This thesis analyzes political struggles over power and knowledge within networks of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and social movements contesting neoliberal globalization. Existing studies tend to obscure tensions, contradictions and differences among organizations and movements engaged in resistance and contest of neoliberalism. Situating 'globalization' as a contemporary manifestation of older processes of colonialism and imperialism, this work draws upon and extends institutional ethnography/political activist ethnography methodologies to explicate how 'anti-globalization' practice is socially organized. Starting from a standpoint in an everyday world of activist practice, this work examines NGO, activist and official documents, and insights from the author's 'insider' status as an activist/researcher in NGO conferences and campaigns. It explicates tensions and asymmetries of power within networks throughout the Asia-Pacific that mobilized to contest the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in the 1990s. Combining a dual interdisciplinary academic and activist theoretical framework, it innovatively weaves knowledge and theory produced within social movements and activist milieus with academic scholarship. This work draws upon Marxist political economy and critical adult education traditions, critiques of dominant social movement theory, non-Western approaches to epistemologies of knowledge, organizational analysis, social history and other critical historiographies. It identifies and questions hegemonic NGO practices, arguing that hierarchies of power and knowledge within 'alternative' milieus often reproduce, rather than challenge dominant practices and power relations, and serve elite interests rather than those of constituencies which these organizations claim to represent. This thesis troubles the NGOization of political struggles, NGO claims of representation, and the privileging of professionalized NGO and academic knowledge at the expense of voices and histories from below. In so doing, it offers new conceptual resources for future scholarship on social movements and 'civil society', as well as tools to inform activism.

As activists strategize, build resistance, and foster solidarity, they also call for better dialogue between researchers and movements and for research that can aid their causes. In this volume, contributors examine how research can produce knowledge for social transformation by using political activist ethnography, a unique social research strategy that uses political confrontation as a resource and focuses on moments and spaces of direct struggle to reveal how ruling regimes are organized so activists and social movements can fight them. Featuring research from Aotearoa (New Zealand), Bangladesh, Canada, Poland, South Africa, and the United States on matters as diverse as anti-poverty organizing, prisoners’ re-entry, anti-fracking campaigns, left-inspired think-tank development, non-governmental partnerships, involuntary psychiatric admission, and perils of immigration medical examination, contributors to this volume adopt a “bottom-up” approach to inquiry to produce knowledge for activists, not about them. A must-read for humanities and social sciences scholars keen on assisting activists and advancing social change.

This interdisciplinary collection of readings pertaining to schooling, higher education, adult and community development education, indigenous education and social movement learning in the African and Asian regions is a contribution to anti/critical colonial scholarship in comparative/international education and the sociology of education. The political and analytical standpoint that weaves through the text considers the imbrications of the colonial and imperial projects currently referenced as neoliberal globalization (globalization of capitalism) and development (compulsory Eurocentric-modernization) and their attendant and mutual implications for education, social reproduction and hegemony. Counter/anti-hegemonic and indigenous education projects and pre/existing alternatives are registered in the critique. At last, a remarkable collection of essays written by a range of scholars, mostly originating from Asia and Africa, demonstrating with admirable clarity how policies and practices of neo-liberal globalization in those regions cannot be adequately understood without appreciating how they are a product of the exploitative histories of colonialism. Written with conceptual sophistication, personal knowledge and deep conviction, these essays represent a major scholarly intervention in contemporary debates about globalization and education.??Fazal Rizvi, Professor, Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Australia & Professor-Emeritus, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. This intriguing and provocative volume deals with crucial intersections between global forces and national initiatives with respect to the most crucial agency of transformation: education. The cumulative efforts of this assembly of committed intellectuals reveal the forces that retard progress in the two largest continents and offers compelling suggestions on how to redefine the boundaries of power, the contents of knowledge, and the use of critical thinking to create alternative spaces of autonomy, freedom, liberation and empowerment. Toyin Falola, University Distinguished Professor & Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor, University of Texas at Austin. This volume, well crafted by Dip Kapoor, one of the finest scholars in the postcolonial education field, brings together writers who examine processes of learning and education more broadly within the context of the dominant discourses of globalisation and 'development’. They unveil the underlying neocolonial, neoliberal tenets of these processes strongly echoing what Hardt and Negri would call 'Empire.’ In short, another important reading resource provided by Dip Kapoor and colleagues. Peter Mayo, Professor & Chair, Educational Studies, University of Malta. Finally, a much awaited intervention on neoliberal globalization from Asian and African perspectives! This book makes a compelling case for a historically grounded, regionally specific analysis of globalization. The contributions are extraordinary for their textured and embedded analysis of neoliberal globalization. One of those rare books that deserve to be read across the social sciences. Sangeeta Kamat, Associate Professor, International Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA.

NGOs are as Canadian as hockey, declared a 1988 Parliamentary report. Few institutions epitomize the foundational Canadian myth of international benevolence like the non-governmental organization devoted to development abroad. This book raises important questions about these organizations and their development projects: Just how non-governmental are organizations that get most of their funding from government agencies? What impact do these funding ties have on NGOs' ability to support popular demands for democratic reforms and wealth redistribution? What happens when NGOs support a repressive regime? What happens when NGOs bite the hand that feeds them?

The dynamics, politics, and richness of knowledge production in social movements and social activist contexts are often overlooked. This book contends that some of the most radical critiques and understandings about dominant ideologies and power structures, and visions of social change, have emerged from those spaces.

This is a book for activists, students, scholars of social movements and adult education and for the public interested in the contemporary movements of our times. From the streets of Barcelona and Athens, the public squares in Cairo, Tunis and Tripoli, the flash mobs and virtual learning of the #Occupy movement, and the shack dwellers of South Africa people around the world are organising themselves to take action against the ravages of a capitalism that serves the greedy while impoverishing the rest. Social movements have arisen or re-arisen in virtually every sector of human activity from concerns about the fate of our planet earth, to dignity for those living with HIV/AIDS, to feeding ourselves in healthier ways and survival in places of violent conflict. At the heart of each of these movements are activists and ordinary people learning how to change their lives and how to change the world. This book offers contemporary theoretical and practical insights into the learning that happens both within and outside of social movements. Social movement scholars present work linked to the arts, to organic farming, to environmental action, to grassroots activists in the Global South, to the Arab Spring, the Occupy movement, the shackdwellers movements, school reform and the role of Marx, Gramscii and Williams in understanding social movement learning. The greatest contribution of this inspiring book is to remind us that learning and education in social movements help to make a difference. Not only does this collection enable us to understand how we might theorise and historicise learning in diverse contemporary social movements, but its contributors do so with outspoken and passionate commitment to ‘Learning and Education for a Better World.’ - Professor Miriam Zukas, Executive Dean, Birkbeck, University of London The burning demand for such a text comes from our contemporary moment that is witness to a world where nearly everything is commercialised, marketised or commodified. This text shuns an essentialist discourse while simultaneously and masterfully offering unprecedented insights into social movement learning and education. The book is numinous. - Professor Robert Hill, University of Georgia, USA This is a book we have all been waiting for. The editors have brought together an amazing cadre of international adult educators to probe the intersection of social movements and learning, and to build theory around the many social actions that are taking place globally. A must read for students and professors everywhere. - Leona English, PhD, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS, Canada Accessible, engaging, often inspirational, the essays that comprise Learning and Education for a Better World offer deep insights on the role of social movements as agencies of learning, struggle and transformation. From case studies that include the occupy movement, popular education in Latin America, political cinema and the Egyptian Revolution to reflections on resistance, aesthetics and the role of organic intellectuals, this collection will be of interest to educators, social scientists, humanists and activists alike. An interdisciplinary tour-de-force. - Professor William Carroll, University of Victoria, Canada This is such a timely collection of essays, bringing together critical reflections on experiences of social action from across the globe. This book is to be commended to the widest possible readership. - (From the Preface by) Emeritus Professor Marjorie Mayo, Goldsmith’s College

Learning Activism is designed to encourage a deeper engagement with the intellectual life of activists who organize for social, political, and ecological justice.