Sixties Radicalism and Social Movement Activism

Unlike many partisan accounts of the nineteen sixties this book aims to give a considered explanation of the context in which the sixties radical movements arose and, also, their significance from the standpoint of various nations' actors, often ignored by North American and West European standpoints. Secondly, it examines how the radical decade sowed the seeds of various liberation or 'rights movements' – initially in the West but also globally as movements became increasingly diffused. Contributors' varied international backgrounds and specialities provide expertise in examining the international context. Thirdly, many nineteen sixties' radicals' values and strategies recur in contemporary social movements; albeit in different technological and, post 9/11, political and cultural environments. Unravelling similarities and differences is a key theme. Fourthly, many participants in sixties radicalism saw it as 'cultural' as well as 'political' and in some historical treatments as primarily or 'only' cultural. Detailed examinations of this perspective involve critical discussion – particularly in the light of the allegedly 'mere' (i.e. apolitical) cultural hedonism and escapism of youth in the nineteen eighties and nineties. Contrarily, the contributions here assess resonances between the radical/libertarian emphasis on civil society 'freedoms' in sixties' cultural radicalism and, arguably, today’s more self-consciously political global human rights movement. The conclusion suggests that, in some senses, the sixties live on today in discursive and political themes.

'Sixties Radicalism and Social Movement Activism' explores and re-analyses major events, debates and themes from the radical developments of the nineteen sixties and relates them to contemporary social movements and issues.

Unlike many partisan accounts of the nineteen sixties this book aims to give a considered explanation of the context in which the sixties radical movements arose and, also, their significance from the standpoint of various nations' actors, often ignored by North American and West European standpoints. Secondly, it examines how the radical decade sowed the seeds of various liberation or 'rights movements' – initially in the West but also globally as movements became increasingly diffused. Contributors' varied international backgrounds and specialities provide expertise in examining the international context. Thirdly, many nineteen sixties' radicals' values and strategies recur in contemporary social movements; albeit in different technological and, post 9/11, political and cultural environments. Unravelling similarities and differences is a key theme. Fourthly, many participants in sixties radicalism saw it as 'cultural' as well as 'political' and in some historical treatments as primarily or 'only' cultural. Detailed examinations of this perspective involve critical discussion – particularly in the light of the allegedly 'mere' (i.e. apolitical) cultural hedonism and escapism of youth in the nineteen eighties and nineties. Contrarily, the contributions here assess resonances between the radical/libertarian emphasis on civil society 'freedoms' in sixties' cultural radicalism and, arguably, today’s more self-consciously political global human rights movement. The conclusion suggests that, in some senses, the sixties live on today in discursive and political themes.

Introduction; All Along the Watershed: Sixties Values as Defence of Community; May’s Tensions Today: France, Then and Now; The War against the War: Violence and Anticolonialism in the Final Years of the Estado Novo; From Sartre to Stevendores: The Connections between the Paris Barricades and the Re-Emergence of Black Trade Unions in South Africa; 1968 – Was It Really a Year of Social Change in Pakistan?; Nineteen Sixties Radicalism in the United States: Its Rise, Decline and Legacy; Students, Institutes and Artists: The Revolution Within; The Situationist Legacy: Revolution as Celebration; Habermas on Sixties Student Protests: Reflections on Collective Action and Communicative Potential; Sixties Movements, Educational Expansion and Cognitive Mobilisation: Postmaterialist Values and Unconventional Political Participation in Germany; Carrying the Flame Forward: Activist Legacies of 1968 in Life Story Reflections; When the Personal Became Political: A Reappraisal of the Women's Liberation Movement's Radical Idea; Conclusion