and communities. Despite these developments, I argue that studies at the religion/politics interface still lack an epistemology that can adequately comprehend emerging empirical work in geography and associated disciplines that highlights the blurring of religious praxis into activism. Geographers have rarely represented the mechanisms that produce the heterogeneity of religious involvement in politics, putting the new poststructural epistemologies in the subdiscipline to work by categorising religious subjects and communities as homogeneously progressive or regressive, or focussing instead on the affective atmospheres and internal dynamics of faith communities. In this thesis I argue that in order to understand religious involvement in activism, geographers of religion need to begin to blend poststructural epistemologies that attend to the everyday fluidity of religion with epistemological work on networks in activist geographies. This is necessary work because these two realms are beginning to intermingle on the ground, consequently highlighting the production of religious subjectivities between religious and activist practices. In response to this gap between theory and empirics, I turn my attention to faith communities that embody elements of a postchristendom ethos, flattening religious hierarchies, welcoming difference, and engaging beyond themselves through social justice activism. By addressing this context I can underscore the knowledges that geographies of the religion/politics interface have missed so far, examining the multiple factors at play in the formation of faith community raison d’êtres, the accommodation of difference in faith communities, and how religious subjects negotiate their praxis between religious and activist spaces. By drawing attention to these issues and developing an epistemology to deal with them, this thesis develops more nuanced ways of producing knowledge about religious subjectivities and communities as they relate to activism.

This thesis brings together democratic theory's calls for an understanding of the actually existing democratic state and anthropological work on innovative forms of citizen participation. Building on the work of Joao Biehl and Steven Robins, the research focuses on access to knowledge and claims of expertise as grounds upon which politicians and bureaucrats exclude citizen participation. It argues, using an ethnographic case study of South African student activist group Equal Education, that authors such as Max Weber, Michel Foucault, and James Scott are wrong to imply that citizens cannot train themselves in the technocratic manner frequently deployed by the state's representatives. It also argues, however, that the state's representatives are often not the technocrats they are hypothesised to be or that they claim to be, and their knowledge practices cannot be separated from politics. This makes the process through which citizens establish expertise and credibility with the government more complicated than simply training themselves in the government's knowledge practices. Drawing on the work of Danielle Allen and Francesca Polletta, the thesis thus also examines how questions of personal experience and identity on grounds of lived experience as well as claimed or perceived identity often interact with claims to knowledge, opening up or shutting down citizens' ability to participate. Even when citizens are able to leverage their technocratic expertise to successfully influence policy creation, they may still find it difficult to effectively participate in the implementation thereof beyond external monitoring and accountability enforcement. The thesis concludes that the current democratic theory ought not be so pessimistic about the spectre of a know-nothing citizenry, but nor ought it presume that education and expertise alone will be sufficient for democratic governments to take seriously an involved and engaged citizenry.

Through the life story narratives of Ethiopian women activists, this research explores the journey of Ethiopian women activists during three political and historical periods (1955–1974; 1974–1991; 1991–2015). Thus, the study proposes a new perspective on the forms of Ethiopian women’s activism and subsequently the different types of feminism emerging from their narratives. Through examination of how the activists reflect on, reconstruct and give meaning to their life stories, this research unravels that their activism is informed by feminist principles. It also exposes that it is shaped by a long history of resistance to patriarchy, which enabled women in traditional Ethiopia to negotiate a certain level of “autonomy and liberty”. Contrary to the general expectation, the research demonstrates that the process of modernization (read: westernization) came with its own structure based on western patriarchy, and reinforced local patriarchy. In this new, formalized patriarchy, the rights that women had negotiated through their resistance in earlier times were diminished. This study on women activists, categorized for the purpose of this research as pioneers, revolutionaries and negotiators, suggests that Ethiopian women activists have since adopted different forms of engagement that tend to improve the social, cultural, economic and political conditions of Ethiopian women. Consequently, I argue that, while Ethiopian women’s activism and feminism is firmly embedded in the history of resistance of previous generations of Ethiopian women, the form of activism varies according to the political and historical context in which the activists negotiate and adapt the way they act.

This thesis examines how routine social media use shapes political participation in Britain. Since the turn of the century, many commentators have argued that political activism has been compromised by “slacktivism,” a pejorative term that refers to supposedly inauthentic, low-threshold forms of political engagement online, such as signing an e-petition or “liking” a Facebook page. In contrast, this thesis establishes a new theoretical approach—the continuum of participation model—which illuminates what happens before political action occurs. This is explored in three interrelated contexts, using three different research methods: an ethnography of the political movement, 38 Degrees; an analysis of a corpus of individually-completed self-reflective media engagement diaries; and a series of laboratory experiments that were designed to replicate environments in which slacktivism is said to occur. I argue that Facebook and Twitter create new opportunities for cognitive engagement, discursive participation, and political mobilisation. 38 Degrees uses social media to support engagement repertoires that blend online and offline tactics. This organisational management of digital micro-activism provides participatory shortcuts, enabling large numbers of grassroots members to shape campaign strategy. But, in contrast to both advocates and critics of online participation, I find no evidence of a widespread, one-size-fits-all, self-expressive logic. Instead, I argue that we ought to think in terms of a typology of citizen roles in social media environments. Civic instigators and contributors engage in digital micro-activism by way of refining their political identity. Listeners use social media to consume political information but refrain from public forms of expression and instead take to private spaces for political discussion. When listeners do act it is not effortless, but carefully considered. Experiments show that these roles derive from pre-established personal preferences, rather than the stylistic presentation of information or visible indicators of the popularity of an information source. Overall, this study argues that slacktivism is inadequate and flawed as means of capturing the essence of contemporary political action. Social networking sites offer an important space for democratic engagement in the milieu of everyday life.

Our Sound Our Silence is a performative documentary about student of color activists at Scripps College. This video project attempts to highlight the fatigue, emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion these students experience from having to work within the institution to advocate for their survival. This video project also attempts to speak to the importance of self-care for students of color and especially for those involved in activism and organizing on campus. I wanted to use the creation of this video as a means of self-care and process of healing for myself, my collaborators, and my community.