Aug 2026· The Journal of Social Encounters· Vol 10, pp. 174-188· 0 citations
Abstract
Prompted by the pogrom that erupted in Belfast in June this year, this article explores how a women’s collective, Anaka, established by female asylum seekers, refugees and migrants (ASRMs) less than a decade previously, took the lead in ensuring the safety and welfare of the city’s migrant communities in a context where they were horrifically failed by police and politicians, by the state and the institutions meant to protect them. Anaka began as a small-scale endeavour to mitigate the difficulties confronting women struggling to navigate a harsh asylum system. It became a widely respected advocacy and campaigning group for ASRMs. Anaka built a network of alliances throughout the city, winning trust and respect everywhere. A previous Social Encounters’ article argued that: ‘Of service to its own and the wider community, the ways in which Anaka promotes integration provides a powerful model of community cohesion and unity that contains the potential significantly to ameliorate traditional sectarian divides and reduce racism, building a better Belfast for all’ (Kirby,2024). The present article illustrates the prescience of those words
The Protetoras da Leste collective is a social mobilization network made up of more than 200 women from the eastern periphery of São Paulo. The group operates by transforming women’s networks of care and solidarity into a driving force for territorial change, providing support, facilitating access to rights, and offering assistance in times of crisis, such as the recurrent floods that affect the territory where they live. Created during the Covid-19 pandemic to address its impacts on vulnerable families, the collective gained strength and legitimacy through its community-based actions. Its success led a local civil society organization to support and foster new initiatives developed by the group. With financial and institutional backing, the collective expanded its scope of action and established its own headquarters. As the group transitions from an organic support network to a more formalized structure, it faces the challenge of professionalizing its management and accessing public funding opportunities without losing active grassroots participation, while dealing with technical bureaucracy and the emotional burden placed on its leadership. The case thus explores the tensions and challenges involved in the collective’s institutionalization process.
Inácio Dias de Andrade, Débora Cajé Yamamoto· Revista Brasileira de Casos...· 0 citations
The April 2006 People’s Movement in Nepal was a decisive struggle against King Gyanendra’s autocratic rule. Beginning with a four-day general strike on April, organized by seven political parties with Maoist support, the protests quickly escalated nationwide. Industries, schools, and businesses shut down, while government repression led to arrests, injuries, and deaths. International concern grew as the UN, EU, Japan, India, and the U.S. condemned violence and urged dialogue. The strike evolved into a sustained uprising, gaining global attention. International community criticized the King’s direct rule. Despite mounting pressure, King Gyanendra’s April 21 announcement returning executive powers was rejected as deceptive. Continued protests, combined with warnings from military leaders, compelled him to restore parliament on April 24. After king's restoration of the parliament, Girija Prasad Koirala was appointed Prime Minister ending the 19‑day movement. International actors welcomed the restoration, urging Maoists to renounce violence and resume peaceful politics. Donor nations resumed aid, reinforcing democratic commitments. Ultimately, the movement forced a transfer of power, reshaped Nepal’s political trajectory, and marked a revival of democracy through the combined strength of domestic resistance and international support. Therefore, the significance of this article lies in providing information about how the 19-day movement progressed, what events took place, and what role the international community played.
Binod Thapa· A Peer Reviewed Journal on S...· 0 citations
This paper is centred on fictionalized examples drawn from Nadine Gordimer’s The House Gun and Get a Life and exposes the author’s solutions to the major challenges threatening the consolidation of South Africa’s multiracial democracy. It explores how the ‘new’ nation can strengthen its democratic identity amid persistent socio-economic and political emanating from the legacies of apartheid. What distinguishes this discussion is its deliberate racial dimension: it examines how a former fervent anti-apartheid white writer articulates strategies that could assist the ANC-led leadership (government controlled by the African National Congress, ANC) in fostering national unity after decades of struggle against apartheid. It argues that the solutions must be broad-based rooted in national consciousness, and guided by principles of both individual and collective commitment to values that sustain post-apartheid nationhood. Ultimately, the attainment of a robust multiracial democracy is achievable if citizens cultivate awareness and responsibility - first at the individual level, then collectively – while the ANC-led government reinforces the public sphere and tackles pressing national issues through concrete and pragmatic action. The discussions engage with some key postcolonial concepts such as the Centre/Margin dynamic, Self/Other binary, hybridity, transformative resistance, and new historicism’s emphasis on referentiality.
Etienne Langmia Forti· East African Scholars Journa...· 0 citations
The Belhar Confession evolved during a moment of political and social crisis in the 1980s in South Africa. The 1980s in South Africa were marked by a deepening crisis of apartheid, fuelled by mass action, escalating violence, and the government’s increasingly repressive measures. This decade saw the ‘roaring’ of resistance, marked by a surge of protests, youth and workers’ boycotts, and strikes, as well as the declaration of a state of emergency and the deployment of troops to black townships. Despite the Christian anti-apartheid struggle that played a significant role in the adoption of the Belhar Confession, its reception among the victims of apartheid is still low. The research explores the theological imperatives of two paragraphs (the first and the last) of the Belhar Confession, as well as their logical development, since they are built upon one another, forming a coherent theological framework.
Contribution: The study concludes with the call to reimagine the message of the Belhar Confession in present-day South Africa. The promotion of the confession’s reception in the church could be enhanced by engaging communities through meaningful readings, exploring the interplay between self-reflection and self-action.
S. Kgatla· HTS Teologiese Studies/Theol...· 0 citations
Recent economic crises have catalyzed a surge of Leftist, progressive and radical discourse, particularly in the US and Europe. Among this diverse body of work, The Nation’s ‘Reimagining Socialism’ forum and ZCommunications’ ongoing ‘Reimagining Society Project’ are among the most widely read and prestigiously authored. Unfortunately, an unacceptable bulk of this literature repeats tired socialist maxims, arguments circumscribed by a narrow vision of how productive social change manifests. The danger is that alternative, particularly radical visions, may suffer because of the dominance of this staid discourse, forestalling opportunities for cooperation, consensus and progress. In response, this article presents a more processual approach to understanding both the modern social landscape and the complex mechanics of social change, drawing from the work of Antonio Gramsci. The Gramscian perspective suggests that those seeking radical social change cannot rely on elaborate stratagems as they risk falling into the trap of static models and totalized subjects. Instead, it is the manner in which activists articulate their vision that gives them power; careful articulation permits the flexibility needed to navigate shifting social realities. Further, careful articulation allows for seemingly disparate and common practices to be woven into a more cohesive vision of social change.
E. Ruggero· Resistance studies magazine· 1 citation
Book launch programs are frequently seen as arenas in which national fears, hopes, and conflicted visions of development are told and discussed in public, especially in contexts like those of Nepal. Here, this study uses a case study analysis of the launch of a book, Sampurna Nepali le Pratigya Garaun: Sambriddhi Prapta Nagari Marne Chhainau ("All Nepalis Pledge: We Will Not Die until We Achieve Prosperity") written by Hari Prasad Pandey, which took place in Kathmandu. In the light of the events observed in the field and the reflections of the author and seven invited speakers – comprising a former prime minister, a former central bank governor, a sitting member of parliament, senior journalists and leaders from the political spectrum – the study poses the following questions: What narratives do the actors build about the economic condition of Nepal, how do they link these narratives with their own personal biographies and what is their collective vision of the future of prosperity? The analysis, based on Clandinin and Connelly's three-dimensional space of narrative as temporality, sociality and place, reveals five interrelated themes: the author's autobiography of scarcity and self-making; the re-interpretation of ideological conversion as economic parable; contestation over the individual-effort/structural theories of national development; the use of kinship and patronage narratives to legitimate the authority of the book and who may narrate the nation; and the gendered and institutional asymmetries that are evident in who is allowed to narrate the nation. The results indicate that the event of the book launch was not a celebratory event but rather a contested field of narrative, where prosperity was promised, qualified and re-narrated by each speaker in the context of their own positioning. The study extends the use of narrative inquiry to contexts beyond education and health to the literary and civic events and provides implications for practice and policy with regard to the ways in which personal narratives of hardship are mobilized in Nepali population discourses on development.
Durga Pandey· Panauti Journal· 0 citations
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