Struggle and Solidarity: A Democratic History of Champaign-Urbana is now online. Check it out on our exhibition page!
For archives of our other events, click here. For our survey data, click here. |
Gaza, Ferguson, the Arab Spring, Gezi Park, Los Indignados, Idle No More, Athens, Global Days of Rage, Occupy Wall Street... the list goes on. Frequently treated as isolated events, these recent eruptions of resistance are symptoms of shared structural and systemic economic and state-led violence. They have both symbolic and material connections in the age of increasing mediatization.
So how are these uprisings and social movements, around the globe, connected? What shared features do they express through the unique local conditions which produce them? How are technological resources mobilized to foster solidarity not only within, but also across national borders? Do the protesters imagine a connection to their counterparts elsewhere? In an attempt to collaboratively answer these questions, we aim to open up newer possibilities of realizing and engaging with the complex nature of transnationalism as theory, practice and pedagogy in the future. In our work in the campus and community in Champaign-Urbana, we seek to: * Provide space, tools and strategies for critical discussion of social uprisings in the 21st century to bridge the gap between the academic and political domains. * Study transnational networks of solidarity as sought out, actualized and maintained by activists, educators, organizations, public intellectuals and seemingly anonymous protesters. * Form a node within these networks of solidarity, by translating our theoretical and empirical resources into practice. |
The Transnational Solidarity Initiative was an endeavor of the 'Rethinking Transnationalism in the Age of Mediatized Social Protest' research group, generously supported by the first Focal Point Breakthrough Grant 2014-15 of the Graduate College at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Led by international graduate students across various departments, the initiative included diverse faculty and community members in an effort to interrogate the nature of solidarity networks across borders.
*** Banner graffiti by Banksy