Laurence Cox

Movements Making Knowledge: A New Wave of Inspiration for Sociology?

Sociology’s marginality to public discussion of the current economic, social and political crisis stems partly from naïveté about the sociology of its own knowledge, in particular about its interlocutors’ interests. Historically, sociology has repeatedly re-established its intellectual relevance through dialogue with movements for social change; this article argues that another such dialogue is overdue. Starting from existing discussions of social movements and their knowledge production, the article focuses on the organisational dimension of such knowledge and explores how this is elaborated in the current movement wave. Looking at movement spaces of theoretical analysis, new popular education processes and movements’ knowledge creation institutions, the article highlights potential contributions to renewing sociological processes of theorising, teaching and engaged research respectively, paying particular attention to movement practices of ‘talking between worlds’. It concludes with a call for a dialogue of critical solidarity between public sociology and new forms of social knowledge production.

Marxism and Social Movements: An Introduction

Marxism is a body of theory crafted for social movements. This chapter suggests that the language of ‘class struggle’ translated into a language of ‘social movement’ with a Marxist accent. While contemporary social movement theories rightly stress the networked character of social movements, they pay less attention to their heterogeneity and internal debates. The book includes theoretical accounts of the relationship between Marxism and social movement studies; analyses of the development and internal tensions of social movements; and historical-comparative and global approaches to social movement studies. Specifically, the chapter focuses on five areas of Marxist theory totality, contradiction, immanence, coherence, and praxis that can more effectively synthesise the disparate parts of contemporary social movement theory and research into a whole that is both more critical and more useful for activists. Keywords:activists; class struggle; marxism; social movement

BEACHCOMBING, GOING NATIVE AND FREETHINKING: REWRITING THE HISTORY OF EARLY WESTERN BUDDHIST MONASTICS

This article provides an introduction to the special issue of Contemporary Buddhism entitled ‘U Dhammaloka, “The Irish Buddhist”: Rewriting the History of Early Western Buddhist Monastics’. Traditional accounts of pioneer western Buddhist monastics begin with the 1899 ordination of H. Gordon Douglas (Asoka), and highlight gentleman scholars writing for a European audience. They consign to obscurity a pre-existing world of western Buddhist monastics of all social classes. To open a window onto this hidden history, this issue presents new material relating to the extraordinary career of U Dhammaloka (?1856–?1914), widely known as ‘The Irish Buddhist’. A working-class autodidact, freethinker and temperance campaigner from Dublin, Dhammaloka became renowned throughout colonial Asia as an implacable critic of Christian missionaries and tireless transnational organiser of Asian Buddhists from Burma to Japan. The research described in this issue is innovative not only in content but also in method and approach, having advanced through collaborative, international research employing web-based research tools and online resources. These offer new possibilities for other translocative and interdisciplinary research projects.

Power, politics and everyday life: the local rationalities of social movement milieux

Everyday language readily identifies social movement activity — campaigning, protesting, holding meetings, issuing statements — as ‘politics’; perhaps not in the sense of parties and parliaments, but politics none the less. Much academic literature shares this view of social movements as ‘politics by other means’, from resource mobilisation and political opportunity structure approaches to analyses of movements as expressions of economic interests. It is interesting, then, that precisely in continental Europe, where contemporary movements have arguably made the greatest impact on the party system and engaged in the sharpest confrontations with the state, theorists have increasingly stressed the cultural aspects of social movements.

Rethinking Early Western Buddhists: Beachcombers, ‘Going Native’ and Dissident Orientalism

Recent research on the life of U Dhammaloka and other early western Buddhists in Asia has interesting implications in relation to class, ethnicity and politics. ‘Beachcomber Buddhists’ highlight the wider situation of ‘poor whites’ in Asia—needed by empire but prone to defect from elite standards of behaviour designed to maintain imperial and racial power. ‘Going native’, exemplified by the European bhikkhu, highlights the difficulties faced by empire in policing these racial boundaries and the role of Asian agency in early ‘western’ Buddhism. Finally, such ‘dissident Orientalism’ has political implications, as with specifically Irish forms of solidarity with Asian anti-colonial movements. Within the limits imposed by the data, this article rethinks ‘early western Buddhism’ in Asia as a creative response to colonialism, shaped by Asian actors, marked by cross-racial solidarity and oriented to alternative possible futures beyond empire.

Powercube: understanding power for social change

Powercube is a wide-ranging website (an earlier version, usefully provided in pdf format, runs to over 100 pages) outlining a method of analysing power in its different dimensions, together with a range of tools and resources for using this analysis in teaching and practice situations. The project apparently relies on funding from the Swedish and Swiss aid budgets, and the UK budget through Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability. The material itself, going by the acknowledgements in the text version and the resources, seems to have been primarily developed through work with international development NGOs, in particular Oxfam, Christian Aid and the Carnegie Trust, as well as other smaller organisations and students. It is oriented in particular towards the problems of relatively isolated, issue-focused campaigning groups seeking the ear of local, national or international policy-makers. The website is nicely presented, unlike the text version which suffers from formatting problems, and is easy to navigate. At its core is an analysis of power along three dimensions. One is a development of Lukes’ three dimensions, as visible, hidden and invisible forms of power. Another is an analysis of closed, invited and claimed spaces of power. The third is the local-national-global dimension. This analysis is the core contribution of Powercube. It is expanded into a wide range of workshop resources geared towards teachers and facilitators, including case studies, handouts, papers, pictures (cartoons etc.), websites and some video, and a considerably thinner (in terms of quantity as well as substance) section on strategy and action.

A Buddhist Crossroads: Pioneer European Buddhists and Globalizing Asian Networks 1860–1960

Single-country approaches to the study of Buddhism miss the crucial significance of international networks in the making of modern Buddhism, in a period when the material basis for such networks had been transformed. Southeast Asia in particular acted as a dynamic crossroads in this period enabling the emergence of a ‘global Buddhism’ not controlled by any single sect, while India and Japan both played unexpectedly significant roles in this crossroads. A key element of this process was the encounter between Asian Buddhist networks and western would-be Buddhists. Those involved, however, were often marginal - ‘creative failures’ in many cases - whose stories enable us to think this history in a more diverse way than is often done. In other cases as isolated figures they could pave the way for the ‘mainstreaming’ of new forms of Buddhism by established actors in later decades. This article introduces the special issue of Contemporary Buddhism entitled ‘A Buddhist crossroads: pioneer European Buddhists and globalizing Asian networks 1860–1960’. The research described in this issue often raises other methodological questions of representativity and significance, while posing important challenges around collaborative research and the use of new technologies.

Revolution in the air: images of winning in the Irish anti- capitalist movement

This article explores strategic conceptions within the alter-globalisation movement in Ireland. Based on action research carried out within the left-libertarian (‘Grassroots’) wing of the movement, it notes imbalances in participation in a very intensive form of political activity, and asks how activists understand winning. It finds substantial congruence between organisational practice and long-term goals, noting social justice and participatory democracy along with feminist, environmental and anti-war concerns as central. Using Wallersteins proposed transition strategy for anti-systemic movements, it argues that Irish alter-globalisation activists are realistic about popular support and state power, and concerned to link short-term work around basic needs with the construction of alternative institutions and long-term struggles for a different social order.

Pedagogy from and for Social Movements: A Conversation Between Theory and Practice

ABSTRACT Much radical writing on academia is grounded in a mystified view of knowledge in which an ecosocialist pedagogy would be “theory from above.” This article argues for a different understanding of knowledge as materially situated in social and ecological relationships; oriented towards practice; developmental and contested from below, demystifying third-level education from the perspective of movement-generated knowledge. Concretely, this means starting from participants’ existing praxis and “learning from each other’s struggles”—using “frozen” movement theory and activist experience—to move towards a wider, more radical understanding. In Ireland such pedagogy is rooted in working-class community self-organising, rural environmental justice alliances, women’s and GLTBQ activism, and the anti-capitalist “movement of movements,” encapsulating Audre Lorde’s dictum, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” The article focusses in particular on a “Masters for activists.” The course supports movement participants to deepen and develop their activist practice but also to situate it within these wider and more radical understandings and emancipatory alliances. Taking movement praxis—rather than “contemplative” knowledge—as a starting point raises very different questions about theory and practice, forms and distribution of knowledge and the purpose and shape of learning.

Buddhism in Ireland: The Inner Life of World-Systems

This article uses a world-systems perspective to analyse the development of Buddhism in Ireland, in particular the post-1990 period which saw a tenfold increase in those formally identifying as Buddhist. This shift is a result both of Ireland’s new positioning in global economic and migrant flows, and of the changed ethno-political meaning of religion in Irish society. More broadly, Buddhism has moved from an exotic or counter-cultural positioning to a partial respectability. Nonetheless many practical problems remain in negotiating a Buddhist identity in Ireland.