This course is an in-depth examination of contemporary forms of political action with special attention to those that defy conventional notions of activism. While the regional focus is Latin America, we take a comparative approach to situate these movements in the context of the global urban explosion of the last century and of transnational political and financial structures and flows. Thus, alongside Bolivia's water wars and informal justice practices, indigenous struggles in Ecuador, and the occupation of factories by workers in Argentina, we look at the youth riots in France, the fight of women in Nigeria against transnational oil extraction, and the actions of the black bloc in antiglobalization demonstrations around the world. We begin by examining recent urbanism and transnationalism trends and the ways in which these are generating new notions of sovereignty and local understandings of politics and political action. We look at the use of violence and the relationship between transgression and politics in urban mobilizations today to examine individuals' and collectivities' changing stance toward the nation-state, civil society, and citizenship. |