✍ Scribed by Breno Bringel (editor); Geoffrey Pleyers (editor)
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
EPUB and EPDF available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. The COVID-19 pandemic has deeply shaken societies and lives around the world. This powerful book reveals how the pandemic has intensified socio-economic problems and inequalities across the world whilst offering visions for a better future informed by social movements and public sociology. Bringing together experts from 27 countries, the authors explore the global echoes of the pandemic and the different responses adopted by governments, policy makers and activists. The new expressions of social action, and forms of solidarity and protest, are discussed in detail, from the Black Lives Matter protests to the French Strike Movement and the Lebanese Uprising. This is a unique global analysis on the current crisis and the contemporary world and its outcomes.
Front Cover
Social Movements and Polotics During Covid-19: Crisis, Solidarity and Change in a Global Pandemic
Copyright information
Dedication
Table of contents
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: A Global Dialogue on the Pandemic
Thinking globally
From pandemic to social change
Challenges in the global pandemic
COVID- 19 governance, politics and the ambivalence of states
Crisis, inequalities and solidarities
Social movements, mutual aid and self- reliance during the pandemic
‘COVID-19 will not kill the revolution’: Protest movements in the pandemic
Critical thinking and emerging theoretical challenges
Critical thinking and emerging theoretical challenges
Post-pandemic transitions and futures in contention
Acknowledgements and platforms for a global dialogue
PART I COVID-19 Governance, Politics and the Ambivalence of States
1 COVID-19 Governance: State Expansion, Capitalist Resilience and Democracy
Resilience of capitalism
Politicization of central-bank capitalism
State-facilitated expansion of civic autonomy
Autonomous organizing in pandemic times
Politicization of economy and (radicalization of) democracy
References
2 Three Political Regimes, Three Responses to the COVID-19 Crisis
Response 1: Authoritarian state capitalism
Response 2: Right-wing populism
A Western European response: a mixed model?
Response 3: The welfare state
State and health sovereignty
Democracy: a condition for efficiency
Moderate socialism
Revive the welfare state
Notes
References
3 Universal Social Protection Floors: A Joint Responsibility
Limited political responses to the COVID-19 crisis
Towards a robust social protection floor
An affordable proposal and a joint responsibility
References
4 Labour Activism and State Repression in Indonesia
A country in deep denial
The government’s public health response
Economic and political concerns
Organized labour responds
5 Harmoniously Denied: China’s Censorship on COVID-19
Living with censorship
Censorship and societal resilience
Censorship and (global) science
Concluding words
Note
References
6 State Repression in the Philippines during COVID-19 and Beyond
The Anti-Terrorism Act: An attack on democratic principles
Inequalities and human rights in the Philippines: the context
A people’s movement that persists
COVID-19 and control: when a pandemic becomes a tool of repression
References
7 Normality Was the Problem
Human arrogance
The first epidemic of the ecological crisis
International co-operation and political responses
Individual and social dimensions
Back to normality?
Notes
PART II Crisis, Inequalities and Solidarities
8 Divided We Stand: What the Pandemic Tells Us about the Contemporary US
Deepened inequalities
Data colonization amid the pandemic
From intersecting oppressions to voter suppression
Oppressions unveiled, again
Notes
References
9 The Data Gaps of the Pandemic: Data Poverty and Forms of Invisibility
Two types of data gaps
Data poverty in low-income countries
Data poverty as a form of invisibility
Countering data poverty: collective solidarities from below
References
10 Necropolitics and Biopower in the Pandemic: Death, Social Control or Well-being
Necropolitics and the killer phase of capitalism
Health systems and biopower
Some possibilities for the future
11 COVID-19 in the Urban Peripheries: Perspectives from the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro
Between desertion of the state and solidarity
No health, no water and ‘social isolation’
Alternatives from inside
Notes
References
12 Generational Inequalities in Argentina’s Working-Class Neighbourhoods
Young people from the barrios populares
Strengthening community organization
Is lockdown a class privilege?
The emergence and persistence of generational inequality
Youth resistance, expansion of the public sector and equality policies
Conclusion
Note
References
13 Pandemic Pedagogical Lessons and Educational Inequalities
The place of schools in the political-health crisis: the Argentinean case
Beyond Argentina: the school under threat
Learning from history to build a new political-pedagogical imagination
The school in a pandemic context
The democratization of science and the defence of public school
What about the day after?
Notes
References
14 Social Work with Homeless People in Belgium
Social work with homeless people in Charleroi
The challenges of doing social work in times of sanitary crisis
Perspectives
15 Community Spaces in India: Constructing Solidarity during the Pandemic
Context: challenges to solidarity
Earlier plagues
Rethinking solidarity through community spaces
Community kitchen
Conclusion
Notes
References
PART III Social Movements, Mutual Aid and Self-Reliance during COVID-19
16 Social Movements in the Emergence of a Global Pandemic
Crisis and alternative forms of protest
Uncertainty and new spaces for innovation
17 COVID-19 and the Reconfiguration of the Social Movements Landscape
Social movements, crises and new conflict structures
Changing dynamics: increasing inequalities, progressive mobilization and regressive counter-mobilization
COVID-19-denial movement
Conclusion
Note
References
18 Social Movements as Essential Services in Toronto
COVID-19-era movements in Toronto: four models
Essential workers
Defending the most vulnerable
Disruption against exploitation
Mutual aid, direct action and immediate support
Social movements in times of pandemic and beyond
Note
References
19 Creating a Hyperlocal Infrastructure of Care: COVID-19 Mutual Aid Groups in the UK
The political power of mutual aid
Mutual aid groups and hyperlocal digital organizing
The digital infrastructure of mutual aid groups
Two models of organizing: mutual aid groups and the NHS Volunteer Responders service
Conclusion: community resilience and political implications
References
20 ‘Solidarity, Not Charity’: Emotions as Cultural Challenge for Grassroots Activism
The emotional culture of neoliberalism: between fear and narcissism
Why grassroots activism matters
Emergence of a counter-hegemonic emotional culture
Notes
References
21 Self-Reliance as an Answer to the Pandemic: Hopes from India’s Margins
Women farmers and community-supported agriculture
Communities safeguarding themselves against COVID-19
Self-reliance in tribal communities
Small-scale manufacturing
Lessons from the margins
22 Social Movements and Self-Reliance: Community Mobilization in South Africa
Context
Protest and movement: the bigger picture
Community Organizing Working Group
Conclusion
Notes
23 Resilience, Reworking and Resistance in New York City
Disaster budgeting
Working-class movements in the city
The centrality of police reform and Black Lives Matter
COVID-19 and policing: twinned crises
Note
References
PART IV ‘The COVID Will Not Kill the Revolution’: Protest Movements in the Pandemic
24 ‘Defund the Police’: Strategy and Struggle for Racial Justice in the US
What made the spark become a fire?
Mutual aid networks
A long-term horizon
A new phase of the struggle for racial justice?
Notes
25 A Matter of Survival: The Lebanese Uprising in Times of Pandemic
A context of multiple crises
A ruling class ‘more dangerous than the virus’
Protesting is a matter of survival
Justice as the first remedy
References
26 Hong Kong: From Democratic Protests to Medical Workers’ Strikes in a Pandemic
The political context
Revitalizing the role of organized Labour
Strong public backing from broken government legitimacy
Strong membership and cross-sector union support
Outcomes of the strike
Future of democratic and labour movements in Hong Kong
27 Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia: A Return to Authoritarianism after the Revolutions?
A defused revolution?
A systemic revolt against neoliberalism
A triple crisis
From the health crisis to the reinvention of politics
Notes
28 The French Strike Movement: Keeping up the Struggle in Times of COVID-19
Chronology of the strike
Did the movement stop?
Maintaining contention by building solidarity
Notes
References
PART V Critical Thinking and Emerging Theoretical Challenges
29 COVID-19, Risk and Social Change
Risks and threats, vulnerability and resilience
State and para-state answers, individualism and solidarity
Some present developments
Conclusion
References
30 Challenges to Critical Thinking: Social Life and the Pandemic
The construction of ‘the common’: the nation and the national level
The individual and the collective: the individual as a threat
Social regulation as domination
Conclusion
Note
31 A Sociology for a Post-COVID-19 Society
Multilevel focuses: from community to humanity
Struggle against the Anthropocene/Capitalocene
Politics of recognition and moral obligation
Conclusion
Note
References
32 The Paradox of Disturbance: Africa and COVID-19
A dialogus mortuorum between an African ancestral spirit and Ludwig Wittgenstein
Back to the beginning
Notes
References
33 We Are All Mortal: From the Empty Signifier to the Open Nature of History
What is or is not the pandemic and where does it lead us?
The battle to narrate the future
Disturbance of omnipotence and lucidity of precariousness
The here and now: recovering the fabric of communal reciprocity
Note
34 The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Crisis of Care
Complexity and women
Informal work and women
Caring at home
Conclusion
References
PART VI Post-Pandemic Transitions and Futures in Contention
35 Global Chaos and the New Geopolitics of Power and Resistances
New trends in global power: neither de-globalization nor the end of capitalist globalization
Contentious scales: virus contention and social protests
Geopolitical scenarios and the struggles for the future
Notes
References
36 Denialism, ‘Gattopardism’ and Transitionism
Denialism and gattopardism
Transitionism
Conclusion
37 COVID-19, the Gift and Post-Neoliberal Scenarios
Before and after COVID-19: continuities and ruptures
Major scenarios for the future
Possible developments: state, market and society
COVID-19 as an extraordinary event
References
38 Post-Pandemic Transitions in a Civilizational Perspective
The recommunalization of social life
The relocalization of social, productive and cultural activities
The strengthening of autonomies
The depatriarchalization, de-racialization and decolonization of social relations
The liberation of the earth
Notes
References
39 The World That Is Coming: Pandemic, Movements and Change
Opening new horizons
Three lessons from the global financial crisis
Movements and countermovements
A fragmented battlefield
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index
Back Cover
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