The invaluable historical records of human rights non-governmental organizations have contributed to the protection of human rights and important social changes (such as the abolition of slavery in the West) at the local, national, and global levels over the last 200 years. This thesis stresses the importance of these records creators and their records in a case study of two human rights non-governmental organizations that responded to human rights violations in El Salvador in the late twentieth century: Comision de Derechos Humanos de El Salvador (San Salvador) and the Resource Center of the Americas (Minneapolis). The other primary and related concern of this thesis is to emphasize the role of the archivist as social justice activist through his or her efforts to include in the archive evidence of marginalized voices that can widen our understanding of peoples' history. As archivists are active shapers of historical memory through archival practice, they must forge alliances with those in the human rights non-governmental sphere to further the contribution of archives to social justice. By actively engaging the world’s memory of the disenfranchised (the archive of justice) archives can play an increasingly important societal role.

This manifesto takes a broad and critical approach to entrepreneurial research. The author consciously uses a provocative way of arguing for the importance of challenging received academic wisdom about entrepreneurship. It is a manifesto that spells out why we should question the idea that entrepreneurship research is neutral. It is the academic's privilege to ask questions; hence the appeal here to critical theory, familiar from other traditions than business management, and a useful corrective when considering the dominant and hegemonic perspectives in entrepreneurship research. The manifesto presents entrepreneurship as something that goes far beyond market-oriented business to an enterprising spirit that could keep society self-reflecting and self-critical by questioning what it takes for granted; mobilizing the entrepreneurial energies of those who voluntarily marginalize themselves–individuals and groups who are not afraid to stand out, channeling their self-confidence to defend values that contrast the dominant ones. They are to be found among performance artists practising social art, "extreme" entrepreneurs, and creative anarchists who take society itself as their target when trying to instigate change. When the entrepreneurial focus is not the market per se, but rather the social norms and values in which economic activity is embedded, the entrepreneur's task becomes to challenge whatever is taken for granted–an incitement that is as much social as economic. Thus, the entrepreneur as a provocateur takes on the most established institutions, her only guiding principle being to question whatever principles that society unthinkingly espouses, whatever is taken for granted. Unlike market entrepreneurs, who appreciate institutions since they provide an otherwise unknowable environment with basic "rules of the game", provocative entrepreneurs question even the most formal, long-standing institutions. Their motivation is a generic obstinacy, and their vision is to be recognized for making people aware–and for their actions, even as they rub saltpetre in society's wounds. Entrepreneurship in the form it is presented in this manifesto asks the awkward question or presents the uncomfortable truth, forcing all to take a long hard look at themselves in a cold, self-critical light. The essays here cover a variety of forms of anarchist entrepreneurship–all with a strong driving spirit. The manifesto aims to stimulate entrepreneurs and researchers, as well as politicians and citizens, to engage, to initiate, and to act, all in the name of the society.

No description available.

In this study I explored the research questions, how do students understand membership in a community and the responsibilities of our various locations and what pedagogical rationales and practices move students from awareness of social injustice towards acting to transform the societal structures that reinforce injustice? This project engaged in a critical and classroom action research using ethnographic tools with a class of Grade 7 students from a Vancouver elementary school. The purpose was to create spaces in curriculum for student initiated social justice oriented actions while testing a pedagogy founded in student inquiry, criticality and praxis. This was an experiment in applying critical discourse to instructional design. While teaching about social justice issues, the teacher- researcher sought to employ the principles of social justice in the pedagogy as well as the methodology of this study. The methodology sought to be consistent with the principles of social justice through attempting to create a collaborative critical research cohort with students through using data collection to foster a dialogic relationship between teacher- researcher and students. The data collection was in the forms of teacher and student generated fieldnotes, a communal research log, photography, questionnaires, interviews and written reflections. The findings from this research were analyzed through the themes of teacher tensions, constructs of student and teachers, and resistance. The analysis of the data provided opportunities for identifying power dynamics within the concepts being critiqued, exploring the makings of the cognitive unconscious and entering into a dialogic relationship with students about official and hidden curricula. Conclusions drawn from this research included that the experiment of teaching and researching for social justice in a socially just manner requires not only a grounding in theory and an awareness of the normative discourse, but an investigation of and critical reflection on those social constructions of teacher and student that are deeply embedded in the collective cognitive unconscious of the classroom. Teacher tensions and student resistance are productive as they provoke awareness of these constructions and their effects on the classroom.

No description available.

What is it about feminism that invites so many different opinions on what ‘counts’ and what doesn’t? People from vastly different cultural situations variously categorise feminist practices as extreme, radical, reactionary, unbalanced, co-opted, revolutionary, elite, exclusive, progressive, passé, and hysterical. The desire of both feminists and anti-feminists to control feminism emerges as the limiting of what feminism is, whom it is for, and where it is going. The urge to limit feminism seems, in some cases, to overtake the urge to spread the word and celebrate feminism’s successes. And it is not just anti-feminists who attempt to limit feminism – even feminists spend an inordinate amount of time defining certain practices out of the feminist spectrum. In this thesis, I document and analyse the way we limit feminism – its participants, meaning, practices, language, history, and future. I explore the reasons why we need to contain feminism in this way, looking in particular at those who have an investment in keeping feminism comfortably small. I invite back into the realm of feminism a wide range of activities and theories we generally invalidate as feminism, including the words of several ‘unofficial’ feminists I interviewed for this project. In essence, this project goes towards the rethinking of the term ‘feminism’ by examining the widely differing and often contradictory definitions of ‘what counts.’

Rosler’s 1967-1972 series, Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful conflates images of domestic interiors with images of combat related to the Vietnam War. This thesis places the series within the socio-political context of the Cold War examining the manner in which Rosler utilizes specific elements of governmental ideology and rhetoric to implicate the viewer in complicity with American involvement in Vietnam. The dissemination of governmental ideology through advertising, the effects of desire, and the critique of consumption conveyed by this series are investigated. The series is analyzed in terms of Sigmund Freud’s theory of the Uncanny and in relation to historic use of photomontage. In the final chapter, Rosler’s revival of the series, begun in 2004, is compared to the original in terms of its ability to effectively alter the viewer’s perception of the war in Iraq in terms of politics, media, and institutional context.

In this study I explored the research questions, how do students understand membership in a community and the responsibilities of our various locations and what pedagogical rationales and practices move students from awareness of social injustice towards acting to transform the societal structures that reinforce injustice? This project engaged in a critical and classroom action research using ethnographic tools with a class of Grade 7 students from a Vancouver elementary school. The purpose was to create spaces in curriculum for student initiated social justice oriented actions while testing a pedagogy founded in student inquiry, criticality and praxis. This was an experiment in applying critical discourse to instructional design. While teaching about social justice issues, the teacher- researcher sought to employ the principles of social justice in the pedagogy as well as the methodology of this study. The methodology sought to be consistent with the principles of social justice through attempting to create a collaborative critical research cohort with students through using data collection to foster a dialogic relationship between teacher- researcher and students. The data collection was in the forms of teacher and student generated fieldnotes, a communal research log, photography, questionnaires, interviews and written reflections. The findings from this research were analyzed through the themes of teacher tensions, constructs of student and teachers, and resistance. The analysis of the data provided opportunities for identifying power dynamics within the concepts being critiqued, exploring the makings of the cognitive unconscious and entering into a dialogic relationship with students about official and hidden curricula. Conclusions drawn from this research included that the experiment of teaching and researching for social justice in a socially just manner requires not only a grounding in theory and an awareness of the normative discourse, but an investigation of and critical reflection on those social constructions of teacher and student that are deeply embedded in the collective cognitive unconscious of the classroom. Teacher tensions and student resistance are productive as they provoke awareness of these constructions and their effects on the classroom. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

The shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 paved the way for activism controlled by youth led by key students banding together following the incident. Student activists from the school emerged particularly via social media and organized large-scale efforts in order to create discourse surrounding gun control through their March For Our Lives movement. Studying the overlap between youth activism, the response to trauma, the systems at play within social media, and the role of commercialization, this paper dives into the complexities of activist based discourse as it evolves and the forces at play within youth activism in general. Looking at these existing efforts aids in exposing both the pros and cons of activism mediated by social media and the role that larger systems play in an activist’s mission. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2021. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Spaces for protests, demonstrations, and activism are shifting under contemporary social, cultural, and governance structures. While particular conditions for physical space were once fairly unified in their ability to establish space for activism and dissent; social media and digital platforms have fundamentally changed the nature of those areas. This thesis aims to investigate frameworks of space-making that can potentially reposition spaces of activism as everyday events that represent the mood of the society. This in turn will also help in revisiting the terms of human engagement with the help of spaces that facilitate a deeper understanding of the people around us and conceive a sense of empathy within our social conversations.