Rise UP, Notts! Organizing for Social Justice

On 3 September, about 100 local activists met in Nottingham/UK to discuss how to best organize in view of increasing injustices and global challenges. In nine panels and two plenaries, discussions ranged from how to meet the refugee crisis, the possibilities of trade unions in the 21^st century to the challenges of climate change and the crises in education and the National Health Service (NHS). The panel Outside Westminster also presented solutions, be it the charity Sharewear, a clothing scheme which offers free-of-charge clothing choices to people in economic difficulty, be it the Preston Model and its focus on local sourcing. In this blog post, I will make five observations in relation to current struggles over social justice.

Analyzing, Strategizing and Taking action: The European Summer University of Social Movements in Mönchengladbach.

From 17 to 21 August 2022, over 600 activists from more than 20 countries in Europe and beyond gathered in Mönchengladbach/Germany for the 2022 European Summer University of Social Movements, organized by Attac and other allied social movements. In dozens of Forums, workshops, excursions, exhibitions and film screenings participants analyzed the current crises in Europe and the wider world, strategized about how best to respond to these challenges and engaged in concrete actions of resistance culminating in a protest march in the coal mining area around Lützerath. In this blog post, I will provide some reflections on the summer university.   

Why public ownership is key: private water and the problems of sewage pollution and leaks.

Britain’s private water companies are yet again in the news. After reports on high and regular discharge of raw sewage into the country’s rivers (The Guardian, 31 March 2022), it is their high levels of water leakage, which make the headlines in the current drought. While 14 billion litres are the daily demand in England and Wales, another 3 billion litres are lost due to leaks (BBC, 12 August 2022). In this blog post, I will argue that the type of ownership is fundamental when thinking about how to tackle these problems.

Labour Conflicts in the Global South!

Against the background of the global economic crisis since 2007/2008 and increasing inequality across the world, the Global South has experienced widespread, large-scale industrial action, including in countries such as China, Brazil, India and South Africa, which had been hailed as the new growth engines of the global political economy as part of the so-called BRICS. In this blog post, I will introduce my recently published co-edited volume (together with Jörg Nowak) Labour Conflicts in the Global South (Routledge, 2022). 

Public Water Services in times of emergency: the case of the Covid19 outbreak.

The Covid19 outbreak has underlined once again the importance of basic services for human life, including water services. At the same time, it re-opened the debate on the role of the state in managing such services. How did public water operators react to the outbreak of the Covid19 pandemic? The book Public Water and Covid-19: Dark Clouds and Silver Linings (Transnational Institute, 2021), edited by David McDonald, Susan Spronk and Daniel Chavez, provides some answer(s) to this question. In this guest post, Gemma Gasseau provides a critical review of the book’s key contributions.

Fighting for Water: Resisting Privatization in Europe – first reviews

My book Fighting for Water: Resisting Privatization in Europe (Zed Books, 2021) was published one year ago. From the successful referendum against water privatization in Italy, via the European Citizens’ Initiative on ‘Water and Sanitation are a Human Right’, to the struggles against water privatization in Greece and water charges in Ireland, I demonstrate why water has been a fruitful arena for resistance against neoliberal restructuring.

Since the publication, several reviews have been published, all available on the internet. This blog post brings them together.

Put Out More Flags! The Platinum Jubilee and the long arm of history.

70 years on the throne are truly remarkable. Unsurprisingly, people up and down the country poured into the streets to celebrate the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II over four days from 2 to 5 June. Houses were decorated with Union Jacks and red-white-blue bunting, thousands of street parties organised across the country. While many of my left-wing British friends fled in horror either abroad or to some hidden place in the countryside to escape it all, I happily stayed back and joined in. After all, what can possibly be wrong with neighbourhoods coming together and celebrating jointly? This was not the moment to engage in critical discussions about unelected Heads of State or the virtues of Republics, I thought. It should not take long, however, before the darker undersides revealed themselves.