books about class and organizing
Discussion list for COMM-ORG
colist at comm-org.wisc.edu
Wed May 28 10:20:51 CDT 2008
[ed: Thanks to Aaron for contributing]
From: "Aaron Schutz" <schutz at uwm.edu>
The best book I know of about the relationship between social class and
organizing is: Coalitions Across the Class Divide: Lessons from the
Labor, Peace, and Environmental Movements by Fred Rose
(http://www.amazon.com/Coalitions-Across-Class-Divide-Environmental/dp/080148636X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211824311&sr=8-2)
I recently wrote a short piece about social class and organizing as part
of a continuing series at OpenLeft.com:
http://openleft.com/userDiary.do?personId=3384
Aaron Schutz
Associate Professor & Chair
Dept. of Ed. Policy & Comm. Studies
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
P.O. Box 413
Milwaukee, WI 53201
Office: (414) 229-4150
Fax: (414) 229-3700
Website: educationaction.org
Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
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> [ed: thanks to Lane for adding to the discussion.]
>
> From: "Victorson, Lane A." <LVICTORSON at ssw.umaryland.edu>
>
> A companion piece to Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas
> should be Larry Bartels' What's the Matter with What's the Matter with
> Kansas?, a paper he prepared for a presentation at the annual meting of
> the American Political Science Association in D.C. in September 2005.
> You can find it here:
>
> http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/kansas.pdf
>
> Bartels uses data from National Election Study surveys to test Franks's
> assertions around class-related patterns and issues and if anything I
> found it balanced and heartening as I come from Kansas and still hold
> out for its socialist and cooperative tradition.
>
> Lane Victorson
>
> Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
>
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>> [ed: thanks to Ann and Chris for contributing. A bit from me below
>> their two contributions.]
>>
>> From: curry-stevens at comcast.net
>>
>> To these excellent texts, I add Betsy Leondar-Wright's "Class matters:
>> Cross-class alliance building for middle class activists" put out by New
>> Society Publishers. For those ready to explore the privileged status of
>> the middle class in comparison with the poor and working class, it is a
>> phenomenal text full of practice insights that is particularly useful in
>> teaching university students.
>>
>> Ann Curry-Stevens, Assistant Professor
>> School of Social Work, Portland State University
>>
>> ***********************************************
>>
>> From:
>> "Chris Cavanagh" <story at web.ca>
>>
>>
>> I would recommend the work of J.K. Gibson-Graham. In particular, their
>> newest book A Postcapitalist Politics
>> <http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/G/gibson_postcapitalist.html> has both
>> great case studies and discussions of class. In their first book, The
>> End of Capitalism (As We Knew It)
>> <http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/G/gibson_end.html>, they lay the
>> foundation for an analysis of class not so much as a /thing/ that we
>> /are /but as a conjuncture of relationships within which we act. You
>> could say that they propose that class is better understood as a verb
>> than a noun. If you're a theory junky like me you'll enjoy their first
>> book - but it's heavy-going at times. The second is also loaded with
>> theory but it is more grounded in reflecting on projects to practice new
>> economic relationships. Their work has inspired a new and growing
>> interest in what they call "diverse economies" and there's a related
>> website called Community Economies
>> <http://www.communityeconomies.org/index.php>. What i love about their
>> work is the way it provides me, as an educator and organizer, with a new
>> vocabulary for talking about economics, capitalism and class. This last
>> is one that i find profoundly obfuscated (no less in Canada than in the
>> US). We've used their theory to look at our work at the Catalyst Centre
>> <http://www.catalystcentre.ca/> to understand better how, as a worker
>> co-op, we fit into a different picture of the economy than one that
>> relegates us to an "alternative" to capitalism.
>>
>> I think that class is one of the most dangerous conversations that we
>> can have. One that must absolutely be simultaneous (and integrated) with
>> anti-racism, feminism and other forms of oppression. In the complex set
>> of oppressions that we resist, class is the one that is most
>> threatening, of course, to capitalism. Which is partly why people like
>> Ruby Payne are so welcome by the mainstream. If class is about choices
>> then the dominant economic system (i.e. capitalism) needn't worry about
>> anything. In fact it rewards such analyses and lauds them.
>>
>> peace
>>
>> chris
>>
>> **********************************
>>
>> [ed: while both are old, my favorite books on class that inform how I
>> think about community organizing and community development remain The
>> New Class War by Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, and Blaming
>> the Victim by William Ryan. Both get at some of the core structural
>> issues that Chris notes. On my to-read list is What's the Matter With
>> Kansas by Thomas Frank in hopes it may provide some understanding of how
>> people with so little could so consistently work against their own class
>> interests.]**
>>
>> Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
>>
>>
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>>> [ed: thanks to Catherine and Windy for continuing the discussion.]
>>>
>>> From: "Catherine Mobley" <CAMOBLE at exchange.clemson.edu>
>>>
>>> I'd like to echo the sentiments about Linda Stouts book. I have found
>>> it to be very useful for my Policy and Social Change class.
>>> Also, the books on Teaching for (and Readings on) Diversity and Social
>>> Justice (by Maurianne Adams) are quite good, too.
>>>
>>> I, too, discovered Ruby Payne several years ago. At first, I was
>>> enamored with her work. But, some colleagues have since introduced me
>>> to another perspective on her books. I only present this information to
>>> show another viewpoint on her perspective. I highly encourage you to
>>> read the essay in Rethinking Schools about her work:
>>>
>>> http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/22_01/ruby221.shtml
>>>
>>> Just another viewpoint...
>>>
>>> Catherine
>>>
>>>
>>> ***************************
>>>
>>> From: Windy Cooler-Stith <windy_coolerstith at yahoo.com>
>>>
>>> Several years ago, small son in tow, I spent all the money I had,
>>> leaving the Southern US for the first time in my entire life, on my
>>> first plane trip, to work as a volunteer for a very prominent
>>> “poor”-by-choice peace activist in Chicago. I was hoping that the
>>> experience would school me in all things ideologically to the Left that
>>> I felt I needed to know to succeed as an anti-poverty organizer in
>>> Alabama - where I was already poor-but-not-by-choice and a successful
>>> anti-poverty organizer in many ways.
>>>
>>> Clearly, I was working class. That unmistakable, irrational, sense of
>>> know-nothingness and incompetence in the face of middle-class formal
>>> education and culture says it all.
>>>
>>> I did get something of life-long ideological value out of that summer.
>>> It came from the book: Thinking Class: Sketches from a Cultural Worker
>>> by Joanna Kadi. This remains my absolute favorite book about class. I
>>> have given people copies for Christmas. This is the book that taught me
>>> that I was lower-working class and what that really meant. It taught me
>>> about racism and homophobia in details and systems I had never fully
>>> fathomed on my own – or as a result of any myriad of the trainings I
>>> routinely attended. That book spoke to me like the Horn of Gabriel.
>>>
>>> If I could meet Joanna Kadi today I would kiss her feet.
>>>
>>> The book is poetic, lyrical, and beautiful at the same time is powerful
>>> and educational. I highly recommend it.
>>>
>>> You can order it from South End Press at:
>>> http://www.southendpress.org/search?query=Kadi&action=find_book&search_key=all
>>>
>>> -Windy
>>>
>>> *Take the 2008 Survey of Organizer Well-Being at InspiredPropinquity.com
>>> today; pass it to a friend who needs it!*
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>> [ed: please feel welcomed to send other books on your favorites lists.]
>>>>
>>>> From: SusanGSMcGee at aol.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I discovered a book that many of you may already be familiar with
>>>> "Bridging the Class Divide and Other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing"
>>>> by Linda Stout, Founder of the Piedmont Peace Project, with a foreword
>>>> by Howard Zinn, 1996 Beacon Press.
>>>>
>>>> I find that there are very few books that talk about class in specific
>>>> terms. (Another that I have discovered is Ruby Payne's Bridges Out of
>>>> Poverty) There are many books who mention class as an "aside." Linda
>>>> Stout is a feminist, a lesbian, and an organizer who focuses on class
>>>> issues in her work building an organization focused on peace. She deals
>>>> with issues such as: social change versus social services; principles of
>>>> organizing; the backlash; and redefining leadership so that it is
>>>> embodied in a group rather than an individual. She gives specific
>>>> details about how she was discouraged, discredited and discounted as a
>>>> working class organizer. She has a great intersectional analysis. Check
>>>> it out.
>>>>
>>>> Susan
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *
>>>>
>>>> Susan G. S. McGee*
>>>> Instructor
>>>> Education for /ACTION!/ (Educ 313/WS 313)
>>>> 707-445-1340
>>>> 707-616-7898
>>>> Office: Library (lower level) 051
>>>>
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