Category: Case studies and Videos

by Beatriz Rodríguez Labajos Raw material extraction, transportation and waste disposal are triggering environmental conflicts worldwide. All types of material throughput in the global economy bear consequences for social justice and sustainability. Yet very few materials better represent the economic, social and moral tensions intertwined in societal metabolism, i.e. material and energy use of human societies, than coal. Data collection on environmental conflicts – including coal conflicts (Roy 2018) – has emphasised […]

by Arturo Guerrero Osorio The Zapotec word Guendalizá or Guelaguetza means “familiarity”, “friendship” or “neighborhood”; It is mutual help and is expressed when an person is with the others in the crucial moments of life, the happy and the sad. It is a cultural pattern that comes from the deepest roots from the towns of Oaxaca, Mexico (let’s think about 11 thousand years ago). Today, in the Oaxaca Isthmus and other places […]

by Iokiñe Rodriguez and Mirna Inturias Introduction The adoption of Bolivia’s new political Constitution in 2009 marked the birth of a new plurinational state. One of the most important constitutional changes was a new state system of territorial division that recognises departmental, municipal, regional and indigenous autonomies as new plural forms of political organisation seeking to decentralise decision-making power and the management of public funds, wresting them away from central government. Whereas […]

by Ibrahima Thiam A fisher community leaving in Bargny at 15km from the city of Dakar is facing the consequences of an industrialization program of the Senegalese state praised to be the way for economic emergence. The socioeconomic change and mutations resulting from the series of projects have deep impacts on the community’s livelihoods. The economy of Bargny employing more than thousand fishermen and at least one thousand women drying, and packaging […]

by Kitti Baracsi If we imagine democratic education as entire school communities practising participation, to what extent can schools escape the current approach taken in the public education system? What if they encounter hostility and restrictions? Can we learn democracy through transgressions and resistance? This article tells the story of three school communities where participation and solidarity are growing under pressure.[1] Examining democratic practices on the ground and the conflicts that arise […]