Our world today is experimenting a time of great power but also of tremendous resistances. Everywhere, people are brought together by similar burdens and frustration and creatively think about how to counter the forms of domination they are ascribed to. In academia as well there is an awakening among scholars to further investigate these multiple forms of resistance and equip the field with useful and empowering knowledge. This book aims at presenting some of these findings and reflecting upon the implications, social relevance, and ethical challenges of the growing field of Resistance Studies.

Remarkable, mischievous, inspiring—the eighty-odd stories in Small Acts of Resistance bring hidden histories to life. The courage of the people in these stories is breathtaking. So, too, is the impact and imagination of their actions.These mostly little known stories—including those written from eyewitness experience of the events and situations described—reveal the role ordinary people have played in achieving extraordinary change. “In the real world, it will never happen,” the skeptics love to tell us. As this book so vividly shows, the skeptics have repeatedly been proven wrong.Stories in this include how:· Strollers, toilet paper, and illegal ketchup helped end forty years of one-party Communist rule· Dogs (and what they wore) helped protestors humiliate a murderous regime· Internet videos about cuddly animals infuriated a repressive government which tried—and failed—to ban the craze· Football crowds found ways of singing the national anthem so as to defy a junta of torturers, now in jail· Women successfully put pressure on warlords to end one of Africa’s bloodiest wars· The singing of old folksongs hastened the collapse of an empire sustained by tanksIf you think individuals are powerless to change the world, read this remarkable book and you’ll surely change your mind.

In this deeply personal study, Hammad illuminates a deep agenda of place, meaning, and resistance in territorial struggles through the telling of a less-heard story of how women, men, and young people understand their world and their lives in the occupied Palestinian West Bank landscape. Taking a case study of a contested and divided Palestinian village situated in the heart of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and known for its sustained, non-violent protest against the Separation Wall that cuts through its lived spaces, Hammad examines how villagers live, experience, interpret, and attempt to resist infringements on their property and person. The study considers the spectrum of ways that people resist in this context, examining not only the overt weekly protests but also the everyday acts and subjectivities of resistance of its residents, young and old. It offers valuable theoretical insight into the extent and ways that meanings of place hold the potential to mediate, shape, and sustain resistance struggles through the voices and experiences of people. The backdrop of the protracted Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Palestinians’ struggle over space, place, and history—which continues to play out in the present—makes this book politically relevant and empowering as it brings voices from a secluded contested village to the world.

This book originates from a research project involving extensive collection and analysis of primary and secondary materials (scholarly literature, statistical data, and interviews with key actors) on global management and local resistances in all major world regions during the last years. It seeks to assess the overall management situation in the world, looking at the world as a social system where some countries act as winners of socioeconomic globalization, others as losers, and some as both. Offering analytical and comparative insights at the global level, this book will be useful for scholars, students, NGOs, and policy makers.

In Creating Resistances: Pastoral Care in a Postcolonial World, Melinda McGarrah Sharp studies the concept of resistance to outline what postcolonial pastoral care can look like in practice, particularly for people who feel more removed from the urgency of today’s postcolonial realities.

This volume studies nonviolent movements as instruments of change in contemporary global politics. It presents case studies of civilian-led nonviolent efforts in India, Poland, and Turkey and analyzes how they have enabled people’s voices, influenced popular resistance cultures, and pushed for change across the world. The book discusses complex sociopolitical scenarios that challenge democracy, patriotism, and the question of identity across the world. It examines how popular resistance movements have been received by the media, subverted governments across the world, and how they have contributed to the development of new “protest paradigms.” The volume brings together leading experts who explore the significant wave of nonviolent mass movements in contemporary global affairs to understand how these discourses can be leveraged to study peace and conflict today. The authors involve extensive pedagogical discussions, new tools, and techniques to map emerging political discourses to identify and explain how contemporary peace-conflict research can study nonviolent resistance and facilitate the development of new narratives in the future. An invaluable guide to understanding social movements, this book will be a must-read for scholars and researchers of politics, governance and public policy, gender, and human rights.