Topics – Society
Human relationships are mediated by complex systems of power and privilege that determine our access and entitlement to health, safety, employment, dignity, home and belonging. As power becomes increasingly concentrated in the dominant classes, divisions and inequality based on race, gender, class, ability, sexuality and religion, among others, are becoming more prominent. These articles look at how these systems of power operate to divide us, and how we can overcome them and work toward a common humanity.
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Letter from the editor
Beyond inclusivity
Our efforts to organize more co-operatively must go beyond inclusivity. For power to be truly re-distributed, we must pay particular attention to the voices that have been most silenced by global capitalism.
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Meeting austerity with creativity
The politics of community service provision
In the face of drastic social service cutbacks, community organizers and volunteers are stepping up to fill the void. For the optimistic, this represents opportunity for building the capacity of communities to become more independent of the state. Others critique the impact this offloading has on longer term organizing for social change.
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Pre-Occupied
The woman behind Whitehorse’s tent city
After enduring 10 years of overpriced housing in booming Whitehorse, Yukon, Helen Hollywood pitched her tent on the front lawn of the territory’s legislature. Frustrated with antiquated, one-sided provisions of the Yukon Landlord and Tenant Act, she vowed not to leave until her concerns were addressed.
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Reimagining revolution
The Occupy movement, in photos
The Occupy movement has demonstrated a tenacious and effective commitment to non-violent, collaborative tactics. These photos, from various photographers, capture some of the ways in which the Occupy movements have helped us to reimagine how we organize and relate to one another within our collective struggle for justice.
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‘One of the girls’
The sexual politics of roller derby
As the sport gains popularity and leagues attract increasingly diverse members, the question of how to include trans women has sparked important conversations and at times led to divisions.
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Decolonizing together
Moving beyond a politics of solidarity toward a practice of decolonization
Given the devastating cultural, spiritual, economic, linguistic and political impacts of colonialism on Indigenous people in Canada, any serious attempt by non-natives at allying with Indigenous struggles must entail solidarity in the fight against colonization.
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Homeplace as revolutionary front
Taking “care” back into our hands
Homeplace is where we are grown and raised into social beings, where we receive our earliest definitions of humanity, where we first learn to recognize love, violence, justice and pain. Yet it has persisted in our imagination as a private sphere of emotional and material dependence, rather than as a front in revolutionary struggle.
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Crisis in care
Ontario pioneers the privatization of long-term care
As the pioneer of privatized care in Canada, Ontario has opened the doors for a corporate takeover of long-term care homes, resulting in chronic understaffing by profit-seeking multinational providers.
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The teacher trap
Teaching, child care, and women’s work in the “caring professions”
While teaching duties undoubtedly exceed those of child care, how can teachers defend themselves without participating in the downgrading of “caring professions” more broadly?
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“The best game you can name”
Hockey is no stranger to militarism, but radical fans aren’t about to call the game
Fifteen thousand people pack the seats of the sold-out MTS Centre in Winnipeg. They cheer wildly as the home team Jets rush the puck up through the neutral zone. Cheers erupt louder still as shots are fired on goal, bodies slammed brutally into boards, and pucks are buried deep in the visitor’s net.
