Learning Activism: The Intellectual Life of Contemporary Social Movements

Abstract

Learning Activism: The Intellectual Life of Contemporary Social Movements by Aziz Choudry North York, Ontario: University of Toronto Press, 2015, 199 pages ISBN: 978-1-4426-0790-3 (paperback) For Aziz Choudry (2015), author of Learning Activism: The Intellectual Life of Contemporary Social Movements, learning and knowledge production, as well as theory and strategy development among social movements, are best understood through engagement and dialogue that occur within the movements themselves. As a means to produce knowledge that is relevant to the social movement, learning comes through action and experience, the behind-the-scenes work where activists organize, negotiate and deliberate, and educate and learn from movement successes and pitfalls within formal and informal spaces. Learning Activism, in many ways, attempts to bridge the divide between social movement activists and out-of-the-box scholars who study or view such movements as sterile environments containing "ordinary people" who may be thought of incapable of theorizing or producing knowledge. The first chapter, "Knowledge Production, Learning, and Education in Social Movement Activism," begins by directly stating that the future is influenced through present and past struggles, by the choices made and theories that are developed by individuals or collectives, by "ordinary" people and so-called "experts." The author makes clear that social movements can fail in the absence of theory that explains economic conditions and power struggles. Yet, an important point often overlooked by activist scholars specifically, as well as educational researchers more broadly, is one of Choudry's (2015) finest critiques, who does the theorizing? While arguing against intellectual appropriation of struggles in social movements, the author challenges academics and activists to think about and legitimate the work done in day-to-day social movement practices. Without recognition and validation of knowledge production and learning that come about through social movement practices and struggles in social activism, theory development and knowledge production become monopolised by institutional "experts." The second chapter, "Critiquing the Study of Social Movements: Theories, Knowledge, History, and Action," examines the intersection between theory development, understanding social movement, and knowledge production. This chapter brings a sharp critique of not only the historical social movement scholarship that perceived activism as merely a social problem, and deviant acts imposed upon a stable society, but the perception of activists displaying irrational behaviours and the movement itself being abnormal has endured to this day. From Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park to the 2012 Quebec student strike, concerns brought forward by activists have often been dismissed in favour of maintaining current power structures while negatively characterising protestors through media outlets, elected officials, and certain segments of the public. Aziz Choudry argues against the reflexive application of theories that have been fashioned in the First World/North towards colonized contexts without reflecting on the unique lived experiences, struggles, and social relations of people in the Third World/ South. This obligates not only social activist researchers to reject "an overattachment to paradigms, typologies, and criteria for describing movements," but for social science scholars as well who may continue to codify and rely on specialized language and knowledge that only acts as a barrier to meaningful discussions between scholars and research participants (Choudry, 2015, p. …