Kareem Estefan, Carin Kuoni, Laura Raicovich (eds.): Assuming Boycott: Resistance, Agency, and Cultural Production (2017)

“Boycott and divestment are essential tools for activists around the globe. Today’s organizers target museums, universities, corporations, and governments to curtail unethical sources of profit, discriminatory practices, or human rights violations. They leverage cultural production – and challenge its institutional supports – helping transform situations in the name of social justice.

The refusal to participate in an oppressive system has long been one of the most powerful weapons in the organizer’s arsenal. Since the days of the 19th century Irish land wars, when Irish tenant farmers defied the actions of Captain Charles Boycott and English landlords, “boycott” has been a method that’s shown its effectiveness time and again. In the 20th century, it notably played central roles in the liberation of India and South Africa and the struggle for civil rights in the U.S.: the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott is generally seen as a turning point in the movement against segregation.

Assuming Boycott is the essential reader for today’s creative leaders and cultural practitioners, including original contributions by artists, scholars, activists, critics, curators and writers who examine the historical precedent of South Africa; the current cultural boycott of Israel; freedom of speech and self-censorship; and long-distance activism. Far from withdrawal or cynicism, boycott emerges as a productive tool of creative and productive engagement.

Including essays by Nasser Abourahme, Ariella Azoulay, Tania Bruguera, Noura Erakat, Kareem Estefan, Mariam Ghani with Haig Aivazian, Nathan Gray and Ahmet Öğüt, Chelsea Haines, Sean Jacobs, Yazan Khalili, Carin Kuoni and Laura Raicovich, Svetlana Mintcheva, Naeem Mohaiemen, Hlonipha Mokoena, John Peffer, Joshua Simon, Ann Laura Stoler, Radhika Subramaniam, Eyal Weizman and Kareem Estefan, and Frank B. Wilderson III.”

Publisher OR Books, New York, 2017
ISBN 9781944869434, 1944869433
276 pages

Reviews: Rebecca Wolff (H-AMCA, 2018), Kim Jensen (Mondoweiss, 2017), Marguerite Dabaie (Electronic Intifada, 2017), Robert Bryan (Tribes, 2017).

Series of seminars (Vera List Center, 2015, with videos)
Book launch (New School, 2017, with video)

Editor
Publisher
WorldCat

EPUB

Interface, 12(1): Organizing amidst COVID-19: Sharing Stories of Struggle (2020)

“The world is on fire, with both fever and flame. After a few months of lockdown, things are erupting in new ways. The movement for Black Lives is demanding an end to anti-Black racism and conversations about abolishing the police are on late night television. In North America, a new world appears to be dawning, one that didn’t seem possible even a month ago. Meanwhile, in the new centre of global capitalism, the long-standing Hong Kong movement seems to be on the point of succumbing to a new wave of repression.

Around the world, movements are strategizing about how to ensure that no one is left behind. In April we put out a call for short pieces on this theme. We could see that the imminent arrival of the virus had generated many different struggles – initially pressure to force some states to take action in the first place, resistance to cuts and demanding benefits. Then came struggles characterized by mutual aid, efforts to protect essential workers, and the most vulnerable, such as the homeless, prisoners, the elderly and the undocumented.

This issue contains pieces originally written for our rolling coverage of movements in the virus, as well as a few pieces written especially for this special issue. They represent reflective activists and engaged researchers trying to grasp what their movements were doing, and what they should do, in an unprecedented situation.

The contributions reflect on movements in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Haiti, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, the UK, the US and globally and are written in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.” (from Editorial)

Edited by Sutapa Chattopadhyay, Lesley Wood, and Laurence Cox
Publisher Interface, July 2020
ISSN 2009-2431
683 pages

Publisher

PDF (17 MB)
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Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, 11: Newsletter (2020)

“Corona, Fascism, Climate Break-Down. Headlines all, and very real crises felt everywhere– things whose concerns work over situations at every scale of possible experience. We are interested in many things in regard to them, including how their nasty effects demand that we put our home affairs in order. Capacities for solidarity, meaningful mutual aid and actual justice emerge from the most intimate of places – that is, from between people and between people and other meaningful things.

This issue’s aim was to facilitate such work in intimate places; to do so, this issue serves primarily as a compilation of autonomously produced and locally distributed newsletters aimed at situating non-fascist thought and/or avant-garde cultural activity. We begin working on it in late 2018 and are completing it in June 2020.” (from Editorial)

Contributors: Hammam Aldouri, Out of the Woods, Nick Thoburn, Tools for Action, @.ac (Lancashire), Antifascist Culture (Athens), Never Again/Anti-Fascist Year (Warsaw), Around the Table, The Field (London), Black Book (Hong Kong), Casual School Collective (Canberra), Center for Enchantment (Albany), Critical Practice (Los Angeles), DSA Ecosocialist WG (Santa Cruz), Evening Class (London), Five Years (London), La Foresta/Evening Class (Rovereto), Pro Art Gallery and Common (Oakland), RIVAL (Thunder Bay), Terra Critica (Utrecht), We, TBD (Los Angeles), Woodbine (Ridgewood), Museum Adjacent (Torrance), Zizi de Vitruve (Strasbourg).

Editors: Marc Herbst, Robby Herbst, Amber Hickey, Claudia Firth
Publisher JOAAP, Leipzig / Los Angeles / London / Berlin / Waterville, ME, Jul 2020
99 pages

Publisher

PDF, PDF (12 MB)