Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The purpose of this study is to analyze the jurisprudence formed by the Court of Justice of the State of Sergipe regarding civil homoeffective judgments within the family between 2005 and 2015, seeking to draw a profile of the local judiciary in refers to the grounds of decisions rendered in the second degree of jurisdiction. As a starting point will be made a preliminary study on the theory of the State and how the judiciary gained strength in post-liberalism, which came to settle with the establishment of Constitutional States, with Brazil included in this. Subsequently, on the stabilization of the judiciary power, the concepts and theories on judicialization of judicial politics and activism will be analyzed, and how the aforementioned phenomena have contributed to the formation of a new right of Brazilian families, especially those formed by same sex. In the end, the research will present whether the Sergipe judiciary, in the grounds of its decisions to recognize the rights of this new family formation, has been activist or not. / O presente trabalho tem por objetivo fazer uma análise da jurisprudência formada pelo Tribunal de Justiça do Estado de Sergipe no que concerne às decisões cíveis homoafetivas dentro do âmbito familiar, entre os anos de 2005 a 2015, buscando traçar um perfil do judiciário local no que se refere as fundamentações das decisões prolatadas em sede de segundo grau de jurisdição. Como ponto de partida será feito um estudo preliminar sobre a teoria do Estado e como o judiciário ganhou força no pós-liberalismo, o que veio a estabelecer-se com o assentamento dos Estados Constitucionais, estando o Brasil incluído neste seio. Posteriormente, acerca da estabilização da força do poder judiciário, serão analisados os conceitos e teorias sobre judicialização da política e ativismo judicial e de que forma os referidos fenômenos contribuíram para a formatação de um novo direito das famílias brasileiras, em especial aquelas formadas por pessoas do mesmo sexo. Ao final, a pesquisa apresentará se o judiciário sergipano, na fundamentação de suas decisões de reconhecimento dos direitos dessa nova formação familiar, vem sendo um tribunal voltado a uma concepção ativista ou não. / São Cristóvão, SE

A rede de ativismo político contemporâneo tem orientado suas ações em direção a um campo híbrido que desconsidera fronteiras entre ativismo e arte . Dentre a variedade de práticas desta rede, o prank é um exemplo da desconsideração destas fronteiras. Um prank é um golpe, uma ruptura jocosa da ordem, da hierarquia, da autoridade. Como prática, o prank é abordado ao longo deste trabalho como uma opção performativa para o ativismo político, uma vez que reúne características lúdicas, críticas, vivenciais e multiplicadoras. Os ativistas que adotam o prank como opção se relacionam com a história recente da rede de ativismo político contemporâneo, que resiste a um novo modelo de organização do capitalismo. De 1994 a 2003, esta rede estabeleceu um panorama de macroações (em especial, os Dias de Ação Global) festivas e insurgentes. O ativismo difuso, diluído no cotidiano com ações em menor escala, também tem adotado a mesma orientação irreverente. Isto é especialmente verificável na reivindicação pelo espaço, entendido de maneira ampla, tanto como espaço urbano erodido pela invasão do capital, quanto como espaço da comunicação, da ideologia e das trocas simbólicas. As modalidades de pranks adotadas neste contexto são examinadas a partir de categorias como a teatralidade e a performatividade, conforme entendidas por Josette Féral. Estas ferramentas contribuem na conclusão de que n a performance atravessada pelo prank não existem mediadores, ela é autônoma, orientada pelo princípio político do faça você mesmo. / The current network of political activism has pursued a hybrid field, ignoring the borders between activism and art. Amongst the various genres of this network, the prank illustrates how such borders are blurred. A prank is a blow, a whimsical breaking of order, of hierarchy, and of authority. This thesis addresses prank as a practice, a performance option for political activism, provided that it merges experiences of play, criticism, liveness and dissemination. Activists who have chosen the prank are related with a recent history of the contemporary network of political mobilization, which resists to a new capitalist pattern of organization. From 1994 through 2003, this network established a scenario of celebrations and radical macro-actions (particularly the Days of Global Action). The spread out activism that is blended in daily life also features a similar invasive attitude. This is especially true in their claims for space, broadly understood both as urban space that has been contaminated by the invasion of capital, and as a space of communication, ideology and symbolic exchange. I have examined the various prank genres within this context on the basis of categories such as theatricality and performativity, according to Josette Férals stance. These considerations have led me to the conclusion that there are no mediators when prank merges with performance, since it is autonomous and draws on the do it yourself political principle.

Através do trabalho de campo e de análise bibliográfica e documental durante os anos de 2010 a 2014, esta pesquisa teve por objetivo compreender a produção das categorias travesti, transexual, trans e transgênero a partir das relações entre saberes e ativismos. Tomei como fio condutor os debates em torno das regulações das transformações corporais do sexo, argumentando que estas discussões são uma importante porta de entrada para o entendimento das relações entre movimentos sociais e especialistas, assim como da circulação transnacional e possíveis particularidades construídas acerca dessas categorias no Brasil. Na análise dos especialistas apresentei tensões entre os saberes biomédicos e os saberes sociais. Argumentei como os especialistas constroem suas versões de sujeito que orientam sua prática profissional a partir métodos e teorias diferentes, produzindo efeitos políticos e relações entre noções de (des)patologização, autonomia e sofrimento. Na análise dos ativistas apresentei como o uso do termo trans é polissêmico, sobretudo se pensarmos suas possíveis articulações com as categorias de travesti, transexual, homens, mulheres e pessoas. Discuti o surgimento de um culturalismo travesti como uma forma de politizar certa noção de cultura como núcleo da identidade travesti. Este culturalismo travesti produz a possibilidade de se constituir uma identidade com orgulho, conjuntamente com noções de nação brasileira, constituindo-se como uma contraposição e interlocução ao que chamei de transglobalização, um processo de espraiamento global das categorias transexual, trans e transgênero. / Based on fieldwork and bibliographical and documentary analysis during the years of 2010 to 2014, this research aims to comprehend the production of travesti, transsexual, trans and transgender categories throughout the relations between acknowledgments and activisms. I took the debates around the regulation of body sex changes as a conductor thread, arguing that these discussions are an important entrance door for the understanding of the relations between social movement and specialists, as well as the transnational movement and possible particularities built around these categories in Brazil. About the specialists analysis, I presented tensions between the biomedical and social acknowledgments. I argued about how the specialists build their own versions of subject that guide their professional practice on different methods and theories, producing political effects and relations between notions of (de)pathologization, autonomy and suffering. About the activists analysis, I presented how polissemic the use of the trans term is, mostly if we think its possible articulations with the categories of travesti, transsexual, women and people. I discussed the appereance of a travesti culturalism as a way to politicize a certain notions of culture as the center of travesti identity. This travesti culturalism produces a possibility to constitute an identity with pride, together with the notions of brazilian nation, constituting itself as a contraposition and interlocution to what I called transglobalisation, a global spreading process of the transsexual, trans and transgender categories.

The integration of the Internet in our society has shaped alot of the things we do in our lives. The Web allows us to achieve certain things directly through our computers, such as reading the paper and paying our bills. But this integration has also lead to another interesting change. Activists have begun to unload their operations onto the Net instead of holding on to the more traditional demonstrations performed in squares. This study aims to look into the world of cyberactivism and examine how cyberactivists experience the way activism has changed as a result of using the Internet. The study is based on interviews with four cyberactivists operating in various fields. It points to a change in activism, not in its core or message, but in the way activism is engaged. Based on the interviews, three common categories can be found: dissemination of information, communication and new dimension. These categories show that with the use of the Internet, information dissemination, communication and acting independently of time and space has been made easier. Putting this aside, new challenges have also arisen concerning ownership of the message, uncontrolled communication and a larger distance to the activism itself. However, there is no doubt that the Internet has played a huge role in how activism is conducted today.

This politically engaged project locally grounds the efforts of low-wage workers in the United States who are addressing the nationwide epidemic of wage theft by focusing on the particular experience of organized hospitality cleaning workers at a worker center in Nashville, Tennessee. While being both collaborative and reflexive, this activist anthropological research utilizes observant participation, in-depth interviews, and organizational and archival research to explore the issues identified by members and organizers at the worker center, illustrate the alternative theories of change being generated from grassroots labor organizing efforts in light of state mechanisms that do not protect all workers, and to investigate the complex intersections of activism and academia in research settings. This study shows that wage theft is a more nuanced problem than an economic burden alone, that organized low-wage and immigrant workers are changing the landscape of U.S. labor organizing, and that academic-worker justice collaborations hold promising implications for social change.

The problem that I have identified during my research for this dissertation is the quantifiable depletion and exhaustion of large percentages of the world's soils through human activity in agriculture and other industrial practices. In the course of researching this problem I have looked closely at some of the primary causes, and a range of proposed and applied solutions in the field of ecology. The primary focus of the research has been in looking at how artists have responded to ecological issues and have engaged in environmental activism in their practices. Integral to the research has been direct participation in collaborative art practices that investigate and strive to raise public awareness about issues related to soil ecology. It has proceeded through reading established texts, interviewing expert practitioners, publishing my findings, and presenting at numerous conferences, concurrently with direct participation in ecologically oriented practices, related artistic projects, professional art exhibits, activist events, and working in the field of professional organic farming. During the research phase I attended nine Planetary Collegium Sessions with fellow researchers and received valuable direction from supervising professors. The result is a written, theoretical dissertation that documents the research through text and photography in seven chapters. It has also produced a body of sculptures and documented physical experiments and performances that are motivated by, and speak directly to issues of soil ecology. The efficacy of the artwork that has been made in the course of researching problems in soil ecology comes from its continuation of, and direct participation in, established, contemporary art projects and movements that have had a demonstrable influence of society. The contribution that it makes to new knowledge is by addressing in unique ways the emerging subject of soils, which have tended to be overlooked in many ecological discussions, and in so doing it also brings to bear a unique combination of influences in its practice. These include: Art practice, Situationist performances, Core Shamanic practice (as developed by Michael Harner), soil science, inspiration drawn from a number of continental theorists, participation in sustainable agriculture, and political activism, applied simultaneously in a transdisciplinary body of work described herein specifically on behalf of soils. In this endeavor the dissertation and its body of produced objects and performances has also sought to blur some of the conventional lines between theoretical research, contemplation and practice, as appropriate to a trans-disciplinary project. Numerous discoveries have been made in the course of the research, chief among them that the new transdisciplinary approach to soil studies that my collaborators and I have taken turns out to be of necessity if we are to avert large-scale collapses of agriculture due to soil degradation on a global scale in the course of this century.

Digital storytelling uses technology in order to capture people’s stories digitally, weaving together images, music and narration to create a vivid, multi-media story in the form of a short movie. Story creators are taken through a workshop in order to equip them with the technical and other skills needed to create the stories themselves. In the case studied, a group of gender and HIV activists participated in intensive four-day workshops sponsored by a South African non-governmental organisation. Seven interviews were conducted with workshop participants to capture their experiences of the workshops. Following a grounded theory approach, the interview transcriptions were analysed using an open coding process, which lead to the emergence of a clear central story line. The conceptual framework or theory emerging from this qualitative case study is that in digital stories as tools for social change and activism, technology’s role can be understood through conceptualising it as a medium and a mediator, with its properties as a medium enabling it to play a mediating role in a number of different types of relationships. A potential gap in the literature was identified in the process of writing this dissertation, which is that most examinations of the use of technology in social change and activism concentrate on the Internet and email. Hence there is a need for further research into how a range of technologies are currently and can potentially be used in the services of social change. It is hoped that this dissertation will contribute to addressing that gap. / Dissertation (MPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Informatics / unrestricted

L’objet de cette recherche est de comprendre la nature de la critique portée par les journalistes de l’environnement en Chine et d’analyser comment leur activité peut se déployer dans un régime autoritaire qui s’appuie sur le progrès et l’idéologie de la modernisation pour asseoir sa légitimité. Paradoxalement, cette forme de journalisme, qui contient un fort potentiel critique face à la quête effrénée de croissance économique promue par le PCC, est née d’une impulsion interne à l’administration et au Parti dés les années 1970-1980. Cette origine fait peser un doute constant sur la finalité de la critique environnementale, et expose les journalistes à l’accusation de faire le jeu du pouvoir en dénonçant des abus locaux. Par une étude historique et sociologique de la pratique et des questionnements des journalistes de l’environnement chinois sur leur activité, j’analyse comment ils prennent en charge la tension inhérente à une critique qui ne peut jamais se placer en extériorité complète par rapport à un système de pouvoir susceptible à tout moment de la réduire au silence. Si elle est limitée par les conditions de son exercice, je soutiens que cette critique contient néanmoins une puissance réelle de changement, et j’essaie de mettre au jour l’évolution des moyens par lesquels les différents acteurs (journalistes, cadres, associations) contribuent au maintien de l’édifice tout en cherchant à le déséquilibrer en leur faveur. Je montre que la recherche d’autonomisation du journalisme environnemental a d’abord conduit à l’émergence d’un journalisme militant, puis, par réaction, à l’affirmation d’une forme de professionnalisation qui valorise le modèle de l’expert objectif, mais complique le rapport à l’engagement qui reste pourtant déterminante dans leur pratique. / The object of this research is to understand the nature of the criticism expressed in environmental journalism and to examine how this journalistic domain can spread under an authoritarian regime leaning on the progress and the ideology of modernization to establish its legitimacy. Paradoxically, this journalism, which contains a high critical potential regarding the economic growth promoted by the PCC, arose from an internal impulse within the administration and the Party since the 1970’s-1980’s. This origin sheds a constant doubt on the final end of this criticism and it exposes the journalists to the accusation of helping the Party by denouncing local abuses. Through a historic and sociological study of the practice of environmental journalists and their questioning of their own activity, I analyze how they deal with the tension inherent to a criticism that can never take place in complete exteriority to a system of power prone to silence them at any time. If this criticism is limited by the conditions of its exercise, I argue that it contains nevertheless a real power of change. I try to bring to light the evolution of how the various actors (journalists, officials, associations) contribute to the preservation of the system while trying to destabilize it in their own interest. I show that the search for empowerment of environmental journalism led at first to the emergence of militant journalism, then, in reaction, in the assertion of a form of professionalization which values the model of objective experts, which complicates the relationship to their own practice and makes their commitment difficult. Yet, it remains one of their deepest aspiration.

The main objective of this research was to determine the effectiveness of outdoor education on student knowledge retention, appreciation for nature, and environmental activism in a college level course on south Florida ecology. Six class sections were given quizzes on four course topics either post-lecture or post-field trip. Students were also given pre-course and post-course opinion surveys. Although mean quiz scores for the post-field trip were higher than for the post-lecture, statistical analysis determined that there was no significant difference in quiz scores for location taken (post-lecture or post-field trip). Survey results show a correlation between knowledge of environmental issues and environmental activism. Even though student survey responses point to outdoor education and field trips being the most effective method of learning and influential on appreciation for nature, the quiz scores do not reflect such.

This thesis seeks to uncover some of the cultural practices central to youth activist subcultures across three urban centres in Canada: Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. I undertake this work within the context of rising moral and state claims about the apparent need for ‘good citizenship’ to be exercised by young people, alongside a late modern relationship between liberalism, neoliberalism, and Canada’s history of class- and race-based exclusions. The theoretical framework bridges cultural and political sociology with youth cultural theory. It also draws heavily upon the work of feminist philosophers of agency and the state. The main methodology is ethnographic, and was carried out within a phenomenological and hermeneutic framework. In total, 41 young people, ages 13-29, were involved in this research. Participants self-identified as being involved in activist work addressing issues such as globalization, war, poverty and/or colonialism. The findings of this study suggest that the effects of the historical and contemporary symbol of the ‘good citizen’ are experienced within youth activist subcultures through a variety of cultural means, including: expectations from self and schooling to be ‘responsible,’ with its associated burdens of guilt; policing practices that appear to rely on cultural ideas about the ‘good citizen’ and the ‘bad activist’; and representations of youth activism (e.g. within media) as replete with out-of-control young people being punished for their wrong-doings. Wider effects include the entrenched impacts of class- and race-based exclusions, which manifest within youth activist subcultures through stylistic regimes of ‘symbolic authorization’ that incorporate attire, beliefs, and practices. Although findings suggest that many young people come to activism via a predisposition created within an activist or Left-leaning family, this research also highlights the relational means by which people from outside of this familial habitus can come to activist practices. Taken together, findings suggest that youth activism must be understood as a cultural and social phenomenon, with requisite preconditions, influences, and effects; that such practices cannot be disassociated from wider social inequalities; and that such effects and influences demand scrutiny if we are to reconsider the role of activism and its part in expanding the political boundaries of the nation-state. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate