Social movements & globalization: how protests, occupations & uprisings are changing the world (Cristina Flesher Fominaya, Palgrave Macmillan, United Kingdom, 2014, 248 Pages)

Abstract

The notion of the nation-state and its borders has been the key defining criterion for the international political system as they key shaper of individual, social, and political identities. However, with the relatively new phenomenon of globalization, in which various multinational and transnational actors can more easily exert influence on the public and political spheres, the notion of the nation-state and the borders that constitute it have become increasingly invisible. Borders that are defined broadly to include territorial dividing lines as well as sociocultural boundaries have become sites of struggle over social belonging and cultural and material resources. How do contemporary activists navigate and challenge these borders? What meanings do they ascribe to different social, cultural, and political boundaries, and how do these meanings shape the strategies in which they engage? Moreover, how do social movements confront internal borders based on the differences that emerge within initiatives for social change? Social Movements & Globalization: How Protests, Occupations & Uprisings Are Changing the World, written by Cristina Flesher Fominaya, seeks to answer these questions by combining theory with a rich host of empirical examples.