Women, Gender, Feminism: Marginalization at the Inception of the World Social Forum

The World Social Forum (WSF) is a biannualmeeting space for the globaljustice movement that facilitates the coordination of worldwide events andprotests around a variety of social justice issues. I argue that although theprinciples of the WSF are based on feminist methods of participation, theresearch presented here demonstrates that women, gender, and feminism weremarginalized in the program and content at the forum’s inception. Empiricallythe paper presents the structure of programming and a quantitative examinationof women’s and feminist groups’ participation of the first years of the WSFprocess. I consider the thematic development of the WSF and role ofinformation sharing and intersectionality as feminist principles wereincorporated into the WSF. I refer to various theoretical perspectives on genderincluding feminist political economy, postcolonialism,and queer theory tomake sense of feminist participation and marginalization at the World SocialForum

Theorizing the Rise of Microenterprise Development in Carribean Context

Throughout the world development agencies and governments promote micro-enterprise development as a solution to the employment crisis and penury of the global south. But what brought about the unprecedented expansion and worldwide promotion of micro-enterprise development? As a case study on micro-enterprise expansion in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, this paper offers a grounded theory analysis based on semi-structured interviews with national and international officials active in micro-enterprise development. Themes drawn from the interviews demonstrate that the failure of past development policies and the neo-liberal response to these failures help explain why micro-enterprise development expanded vastly in Trinidad and Tobago. Theoretically, I draw from Luxembourgs (1951) and Nashs (1990) studies on subsistence or petty production under capitalism and the world-systems analysis of households (Wallerstein and Scott 1992a; 1992b) to develop a conceptual framework for understanding the expansion of micro-enterprise development under neo-liberalism globally. In this era, micro-enterprise development reflects two separate strategies of dealing with economic crisesinformal or unwaged work and government transfer or social safety netsmerged into one

Women, Gender, Feminism: Marginalization at the Inception of the World Social Forum

The World Social Forum (WSF) is a biannualmeeting space for the globaljustice movement that facilitates the coordination of worldwide events andprotests around a variety of social justice issues. I argue that although theprinciples of the WSF are based on feminist methods of participation, theresearch presented here demonstrates that women, gender, and feminism weremarginalized in the program and content at the forum’s inception. Empiricallythe paper presents the structure of programming and a quantitative examinationof women’s and feminist groups’ participation of the first years of the WSFprocess. I consider the thematic development of the WSF and role ofinformation sharing and intersectionality as feminist principles wereincorporated into the WSF. I refer to various theoretical perspectives on genderincluding feminist political economy, postcolonialism,and queer theory tomake sense of feminist participation and marginalization at the World SocialForum

Local Utopia as Unobtrusive Resistance: The Greek Village Micro-Economy

In late 2008 Athenian youths, triggered by extreme police violence, took to the streets with collective and intensive protests against the growing poverty, unemployment, and political corruption in Greece. The subsequent, regular protests in urban Greece speak not only to the rejection of Greek governance but also to the political and economic promise of the Euro-zone falsely promoted as a boon for its periphery. The oft-reiterated headline Athens is burning is varyingly used by left and right media reporting on Greece and its populations fierce dissent