Alter-globalization : becoming actors in the global age

"The question of how we can change the world cannot easily be answered, but Geoffrey Pleyers has shown masterfully in this beautifully written and finely researched book that the way we now imagine those answers in changing, in part because of the way the alter-globalization movement has altered our understanding of ourselves as global citizens." Henrietta L. Moore, Archives of European Sociology "What is missing from much of today's media coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement and related international struggles against corporate globalization and Western imperialism is the question of where these movements have come from and why they've all emerged at this particular time. Geoffrey Pleyer's book makes an important contribution to addressing the prehistory of the Occupy protests, and it can inform those participating in these struggles as well as students and scholars of social movements." Jackie Smith, Mobilization "Pleyers reconsructs the 'grammar' of the movement beyond the habitual dichotomies of reform/revolution, action/structure, unity/heterogenity, and instead seeks to value the diversity of the movement through the social meanings shared by the actors that compose the alter-globalization movement in its struggle against neoliberal ideology." International Sociology "An impressive book that demonstrates the differences of opinion over what a transnational movement like the alter-globalisation movement shoul do to change the world and what changing the world could look like." Australian Journal of Political Science "Provides an excellent overview of the main debates within the movement through a meticulously constructed research programme ... [Pleyers'] thorough and balanced account of the development of alter-globalisation offers an immensely valuable resource for both researchers and activists." Capital & Class "Now that it looks as if neo-liberalism has run its course, the resulting cracks and fissures give breathing space to alternative movements and hybrid experiments. Pleyers' book opens up some vistas of these developments in the middle of a serious crisis, and does it from the ground up." Contemporary Sociology "The kind of book that students of the alter-globalisation movement have been waiting for years for ... An indispensable read for anyone - students, academics, activists or politicians - who is looking for an elaborate and sophisticated discussion of some of the most crucial political issues of our time." Journal of Democratic Socialism "Utterly convincing and theoretically robust ... This kind of scholarship is what the alter-globalisation movement and indeed the world deserve." Giuseppecaruso's Weblog "This important book is the first scholarly account of the alter-globalisation movement. This highly original analysis of the way the movement is constructed around the tension between its two logics - subjective experience and expertise based on reason - helps us to understand not only the movement itself but also the role that the movement plays in inventing global citizenship." Mary Kaldor, London School of Economics "Pleyers has traveled the world to offer readers the most sweeping look yet at this crucial global movement, including how it has changed in the face of the recent crisis of the very capitalism it criticizes. By showing us a movement grappling continuously with the Pyramid Dilemma over top-down versus bottom-up approaches, this book helps us think about the most basic issues of democracy and social change." James M. Jasper, City University of New York "An outstanding example of contemporary sociological research that rises to the immense demands of a truly global ethnography. Pleyers' book is bound to become the definitive account by a contemporary of the alter-globalization movement. Because of its assured scholarship, easy familiarity with theoretical arguments and intimate experience of the social movement it describes this is going to be one of those rare research reports that immediately becomes a student required text and eventual classic." Martin Albrow, London School of Economics, author of The Global Age "Well-documented and relying on the most in-depth analyses. This book presents a movement both truly global and adapted to the economic context of each country and region. The main contribution of Geoffrey Pleyers, and what makes this book an indispensable tool, is that he clearly exposes the mixed strengths and weaknesses of a movement which was, and remains, a grassroots movement in which activists from poor countries occupy a place observed in no other movement." Alain Touraine, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Prince of the Asturias Award 2010 "This masterpiece will be the main reference for those who want to understand how the alter-globalization movement shapes today's world, how it modifies our perception of action, but also of democracy, and how this new actor articulates local and personal meanings with general concerns for the future of humanity. This study enables us to discover with precision the short, but real history, the aims, the functioning, the internal tensions, the hopes and the difficulties of the first real global movement." Michel Wieviorka, President of the International Sociological Association 2006-2010, and Director of the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris "The distinction between the way of subjectivity and the way reason that Geoffrey Pleyers proposes in his book clarifies the dynamics and some tensions that we experience in groups and assemblies of the 'Indignados' in Barcelona. It is a conceptual tool that has been of great help me in group facilitation and positive management of conflicts, both online and in assemblies as it allows overpassing tensions among positions that seem irreconcilable and developing an empathy based on mutual understanding." David Leal Garcia, Indignado (15M) in Barcelona Read more...