Peer2Politics

Voters in one Oregon county last week approved a ban on commercial bottled water production, stopping a years-long effort by Swiss transnational Nestle to sell over 100 million gallons of water a year from the Columbia River Gorge.

Sarah Corbett is a craft-activist, or "craftivist". She is the founder of Craftivist-Collective, and has worked as a campaigner for NGOs like Oxfam and Christian Aid. Sarah takes a very unique and thoughtful approach to activism. We talked about the intersection between activism and craft-making, how activism can be slow, gentle, and kind, and about the surprising story behind why she made a handkerchief for her Member of Parliament.

Join us in D.C. from April 11th to April 16th to sit-in at the US Capitol demanding Congress take immediate action to end the corruption of money in politics and ensure free and fair elections for all!

The 21st Century is a time of great converging challenges—we need to think, feel and act systemically like never before in our history.

At times, it proves to be difficult to find a balance between trying to build an
academic career and conforming to existing evaluation criteria while also
confronting and tackling hegemonic and institutionalized ideas of what constitutes good research. It’s a delicate exercise where the challenge to play the game while simultaneously trying to change the rules of the game, often leads to ethical, methodological and strategic dilemmas. Being involved in research on identity and a commitment in identity politics shapes, questions, challenges, and redefines our own identity and touches upon the researcher’s body. Consequently, our personal and professional lives are intrinsically linked and the motivation to shape or change academic and political debates only grows stronger.

The workshop "Academia and identity - when research meets activism" held in March 2015 in Leuven, aimed to create a space to discuss these complex issues. This magazine collects the stories and reflections of the workshop’s participants and provides insight into their balance between academic work at the one hand, and the commitment to the politics of identity on the other – in all its messiness and potential failure.

David Bollier's presentation to the Agence Française de Développement in Paris outlining the commons as an alternative vision of "development."

With Facebook now closely monitored in Egypt, activists have been learning to use the encrypted messaging app Signal to communicate on the streets.

It started with an email many months ago about protesting the fact that what the people want has no influence in legislation, while money very much does. If we could get 1000 people willing to risk arrest for a protest of this sad state of affairs, then let’s do it! We got well over 1000 within 2 weeks, and 3000, ultimately.

Over 300 of “Democracy Spring” protesters have been arrested on the steps of the US Capitol. Thousands of activists arrived in Washington DC, after a 10-day, 140-mile (225km) march from Philadelphia, to protest the role of money in politics.