Webinar Description:
A webinar with social justice editors Firoze Manji (founder of Daraja Press and Pambazuka News and Press), Arzu Geybullayeva (digital activist, journalist, board member and editor with Global Voices), Laurence Cox (co-editor of the brand new Handbook of Research Methods and Applications for Social Movements, Edward Elgar Publishing), and Eric Stoner (founding co-editor of Waging Nonviolence) about best practices in supporting activist writing. This panel discussion was facilitated by Nadine Bloch (Training Director of Beautiful Trouble) and Amber French, REACT Project Co-Lead and Managing Editor of ICNC’s blog, Minds of the Movement.
Are you an activist-writer or are aspiring to do more writing about your activism? This webinar will be a unique opportunity for you to exchange directly with prominent editors who run news and/or writing outlets focused on movements, social justice and human rights. Are you an activist or professional whose work intersects with movements, who is interested in pursuing research about movements or activism? This webinar will be your chance to interact with an expert on research methods about, and for, social movements.
We will explore the common challenges and opportunities of activist writing; the themes of power asymmetries in writer/editor relationships; best practices for supporting activist-writers; and many other pressing questions. The webinar will last 1H30 total (including 30-45 minutes for participant Q&A).
About the Presenters:
Firoze Manji is a Kenyan with more than 40 years’ experience in international development, health and human rights, founder of Daraja Press,the prize-winning pan African social justice newsletter and website Pambazuka News and Pambazuka Press, founder of Fahamu – Networks for Social Justice (1997-2010), and host of the online interview series Organising in the time of Covid-19. He is Adjunct Professor at the Institute of African Studies and Contract Instructor, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada; Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy, Berlin; Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, University of Oxford (2001-2016) and Associate Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. He is a member of several editorial and editorial review boards including the Global Critical Caribbean Thought, Nokoko, to name a few.
Nadine Bloch is an activist artist, political community organizer, strategic nonviolent actionista and the Training Director for Beautiful Trouble. Her work explores the potent intersection of art and politics, where creative cultural resistance is an effective political action, and a powerful way to reclaim agency over our own lives, fight oppressive systems, and invest in our communities — all while having more fun than the other side! In addition to contributing content to Beautiful Trouble, Beautiful Rising, and We Are Many: Reflections on Movement Strategy from Occupation to Liberation (2012, AK Press), she is the author of Education & Training in Nonviolent Resistance (2016, USIP) and the co-author of SNAP: An Action Guide to Synergizing Nonviolent Action and Peacebuilding (2019, USIP). Find more of her writing on arts and activism at WagingNonviolence.org.
Amber French is ICNC Senior Editorial Advisor, Managing Editor of the Minds of the Movement blog (est. June 2017) and Project Co-Lead of REACT (Research-in-Action). For the Minds of the Movement blog, she has commissioned 290+ articles by 130+ activist writers, academics, and others around the world. Having launched and managed ICNC Press in its first three years, she edited nine publications written by scholars and activists. Currently based in Paris, France, writes frequently about civil resistance for a variety of French journals; teaches a People Power course at the European School of Social and Political Science in Lille; and is leading the development of an ICNC online course in French (forthcoming 2024/2025). She is originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.
Laurence Cox is a Dublin-based writer, teacher and researcher who has been involved in many different movements since the 1980s. He has edited many activists’ work as co-editor of Interface (https://www.interfacejournal.net/), the activist/academic journal for social movement research. Laurence has written and edited 15 books, ranging from an ebook to support the Zapatista delegation to Europe to an Oxford University Press hardback (The Irish Buddhist: the Forgotten Monk who Faced Down the British Empire). With Sutapa Chattopadhyay, Alberto Arribas Lozano and Ania Szolucha he’s just edited the Handbook of Research Methods and Applications for Social Movements (introduction available for free here: https://www.elgaronline.com/downloadpdf/edcollchap/book/9781803922027/book-part-9781803922027-6.pdf) which emphasizes research from and for movements and experiences from the global South. Laurence is professor of sociology at the National University of Ireland Maynooth and has been writing for ICNC’s blog, Minds of the Movement since January 2020.
Eric Stoner is a co-founding editor at Waging Nonviolence, a non-profit media platform that covers social movements and activism around the world. Since 2009, it has published original reporting from contributors in more than 90 countries. He also teaches civil resistance at St. Joseph’s University, New York.
Eric has reported from Afghanistan and the Philippines, and his articles have appeared in The Guardian, Sojourners and In These Times, among other publications. His op-eds are nationally syndicated and have appeared in dozens of newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Minneapolis Star Tribune and Newsday.
Arzu Geybullayeva is Board Member, South Caucasus and Turkey Editor of Global Voices, which she joined in 2010. An Azerbaijani columnist and writer, she has a special focus in digital authoritarianism and its implications on human rights and press freedom in Azerbaijan. Arzu has written for Al Jazeera, Eurasianet, Foreign Policy Democracy Lab, CODA, Open Democracy, Radio Free Europe, and CNN International. She is a regular contributor at IWPR, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso and Global Voices. In 2019, Arzu launched Azerbaijan Internet Watch, a platform that documents, and monitors information controls in Azerbaijan.