The World and US Social Forums: A Better World Is Possible and Necessary

Judith Blau, PhD (1972) in Sociology, Northwestern University, is Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and president of the US chapter of Sociologists without Borders. She has published extensively in the area of human rights and is co-author of Human Rights: Beyond the Liberal Vision, Justice in the United States, Freedoms and Solidarities, and Two Logics: Globalization vs. Human Rights. She is journal editor of Societies Without Borders.

Marina Karides, PhD (2001) in Sociology, University of Georgia, is Associate Professor of Sociology at Florida Atlantic University. She has published multiple works on autonomous employment strategies, gender inequalities, and economic development ideologies. She is one of eleven co-authors of Global Democracies and the World Social Forums. She serves as Sociologists without Borders' representative on the National Planning Committee of the USSF.

This book is exceptional in that it not only appeals to insiders who have attended a Forum and are familiar with its remarkable, even unique, culture but also to those who wish to learn more about the Forum, with the possibility of attending the next one.

Preface: Immanuel Wallerstein
Introduction: Marina Karides and Judith Blau

Part I. Social Forum Process: The USSF and Its Relation to the WSF
1. Marina Karides and Thomas Ponniah, In Defense of World Social Forum VII
2. Michael Guerrero, The US Social Forum: Building From the Bottom Up
3. Jackie Smith, Rachel Kutz-Flamenbaum, Christopher Hausmann, New Politics Emerging at the US Social Forum
4. Walda Katz-Fishman and Jerome Scott, Another United States is Happening: Building Today’s Movement from the Bottom-up: The United States Social Forum and Beyond
5. Michal Osterweil, A Different (Kind of)Politics is Possible: Conflict and Problem(s) at the USSF

Part II. Debates and Social Thought: Highlighting the World Social Forum
6. Janet Conway, Reading Nairobi: Place, Space, and Difference at the 2007 World Social Forum
7. Peter Waterman, Is the World Social Forum the Privileged Space for Reinventing Labour as a Global Social Movement?
8. Stellan Vinthagen, Is the World Social Forum a Democratic Global Civil Society?
9. Chico Whitaker, Social Forums – Challenges and New Perspectives

Part III. Bridging Activism and Academics
10. Patrick Bond, Reformist Reforms, Non-Reformist Reforms and Global Justice: Activist, NGO and Intellectual Challenges in the World Social Forum
11. Lyndi Hewitt, Feminists and the Forum: Is It Worth the Effort?
12. Mark Frezzo, Sociology, Human Rights, and the World Social Forum
13. Steven Sherman, Another Structure of Knowledge is Possible: The Social Forum Process and Academia
14. Eunice Sahle, World Social Forum: Re-imaging Development and the Global South Beyond the Neo-colonial Gaze